Aaron Copland

I don’t compose. I assemble materials.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

During these years I began to feel an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum.

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

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.

A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

Do not fear mistakes, there are none.

Music opens up minds to dream great dreams about where you can go and what you can do.

Last time I saw Count Basie, he was in a wheelchair. They wheeled him up onto the stage, he sits down at the piano, and he gives the downbeat, and that band played like they were in heaven. And right in the middle, the band cuts. He had to take one hand and put the other on it, and he comes down with one note. And it was the greatest note I ever heard in my life.

After two takes you’re imitating yourself.

I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

A great teacher stimulates his student’s creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.

[moving to Las Vegas] It was sort of like a man getting married – you don’t have to go out looking for girls, you’ve got your girl with you. I could go to casinos any time I had money and wanted to, so I actually went less.

I expect the audience to come up to my level.

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. ‘Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.

A good player can make any instrument sound good.