Daniel Barenboim Quotes

I don't listen to much music on the go because I tend either to be writing my own music or wanting a break from the music around me.

I don't even listen to music when I'm off tour.

Technology has made music accessible in a philosophically interesting way, which is great. But on the other hand, when everybody has the ability to make magic, it's like there's no more magic - if the audience can just do it themselves, why are they going to bother?

I'm not sure it's a better music world of appreciation and performance. I think the listener is a different guy, and listening is something he does in passing, with other stuff going on. There's less care and understanding of the relationship between the song and the listener.

I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.

The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.

There's almost no popular music I listen to now. I'll hear it because it's everywhere... Music is ubiquitous now.

When I'm not playing music, certainly the last thing I want to do is listen to music!

For many, an album is no longer a considerable feat of an artist but just sounds to be half-listened to while one is halfheartedly engaged in something else.

Whether for company or isolation or just to make it a pleasurable experience, I have music in my ears all the time. I tend to listen to the same things, so I don't really pay too much attention to it. But it's there, and it's nice, and I do pay more attention to it than I probably should. I think, 'How can I use this music in something?'

I can't listen to so much music at the same time. I think you really have to have a diet. You're just processing too much, there's no place to put it. If you go a long time without hearing music, then you hear music that nobody else hears.

The manner in which Americans ''consume'' music has a lot to do with leaving it on their coffee tables, or using it as wallpaper for their lifestyles, like the score of a movie --it's consumed that way without any regard for how and why it's made.

I didn't want to do a double album. I just felt like the last two records I made were like that, and a lot of records I was buying were like that, and it started to feel like it was too much music to digest at once.

There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole music thing that's changed the role it plays for us all. You are doing it while you are doing other things. Not that that is new - people have had music on in the background as long as there has been music.

Some people buy records just to dance to 'em. Some people buy records to listen to the radio. And there's people that buy records 'cause they listen to every song.

I don't think people really do listen. We plug into music, and we have short attention spans. We tend to download individual tracks from iTunes rather than a whole album. We buy music DVDs and watch them once, and then they disappear into a drawer, or we loan them to a friend, and we never watch it again.

A lot of my fans are people who have grown up and don't have as much time to listen to the radio, but still want to keep up with what's popular. A lot of shows don't talk to them anymore, but I do.

I can't just listen to music walking down the street unless I have a reason to. I can't just listen to music as a piece of junk in the background. It drives me insane.

I have always been a sucker for ballads, but you have to be careful these days, you can't overload people.

Everyone who hears our music loves it, but how many people get to hear it?

I am continually pleasantly surprised by how many people are showing up at shows and are younger than our first record.

A lot of times, songs can blend together on the radio because there's so many great songs out there.

Whether you like modern incarnations of what country radio hits are, or you like what I'm doing, or you like something really off in folk, poetry Americana land, it's all just music, man. If you like one of them, great - go buy it.

I don't listen to the albums that I make, and I don't listen to a lot of music as a whole.

I think the most important thing for a listener is to realize that he, too, should not listen to music in a passive way; that if you sit in a concert hall and expect to be moved or taken off your seat by the music, it will not happen.