John Philip Sousa Quotes

I like a lot of different kinds of music. I like strong projects, big music.

I make music, and if people like it, they like it, and some people won't.

Good music is good music, and everything else can go to hell.

I've always said that music is like literature.

I know music is subjective.

Music is music and there are only two types: good and bad.

If it's good music, it's good music.

I don't think there's such a difference between older and newer music as there is between one composer and another.

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

To me the bottom line is: good music is good music.

When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.

What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.

My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.

Country and western is ignored by the intellectuals. They don't look at it as an art form. They think it's just somebody sitting on his couch singing about his life.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some Tabasco sauce, some ketchup, some mayonnaise. I love all of that. Put it on a trumpet. I've just got to have the ketchup and Tabasco sauce. That's my attitude about musical philosophy.

Great music was written by the great geniuses, and you want to do it justice.

I just don't get that new hot music. I don't know anything about all these groups like U2.

Music is for people. The word 'pop' is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I'm just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I'm cool.

I am a big fan of music in general. I listen to all genres: hip-hop, R&B, whatever sounds good to me; it doesn't matter to me where it comes from - there are no boundaries, no fences. If I like it, then it will inspire me to create.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't.

I was a pop freak. I love music. Of course, I knew soul because I grew up in it. Writing it and everything. I love soul. But I love a tune that has some meat in it. Something I could hang my hat on. Because music is universal. Therefore, I felt no boundaries.

Music is real; it's something you can touch and feel.

It does just boil down to music.