Aaron Copland

The inspired moment may sometimes be described as a kind of hallucinatory state of mind: one half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates. The half that listens has better look the other way, had better simulate a half attention only, for the half that dictates is easily disgruntled and avenges itself for too close inspection by fading entirely away.

Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

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

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness – I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn’t live with it–even of my own music–with the same nuances forever.

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.

I’m not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I’m not thinking about anything other than – I’m just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I’m just going to do it.

If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there’s something wrong with my act.

You want the audience to feel what you’re doing.

I never heard of a Jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do… play for the walls?

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

Jazz music has become academic. Sometimes that doesn’t feel right to me.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport.

It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.

I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.

I’d solo on my guitar; then sing; then solo; then sing some more. one stopped when the other started. That way I felt a continuity, not a conflict, like a wheel that keeps turning. Both sounds – guitar and voice – were coming out of me, but they issued from different parts of my soul.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.