Elliott Carter Quotes

I studied classical music for a year. Then, I studied jazz for a year at the New School, and then I got kicked out. You had to go to your class, so I don't know if that counts as studying. I didn't study jazz. I was supposed to.

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.

If you look at the history of music, you have classical composers, church music, pop music, etc. Music that's existed for centuries. I think there are some songs that are close to immortal. They will last longer than we will in this lifetime.

When I went to school, it was really just to immerse myself in listening to, studying, and making music.

I decided to study music my last year in high school.

And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

I listen to old jazz and classical music, and that's it.

Studying music in a conservatory would be stifling for me, although I respect people who can do it. And by no means am I an expert at notating music or music theory - that's not really my world.

I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.

I don't like music docs, usually. There's nothing to really say. What can you say about music? Normally, you can't say too much. There are a few really good ones, but the majorities are boring, I think.

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'

I never played music, but it's an important thing ... the studying, the inspiration.

My parents are both musicians and made sure we all played music. My brothers and sisters all play instruments, so we'll get together whenever we can and play. We play a lot of classical music - you know, the good stuff.

As much as I like to explore the world, I explore music - from classical to rock.

My idea was to go to Vienna to study conducting and perhaps play in an orchestra first, so I thought before I got to Vienna I could do with a little training in Paris.

My mother was a very good violinist; my father was a musicologist and spent most of his life in academia.

I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college.

Naturally, no one knows more about music than musicians. They talk about their own work all the time, but they rarely get to talk about other people's music.

I would like to teach music. It's weird the way they teach music in schools like Julliard these days.

I was always involved in the arts from a young age. I started studying classical piano at age four as a student of the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music.

Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.

I enjoy all forms of music - pop, classical and opera.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

I'm not a professional; I lack even basic knowledge about writing music.

There are so few directors who are musical who appreciate music.