Quotes about music

Sometimes we all need a little extra inspiration and quotes about music can often help galvanize us into music practice. I hope some of these quotes by musicians and composers will help inspire you to pick up your instrument and start practicing. If not, at least you will find one of the musician quotes helps you realize that others have been in your situation before and you find somebody on these pages with whom you can empathize.

These quotes are organized into various different sections. Currently the sections are: general quotes about music (this page); quotes by musicians and quotes about them; quotes by composers and quotes about composers; quotes about music practice and general inspirational music quotes. I may add other sections as I come across more quotes that don't fit into these initial categories.

My favorite quotes about music

Practice is the best of all instructors
Publilius Syrus
Roman Author

I . . . stared at the phone. It was hard for me to believe that Igor Stravinsky had a telephone number, just like the rest of us. God didn't have a phone number. Why should Stravinsky? Nevertheless, my trembling hand reached out and dialed his number, which, I noted with astonishment, had the same number of digits as those of ordinary mortals
Arnold Steinhardt
Violinist

Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.
William F. Buckley Jnr
Author

Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?
Michael Torke
Author

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides!
Artur Schnabel
Pianist

And if I ever DO see [Kenny G] anywhere, at any function — he WILL get a piece of my mind, and maybe a guitar wrapped around his head
Pat Methany
Guitarist (Referring to Kenny G overdubbing great jazz musicians for an album)

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
Bach
Composer

If you sound great in the practice room, you're practicing the wrong thing.
Unknown - but nonetheless true!

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents
Beethoven
Composer

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.
Plato
Philosopher

These are just a few of my favorite music quotes to get you started. Click on the links below to different sections of musical quotes.

Quotes by musicians

Click here for quotes by musicians from the musicians and composers themselves. Sometimes they are quotes about other musicians or composers, sometimes they are quotes about musical pieces and some of them are quotations about music in general.

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