Tempo Quotes

• Suddenly I was in the right tempo - but it wasn't.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Orchestra

  58 Copy quote

• Accelerando means in tempo. Don't rush.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Mean, Orchestra

  54 Copy quote

• When you sit down and think about what rock 'n' roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock 'n' roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues.

  Little Richard

  Thinking, Rocks, Rhythm And Blues

  58 Copy quote

• I'm conducting slowly because I don't know the tempo.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Orchestra, Conducting

  56 Copy quote

• It is hard to play Blue Suede Shoes. I know everyone has heard it 10 million times, and that makes it even harder to play it, but there's a very laid back tempo on that. I was surprised at how slow it really was.

  Brian Setzer

  Hard Times, Blue, Play

  54 Copy quote

• We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.

  Stanley Hauerwas

  Reflection, Complaining, Economic

  "Can Greed Be a Good?". www.abc.net.au. June 09, 2010.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• At every concert I've sensed a certain insecurity about the tempo. It's clearly marked 80...uh, 69.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Insecurity, Orchestra

  54 Copy quote

• It is simple nonsense to speak of the fixed tempo of any particular vocal phrase. Each voice has its peculiarities.

  Anton Seidl

  Simple, Voice, Phrases

  Anton Seidl (2014). “On Conducting”, p.103, Parrot Press

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since I started composing I have always worked with series of tempos, even superimposed the music of different groups of musicians, of singers, instrumentalists who play and sing in different tempos simultaneously and then meet every now and then in the same tempo.

  Karlheinz Stockhausen

  Play, Singers, Musician

  52 Copy quote

• American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Time, Europe, History

  52 Copy quote

• Sure we have skilled players, but the biggest thing might just be that we are so well conditioned and how we can play for 90 minutes at a high tempo which is needed in soccer at an international level.

  Claudio Reyna

  Soccer, Player, Levels

  Interview with Jin Robinson, www.ign.com. March 27, 2006.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fast tempo is essential for success; do it, fix it, try it!

  Brian Tracy

  Trying, Essentials

  6 Copy quote

• A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhythmic nuances, and it will still be great music. That's how music should be written, so that no-one, no matter how philistine, can ruin it.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Beautiful, Pieces, Matter

  "Composers on Music". Book by Josiah Fisk, p. 364, 1997.

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can't understand it.

  Daniel Barenboim

  Suitcases, Ifs

  12 Copy quote

• I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.

  Anais Nin

  Ordinary World, Ecstasy, Neurotic

  24 Copy quote

• We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen.

  Thomas Merton

  Slow Down, Humans

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The human brain is a funny thing: it's very susceptible to tempo and melody. You put the right words to it, and it becomes very influential.

  Ray Stevens

  Funny Things, Brain, Influential

  9 Copy quote

• Thinking of a series of dreams Where the time and the tempo fly And there's no exit in any direction 'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes

  Bob Dylan

  Dream, Eye, Thinking

  Song: Series of Dreams

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• To slacken the tempo...would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten.

  Joseph Stalin

  Fall, Mean, Progress

  Joseph Stalin (1970). “Selected writings”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• A song, you know, you've got a tempo. You know,you've got something that is moving swiftly. You can't stop it, you know? Andit's designed to move swiftly from, you know, mouth to mouth, heart to heart,where a poem really speaks to something that has no time and that is - it's acompletely different perception.

  Leonard Cohen

  Song, Moving, Heart

  6 Copy quote

• Running gives freedom. When you run you can determine your own tempo. You can choose your own course and think whatever you want. Nobody tells you what to do.

  Nina Kuscsik

  Running, Thinking, Giving

  18 Copy quote

• I snapped my fingers all through it. Sometimes I set my own tempo during rehearsal by doing that.

  Tennessee Ernie Ford

  Rehearsal, Sometimes, Fingers

  9 Copy quote

• London's tempo is 122.86 beats per minute.

  David Byrne

  London, Beats, Minutes

  "In David Byrne, Meltdown 2015 has found more than a talking head" by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast

  Paul Scott Mowrer

  Music, Country, Nature

  Paul Scott Mowrer (1945). “The House of Europe”

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• I know the world doesn't need maybe another of [a particular type of song] - the same thing again - but you can't help yourself. And some people like it, but you kind of know in your heart that it's a lesser version of what you've done before. But maybe it has a good tempo, or it feels fresh, but it's still not.

  Stephen Malkmus

  Song, Heart, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  9 Copy quote

  Show source