Aaron Copland

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

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.

Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.

I would say that a composer writes music to express and communicate and put down in permanent form certain thoughts, emotions and states of being. The resultant work of art should speak to the men and women of the artist’s own time with a directness and immediacy of communicative power that no previous art expression can give.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

[On the word Jazz] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s only a word. What’s in a name? Nothing! Cats say, Call me Muhammed so-and-so. But what’s the difference? A name doesn’t make the music. It’s just called that to differentiate it from other types of music. Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it’s beautiful, not necessarily commercial.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That’s the point now isn’t it?

Count don’t do nothin’. But it sure sounds good.

Trying to play the new concept with a outward bound feeling.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.

Jazz is the sound of surprise.

The truth is I never gave it much thought. I just played what I had to play.

The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.

I think music needs to be of its time and speak to that time.

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.