Top 1200 World Music Quotes & Sayings

I'm surrounded by music; I always was when I was growing up and continue to be. And I love music. And when I imagine a fictional world, I imagine there's music in it for those people, too.

Studying music in a conservatory would be stifling for me, although I respect people who can do it. And by no means am I an expert at notating music or music theory - that's not really my world.

I think for me, the only depressing music is music that doesn't give credence to those kinds of feelings, music that's just written for money or commercial reasons. Sad music can be the most uplifting thing in the world.

I don't wanna make hood music, I don't wanna make street music, I want to make world music, global music, international music.

I'm moved by a lot of different kinds of music, whether it's pop music or R&B or straight-ahead jazz or free or opera or music from all parts of the world.

I did not like that name "world music" in the beginning. I think that African music must get more respect than to be put in a ghetto like that. We have something to give to others. When you look to how African music is built, when you understand this kind of music, you can understand that a lot of all this modern music that you are hearing in the world has similarities to African music. It's like the origin of a lot of kinds of music.

I was very engaged by the folk music movement.Bob Dylan; Joan Baez; Peter, Paul and Mary. And then I sort of discovered world music, and fell in love with ethnic music of all sorts.

What is very interesting when talking about electronic music is that - I would say that rock and roll is called the ethnic music born in America that invaded the world. Electronic music is certainly kind of ethnic music born in countries like Germany and France that has invaded the world.

Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.

I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.

Super casual music listeners. That's most of the people in the world. And you have to understand, that's why Top 40 radio exists. It's not there for people who seek out music and who love music.

I know that my music is heard a lot in commercial circles. In academia, I think my music is taken in differently but I'm not sure why that is. Some kind of sixth sense tells me that people in that world are thinking differently about it. I don't know if it has to do with the structure of my music, which is probably more apparent to those in the academic world than it is in the commercial world, where people tend not to think of that aspect of music so much. They just listen for pure enjoyment.

My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I've always known, and it is that music that's most important to me.

Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?

I love music, I make films with music, I eat with music, I sleep with music, I think with music. Music makes me dream, it strengthens my creativity.

I saw lots of music devices. I loved playing with music devices. And like most of the world, I thought of a music device as a music device. Steve Jobs tends to look beyond that, and he doesn't see a music device as having any importance at all - how fast it is, how many songs it can hold, and all that - he sees music itself to a person as a being the important thing.

Technology has altered the way music sounds, how it’s composed and how we experience it. It has also flooded the world with music. The world is awash with (mostly) recorded sounds. We used to have to pay for music or make it ourselves; playing, hearing and experiencing it was exceptional, a rare and special experience. Now hearing it is ubiquitous, and silence is the rarity that we pay for and savor.

I think music is a big, big wide world, and I am voyager on this particular ship in this sea of wild music, and I'm gonna dive in and find as many fish as I can and catch them all. I love music.

I find a difference between what gets called world music - a fusion of western music and music from different cultures in more of a modernized version - and Explorer Series stuff, which is completely undiluted indigenous folk music. That's a lot more powerful than a lot of the super-processed stuff that comes out now.

You can't say that people don't love music anymore because they do. If we say that all the music stopped, if music stops now, the world can't handle that. We need our music.

Music is my life. Music runs through my veins. Music inspires me. Music is a part of me. Music is all around us. Music soothes me. Music gives me hope when I lose faith. Music comforts me. Music is my refuge.

For us, it is all about breaking the boundaries between different genres of music and combining different styles of music and performing what we are passionate about. We are so lucky that we can experience both worlds: the more intimate classical world and the wild and crazy world of rock n' roll.

I listen to a lot of religion-based music, culturally rich music. Ethnic and world music. Music from Latin America has been influencing me in particular.

I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.

My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music from different countries like India and China. I think that would be a shame not to take advantage and do something... not unique, because I don't have this pretension.

One song isn't going to ever change things, but I suppose it's the accumulation of music generally [that is]. If you can imagine a world that has no music in it, it would be a very different world, so music does change the world by virtue of all the music in it. Cumulative music of every kind, from banging a drum to playing a flute or recording symphonies, or singing 'War, what is it good for?' All those things change the whole way we live.

In most of my films I write the music into the script. I'm listening to songs and lyrics that empower the themes of the film. There's a lot of Indigenous music that has not been heard widely and I love the idea of giving that music to the rest of the world.

The world of classical music is so fascinating. It's a world that encompasses people from everywhere and erases the basic restraints of nationality; everyone is united by this common language of music.

To be able to wake up and know I get to do music every single day - arrange music, compose music, write music and to be with my four best friends in the world, and just to go and do performances and to tour, it's honestly a dream come true.

You just have to love yourself and live and die with the passion of the music. I walk around happy as hell because I create music for a living. I can touch the world with my heart and my passion. Music has dominated life well before I was ever born.

