A Quote by Richard Dawkins

It is possible to enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. In fact, you can learn to be an expert connoisseur of music without being able to play a note on any instrument. Of course, music would come to a halt if nobody ever learned to play it. But if everybody grew up thinking that music was synonymous with playing it, think how relatively impoverished many lives would be. Couldn't we learn to think of science in the same way?
The people wanted to believe that the Negroes couldn't learn to read music but had a natural talent for it. So we never played with no music. I'd get all the latest Broadway music from the publisher, and we'd learn the tunes and rehearse them until we had them all down pat- never made no mistakes. All the high-tone, big-time folks would say, isn't it wonderful how these untrained, primitive musicians can pick up all the latest songs instantly without being able to read music?
Don't be lazy. Learn your instrument and the kids should be learning that stuff. We have to get back to the musicianship of the music. It's called music, so at some point somebody has to learn how to play an instrument.
Growing up, any time I would sit down with my grandfather to learn or talk about Carnatic music, he would bring up G. N. Balasubramaniam. Listening to the recordings he would play me, I was dazzled by GNB's voice and how he was able to execute ideas that I could barely wrap my head around.
I think the most important thing that I can offer young musicians is once you get up on the bandstand, understanding that you're now asking this prayer to come through you. When you think about music it's got to be that way. Just the thrill of being able to play another note, not to win anything or get a trophy.
You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
I didn't play music, nobody in my family had an instrument or played music, we didn't even have any books at my house. I think about it and I'm like, I don't know how I climbed out of there.
I've always had a fascination with making your own music but never have been skilled enough to play the instrument, so to be able to make music without the ability was awesome.
A lot of people may not know how competitive it is to play classical music, because when you think about it, the music that you're playing is music that's been here for years. And all you're trying to do is improve upon it when you play.
I would love to be able to program myself to pick up any instrument and to be able to play it very, very well, and to be able to read music and dance as well. I'm very uncoordinated, and I'd love to be able to bust a really great move.
I went to college in North Carolina, and that's how I learned how to play music. I learned how to play guitar when I was 12, and I was always in bands, but the first time I ever started writing my own music was being surrounded by a lot of songwriter friends in North Carolina.
Obviously, with me being a DJ, I have a love for music. One day I was like, 'OK. I'm tired of playing everybody else's music. I rather play my music.' So, that's kind of how the whole me doing music thing started.
I think it's being able to do both, obviously being able to play your role in the team and those responsibilities but also being able to have that freedom... to express yourself in the way that you play.
Studying music involves a lot of mathematics and a lot of exercises of memory. Or you've got to be able to be like somebody, to play like somebody, to play Mozart's music the way he played it and how he intended it. You've got to make it perfect, and that's not what I want to do. Although it is beautiful.
The only thing I can say that is not bullshit is that you do have to learn to write in a way that you would learn to play the violin. Everybody seems to think that you should be able to turn on the faucet one day and out will come the novel. I think for most people it's just practice, practice, practice, that sense of just learning your instrument until - when you have an idea on the violin, you don't have to translate it into violin-speak anymore - the language is your own. It's not something you can think your way into, or outsmart. you've just got to do it.
Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing along or clap or tap our feet. Have you ever seen a baby bouncing up and down in the crib in time to some music? When you think of it, some of that baby's first messages from his or her parents may have been lullabies, or at least the music of their speaking voices. All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling. The music we hear early on tends to stay with us all our lives.
You would probably think that rock music is an urban phenomena, but the main reason for doing it in '68 was so that we could play music very loud any time of the day or night without getting complaints from the neighbours.
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