A Few Musical Aphorisms...

[fiddlerjoebob]

A few years ago I found a small volume in a used bookstore.

It was, published in the 1890’s, and filled with musical aphorisms. Here are two of my favorites:

 

Old violin,

comrade of the hours labor spares,

what music flowers,

what whispers wild,

what visions bright,

thy friendship brings the tired night.

S Mitchell.

 

And….

 

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.

Milton

 

And, just this week I heard a radio interview on National Public Radio,

with the great pianist Van Clyburn, in which he quotes Rachmaninoff thusly:

 

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime isn’t enough for music."

Rachmaninoff

[David Barnert]

Here's Mark Twain in a letter to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 1863:

 

We consider that the man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of emergency.

[fiddlerjoebob]

Here's Mark Twain in a letter to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 1863:

 

We consider that the man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of emergency.

 

 

Thats great, thanks David

 

Looking forward to seeing you at the Concertina workshop in April....

 

randy

[Mikefule]

Young people have forgotten to cry the blues. Now they talk and get lawyers and things.

Big Bill Broonzy

[David Barnert]

Thats great, thanks David

There's also a poem from Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology" about a fiddler. Don't have it to hand at the moment, but it includes the words "If they find you can fiddle, then fiddle ye must!"

Looking forward to seeing you at the Concertina workshop in April....

Please introduce yourself.

[David Barnert]

Oh, and the opening words of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "If Music be the Food of Love, Play On."

[richard]

'MUSIC IS ENOUGH FOR A LIFETIME, BUT A LIFE TIME IS NOT ENOUGH FOR MUSIC."

 

 

 

 

S. RACHMANINOV

[Boney]

Mark Twain also wrote: "All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out."

 

Kurt Vonnegut wrote that he wanted his tombstone epitaph to read: "The only proof he needed of the existence of God was music."

[fiddlerjoebob]

David,

 

We never spoke, but I was the bass player at the squeeze last fall. I started playing my new Morse Albion late last summer so I was a bit out of my league on the concertina. I listened alot and played my fiddle and thumped the bass. Quite a lovely weekend. I have learned a few tunes over the winter and feel I am progressing nicely.

 

Randy

Edited March 5, 2008 by fiddlerjoebob

[John Wild]

Extracts from a little book called 'Music Lovers - quotations from the world of music':-

 

 

'After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music'

- Aldous Huxley

 

'Music is the shorthand of emotion'

- Leo Tolstoy

 

'Music does not excite until it is performed'

- Benjamin Britten

 

'I don't know whether I like it, but it is what I meant'

- Ralph Vaughan Williams, of his 4th symphony

 

'Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn'

- Charlie Parker

 

 

 

- John Wild

[Perry Werner]

Howdy:

Just recently purchased this wonderful postcard with an R. Crumb drawing of three folks playing guitar, fiddle and accordion.

 

I liked the query that the card posed.....

 

"Where Has It Gone,

All The Beautiful Music of Our Grandparents?"

 

and at the bottom in tiny letters the answer is given....

 

"It Died With Them...

That's Where It Went"

 

I'll try to upload the image but for some reason I'm getting an error message.

 

Have fun,

Perry Werner

Edited March 6, 2008 by Perry Werner

[Chris Drinkwater]

Here's one I came across recently, that made me chuckle.

 

Without Mozart we would never have known what an opera is.

Without Wagner we would never have known what a Mozart opera is.

 

 

(This has the usual double-take effect of an aphorism of making one wonder whether it is actually saying anything, whether it’s true, and whether it means the opposite to what you originally thought.)

 

 

Then there is:

 

DIATONIC – singable even by tenors

 

 

MUSICAL HISTORY – durable substitute for musical understanding

 

 

PERFECT PITCH – the ability to know that the people you’re with haven’t got it, so that you can safely say “E flat major” whenever you feel like it.

 

 

 

And, finally, two of my favourite musical aphorisms:

 

 

A piece can be played better than it is.

 

Intellectual music is emotional music we do not understand.

 

 

Chris

[RustyBits]

"Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies" ('Much Ado About Nothing', II. 3.62)

 

I'm assuming that the gut he is referring to is stings on a lute or violin.

[Chris Timson]

"If Music be the Food of Love, Play On."

I've always rather liked: If love be the food of music, eat on!

 

I heard the next one from Flos Headford in a session, and it spent a bit of time in my sig: the tune was written in 1713, but we play it in 4-4.

 

Chris

[Boney]

Reminds me of one I heard at a Väsen concert: "This tune was written over 300 years ago...and it hasn't been used up yet!"

[Daniel Hersh]

This one is from a chess player (Savielly Tartakower) but it applies to playing music too: "The mistakes are all there, waiting to be made."

[Theo]

Information is not knowledge.

Knowledge is not wisdom.

Wisdom is not truth.

Truth is not beauty.

Beauty is not love.

Love is not music.

Music is the best...

 

Attributed to Frank Zappa

[Theo]

And at the other end of the spectrum:

 

On Musick

 

Musicks a Crotchet the Sober thinks it Vain

The Fiddles a Wooding Projection

Tunes are But Flights of a Whimsical Brain

Which the Bottle Brings Best to Parfection

Musisians are half witted mery and madd

And Those are the same that admire Them

Theyr Fools if they Pley unless their Well Paid

And The Others are Blockheads to Hire them

 

From the Willaim Vickers manuscript 1770