Musical Metaphor Quotes

I wanted a line in a poem to be the hollow ney of the dervish orchestra whose plaintive wail is a call to God. But all I achieved was awkward shrieking. Not even the pure shriek of a reed in the rain.

Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.

If the voice of the brook was not the first song of celebration, it must have been at least an obbligato for that event.

It's really not a stretch. The checks and balances are the same. The drums are the executive branch. The jazz orchestra is the legislative branch. Logic and reason are like jazz solos. The bass player is the judicial branch. One our greatest ever is Milt Hinton, and his nickname is "The Judge."

I am going to be contradictory to myself many times for the simple reason that I am trying to bring all the religions to a higher synthesis. Different approaches have to be joined together. I am creating an orchestra.

You're a song written by the hands of God.

My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.

The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically.

People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them.

God is the Supreme Musician. It is He who is playing with us, on us and in us. We cannot separate God from His music. The universal Consciousness is constantly being played by the Supreme Himself, and is constantly growing into the Supreme Music.

I throw raps that attacks like the Japs at Pearl Harbor

While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and sharing motifs (the way Tomas and Sabina exchanged the motif of the bowler hat), but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.

But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

Our love is like a song but you won't sing along.

Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave.

I believe buildings are alive, and when you want to make a change, you have to change in the same symphony.

Nature is an aeolian harp, a musical instrument whose tones are the re-echo of higher strings within us.

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

I am beginning to know what it feels like to be a woman. To have people looking at you all the time. And I'm sorry ladies, I had no idea! But people are looking at me all the time. It's like I have musical boobies!

In whatever form it takes, life sings because it has a song. The meaning is in the lyrics.

Some days I feel like a piano: kind of short, always in black & white, always expected to produce music.

I recall this passage as the hour of its first fully coming over me that she was a beautiful liberal creature. I had seen her personality in glimpses and gleams, like a song sung in snatches, but now it was before me in a large rosy glow, as if it had been a full volume of sound. I heard the whole of the air, and it was sweet fresh music, which I was often to hum over.(Sir Edmund Orme)

You are a valuable instrument in the orchestration of your own world, and the overall harmony of the universe. Always be in command of your music. Only you can control and shape its tone. If life throws you a few bad notes or vibrations, don't let them interrupt or alter your song.

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.