A Quote by Wynton Marsalis

Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician

Wynton Marsalis

Quote Topics

Always First Listener Music Music Is Musician

Quote Author

Wynton Marsalis
American - Musician
Born: October 18, 1961

Music should be demanding for the listener. You can gain more out of it that way. I always try to leave space in the music for the listener to have their own experience of it, so it's not bombarded with only one meaning.

Einar Selvik

I have this ideal listener, as John Cage did. This listener doesn't bring expectations that my music will fit into some part of music history, or that it will do any particular thing. This listener is just open to listening.

Missy Mazzoli

The challenge for a good musician is to bring out compositions that seem fresh to the listener, even if the listener has heard the song or the composition before.

Ilaiyaraaja

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.

Aaron Copland

People are always going to have favorite albums or songs and you know that's more the listener's personal bias than basing it on anything musical or actual. I'm the same way as a listener.

Page Hamilton

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

John Coltrane

Surely the hold of great music on the listener is precisely this: that the listener is made whole; and at the same time part of an image of infinite grace and grandeur which is creation.

Marya Mannes

To me, soul music is anything that is made from the heart, and therefore moves the listener; it's not overly self-aware, and leaves room for the listener to make their own conclusions.

Sunny Ozell

Something I always tell students is, when you're writing something, you want to write the first draft and you want it to come out easily in the beginning. If you're afraid to say what you really have to say, you stammer. When you're thinking of your listener, that's when you start stuttering and it's just because you're nervous that your listener is passing judgment.

Sandra Cisneros

With the audience, I always say it's about giving the people an experience. And what the experience is about, it transcends just the music, and genre, and the venue. It's about the people coming together to share a profound and transformative moment. So that means the listener is actively engaged, and the listener is a part of the show, they're a part of the experience.

Jonathan Batiste

Only to the degree that a musician is healing himself or herself through music can a listener be healed.

W.A. Mathieu

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.

Al Jarreau

I'm very thankful, hearing impairment or not, that I've brought listening into my life. I will never say that I'm a good listener, however. Thinking that I was a good listener was one thing that kept me from being a good listener. It's a very dangerous thought. I just want to be better.

Gordon Hempton

George Jones will always be one of the most amazing singers who ever lived. He was a true Country Music legend who made music very personal to the listener – I think more than anyone else. He will be dearly missed, but always remembered.

Kenny Rogers

I'm always hearing music in terms of what I can take out of it, and I think I've always listened like that. I have a hard time just listening for pleasure. I'm much less about instinct, and more of a utilitarian listener.