Americana Music is about all sorts of different music. It's very free and open: a world where people just like authentic music.

Music will still be a big part of our environment. The Bible talks about choirs of angels and how there is singing in Heaven. We're going to have the greatest choirs, the greatest bands and symphony orchestras, the greatest music that the world has ever known. The world has never even heard music yet compared to what we're going to have there! If humans can make the beautiful music they have learned to make with these hand-made instruments, think what God can do supernaturally!

You're not just making music for your personal use no more, just making music for your homies around you; you're making music for people around the world. Kids in Alaska - like, you're making music for everybody. When I make music, I just think on a larger scale.

I feel good to know that they recognize the potential of reggae music. And they are exposing it to the world, letting the world hear how beautiful reggae music can be.

I wouldn't have known when I was a teenager that when I was coming up to being a sixty-year-old woman that I'd be making music, I'd be recording music, talking about music, and incorporating my views on the world into the music-making. So it's a very rarefied place to be, and I'm very grateful for that.

I have very eclectic taste in music. I like everything from Nirvana, which is featured in the film, to world music, to orchestral and jazz. For me, the nineties were about Oasis, because I was travelling around Britain when that band exploded onto the music scene.

There’s a real question as to what beauty is and why it’s important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they’re not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.

Music springs from and is replenished by a hidden source which lies outside the world or reality. Music ever spoke to me of a mysterious world beyond, which moved my heart deeply and eloquently intimated its transcendental nature.

People from the rock and roll world have felt for years that electronic music had no soul, but now electronic music can not only have soul but have all the shapes in the world.

We are trying our best to spread the culture of Punjabi music all over the world. With the traditional rigid Punjabi music, people always had a myth that the music is very conventional, but nowadays, we are really thrilled to see how people are loving the tunes and beats of Punjabi music.

Rome is a city where in every corner you have a reminder of the sacred world. That's why I have sacred music, minimalist sacred music, which is also music I like, because at the end of the day, that's what I want to do.

Music bears a great responsibility because it is so influential. Everybody listens to music. It is a very influential tool. To me, it is very important to the world... music is... to being... to life.

I've watched the dynamics of music completely change to where we've sold tapes, we've sold CDs, then everything started becoming 'music is free' now. In a perfect world, Napster wouldn't have come along. But the world isn't perfect, and when it changes, you have to adapt.

Music is monophonic in the Eastern world, especially if we're talking about Indian music, Persian music. What we have in classical and Western world is harmony. So I think it's a great idea to be able to bring the best of two together and create something new.

It pleases me that Frank Sinatra's music still has an audience, because many people who have come into the music world and then passed out of the music world are long since forgotten. He has been able to enjoy this great longevity.

Music for a long time has been telling what the world is like. What music has to say now, in a manner that has both logic and emotion in it, is that the world has a structure persons could like; be stronger by.... [If] the world is the oneness of opposites - and music says it is - the world is given an everlastingly sensible basis; for what could be more sensible that to be calm and forceful at once, reposeful and intense at once?

One of the first things I want do when I start writing music for a film is to create its own sound world, its own music world.

There are just so many people making music out there. I've always promoted the idea that everybody needs to make music. I think the more music there is in the world, the better, but it does make it highly competitive.

The joy is actually in the music. It's the music that supports you and tells you what to do. It tells you how to fill the music. You don't have to be shy about feeling the music when you're singing. If you believe in music-the power of music-the music will support you and take you to another dimension.

And why is our music called world music? I think people are being polite. What they want to say is that it's third world music. Like they use to call us under developed countries, now it has changed to developing countries, it's much more polite.

I love old-time music, I love country music and I love the American music that we have to offer the world. And any part of that is fine with me, as long as it's pure.

It was the case in the 70s and 80s that people believed music could change the world. But now people aren't making music because they want to change the world; they're making music because they want to just make a ton of money.

It's this funny thing now: You sign up to be a musician because you want to write music, but you don't spend your time writing music. Instead, you go around the world selling the music you've already made.

So, when you divide the world into music lovers, music fans and then those people who are just very casual about their music, it's wallpaper to them, it's elevator music, it's just the thing that's playing in the background that helps them through their day.

We...live in a world that is too prone to the tasteless, and we need to provide an opportunity to cultivate a taste for the finest music. And, likewise, we’re in a world that’s so attuned to the now that we need to permit people to be more attuned to the best music of all ages.

I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen to most is piano music from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Russian music in particular.

The art world is a bit smaller than the music world, and the music world is a bit smaller than the cinema world. But the art world is pretty tight even though the biggest thing that's happened to it is the auctions, which are the only reason people on the outside know anything about it.

I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music.

I'm extremely happy about music altogether, and the history that I've made. How I changed the world, music-wise, music over the internet and stuff like that.

I love music, I make films with music, I eat with music, I sleep with music, I think with music. Music makes me dream; it strengthens my creativity.