Sheet Music Quotes

• I can't read sheet music, I have to just listen to it, and then just go for it.

  Scott Weiland

  Sheets, I Can, Just Listen

  54 Copy quote

• I never took sheet music seriously. I could do better myself just by listening to other people and using my own intuition.

  Brian May

  Listening To Others, People, Intuition

  58 Copy quote

• I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer.

  Alicia Witt

  Music, Song, Writing

  52 Copy quote

• There is something comforting about going into a practice room, putting your sheet music on a stand and playing Bach over and over again.

  Andrew Bird

  Practice, Comforting, Rooms

  4 Copy quote

• Touch me ‘til my ribs become piano keys, ‘til there is sheet music scrolled across the inside of my lungs.

  Andrea Gibson

  Keys, Piano, Ribs

  Andrea Gibson (Poet) (2013). “Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns”, p.37, SCB Distributors

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you feel tired midway through, give Neil Patrick Harris a Red Bull and throw some sheet music at him.

  Steve Martin

  Tired, Giving, Bulls

  "An Open Letter to Eddie Murphy" by Steve Martin, www.stevemartin.com. September 20, 2011.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?

  John Muir

  Nature, Wind, Rivers

  6 Copy quote

• The conventional asset-allocation method is like sheet music. It is prescribed, it has right answers and wrong answers and it sounds about the same every time. But jamming is different. Jamming is when you make the music. When you improvise and adapt to conditions. When you are creative.

  John Kao

  Creative, Sound, Different

  Interview with Joel Kurtzman, www.strategy-business.com. October 1, 1996.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wouldn't consider myself a songwriter at all. Maybe I piece together a certain little thing here and there, but songwriters are people who do this with sheet music.

  Frank Fairfield

  People, Together, Here And There

  "Missed Opportunities". Pitchfork Interview, pitchfork.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Recipes are not assembly manuals. Recipes are guides and suggestions for a process that is infinitely nuanced. Recipes are sheet music.

  Michael Ruhlman

  Suggestions, Recipes, Assembly

  Michael Ruhlman, Anthony Bourdain (2007). “The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen”, p.200, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's like picking up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music & starting to stumble through it, only to realize it is a melody you'd once learned by heart, one you can play without even trying.

  Jodi Picoult

  Heart, Play, Trying

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “My Sister's Keeper - Movie Tie-In: A Novel”, p.128, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Right now there’s a man on the street outside my door with outstretched hands full of heartbeats no one can hear. He has cheeks like torn sheet music every tear-broken crescendo falling on deaf ears. At his side there’s a boy with eyes like an anthem no one stands up for.

  Andrea Gibson

  Fall, Eye, Boys

  Andrea Gibson (Poet) (2013). “Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns”, p.58, SCB Distributors

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a poem is written well, it was written with the poet's voice and for a voice. Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument.

  Robert Pinsky

  Reading, Voice, Differences

  4 Copy quote

• One of the biggest problems of mathematics is to explain to everyone else what it is all about. The technical trappings of the subject, its symbolism and formality, its baffling terminology, its apparent delight in lengthy calculations: these tend to obscure its real nature. A musician would be horrified if his art were to be summed up as "a lot of tadpoles drawn on a row of lines"; but that"s all that the untrained eye can see in a page of sheet music... In the same way, the symbolism of mathematics is merely its coded form, not its substance.

  Ian Stewart

  Art, Real, Eye

  12 Copy quote