Aaron Copland

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

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.

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

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.

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.

I’m more careful about my hands than about what I eat and most anything else, because my hands have been my living. My hands have been able to help me learn. My hands have taken me around the world. So I’m very proud of my hands.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

I say, ‘Play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years’.

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

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world’s great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province… Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated.

I’m now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.

A Jazz Diet will make you hipper, thinner, taller, smarter, richer, happier and more attractive to members of both sexes.

I was always exposed to music. Mom and dad would have the radio on constantly.

Silence is what makes music sexy. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought.

I’m fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.

Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression.

In this trumpet I hear our icons and the sound of the future.

I’ll always write music. Whether I release a record, whether I let the public hear it or not, I’m always writing music.