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Steven Pinker … advances interesting ideas about understanding human mind in terms of “reverse engineering”: we see that adaptations to our environment have been achieved, and define our task as explaining the means by which these have come about. … But Pinker finds music making—universal in all cultures—to be anomalous. Which means there must be something basically wrong or missing in his view. James could have told him what it is: To miss the joy is to miss all. … The fusion of reality and ideal novelty excites and empowers us, and does so because we are organisms which, to be vital, must celebrate our being.
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Stevie Wonder, "Sir Duke"
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Strange! that a harp of thousand stringsShould keep in tune so long.
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Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.
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Susan McClary, quoted in Sullivan, Meg (May 2002). Spotlight: Susan McClary, Musicologist.
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Sweetest melodiesAre those that are by distance made more sweet.
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Take but degree away, untune that string,And, hark, what discord follows!
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Thank you. If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you'll enjoy the playing more.
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That rich celestial music thrilled the airFrom hosts on hosts of shining ones, who throngedEastward and westward, making bright the night.
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The ascetic Gotama … avoids watching dancing, singing, music and shows. He abstains from using garlands, perfumes, cosmetics, ornaments and adornments. … He refrains from running errands, from buying and selling.
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The CD's sharp decline in the United States has been offset by the growth in digital sales and concert revenues: the latter more than tripled, from $1.3 billion in 1998 to $4.2 billion in 2008. Such numbers point to a shift from a high-margin industry dominated by CD sales, the album format, and the big four labels to a lower-margin business with more emphasis on performance and related rights. They do not, in our view, point to an existential threat to the music business, much less to music culture. Developing countries share in these trends including the fall in CD sales and the growth of the live-performance market. But the structure of the global marketplace also creates important points of divergence. In broad terms, this structure is relatively simple, marked by (1) the near complete dominance of the big four labels in most developing markets - some 84% of the market in Brazil, 82% in Mexico, and 78% in South Africa, for example, (2) the concentration of 80% - 85% of revenues in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and Canada, and (3) the absence, in most developing countries, of strong domestic competitors capable of building viable alternative distribution strategies, such as Apple and other digital distributors are doing in the United States. In practice, these factors reinforce the high-price, very-small-market dynamic visible in most developing countries. They create a context in which the big four labels have every incentive to protect high-income markets but little incentive to change their pricing strategies in low - and middle-income markets. Compared to high-value markets like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, the emerging markets are simply inconsequential. Price cuts to expand the market in Brazil, South Africa, or Mexio would have a very limited upside in this context and a potentially serious downside if they began to undermine pricing conventions in the high-income markets. The major's evaluation of this tradeoff is clear: none have significantly lowered prices in emerging markets.
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The choir,With all the choicest music of the kingdom,Together sung Te Deum.
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The day you open your mind to music, you're halfway to opening your mind to life.
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The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.
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The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value.