Words matter. These are the best John Philip Sousa Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man.
To the average mind popular music would mean compositions vulgarly conceived and commonplace in their treatment. That is absolutely false.
My religion lies in my composition.
Remember always that the composer’s pen is still mightier than the bow of the violinist; in you lie all the possibilities of the creation of beauty.
America can well expect to develop a goodly amount of composers for she has a goodly number of people.
I can almost always write music; at any hour of the twenty-four, if I put pencil to paper, music comes.
The movements which I make I cannot possibly repress because, at the time, I am actually the idea I am interpreting, and naturally I picture my players and auditors as in accord with me. I know, of course, that my mannerisms have been widely discussed.
Sincere composers believe in God.
American teachers have one indisputable advantage over foreign ones; they understand the American temperament and can judge its unevenness, its lights and its shadows.
The average music-lover hears only the production under prevailing conditions.
There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!
Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds.
I had found English audiences highly satisfactory. They are the best listeners in the world. Perhaps the music-lovers of some of our larger cities equal the English, but I do not believe they can be surpassed in that respect.
I firmly believe that we have more latent musical talent in America than there is in any other country. But to dig it out there must be good music throughout the land, a lot of it. Everyone must hear it, and such a process takes time.
I have always believed that 98% of a student’s progress is due to his own efforts, and 2% to his teacher.
Governmental aid is a drawback rather than an assistance, as, although it may facilitate in the routine of artistic production, it is an impediment to the development of true artistic genius.
I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the country.
My success is not due to any personal superiority over other people.
From childhood I was passionately fond of music and wanted to be a musician. I have no recollection of any real desire ever to be anything else.
Any composer who is gloriously conscious that he is a composer must believe that he receives his inspiration from a source higher than himself.
Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?
Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.
