The only music I don't like is bad music.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the subjective nature of music appreciation, suggesting that the only universal dislike is for poor quality music.
Quincy Jones emphasizes that music is a deeply personal experience, and while individuals may have different tastes and preferences, the common ground they can share is the rejection of music that is poorly made or insincerely crafted. This perspective invites listeners to appreciate the artistry in all forms of music while acknowledging that not all music will resonate with everyone.
In practice
In a discussion about musical preferences, one might say, 'The only music I don't like is bad music.'
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
I think the rhythm is like the spine of the piece. If you change that, then the body that forms around it is changed as well.
When putting words together is good to do it with nicety and caution, your elegance and talent will be evident if by putting ordinary words together you create a new voice.
We all steal, but if we're smart we steal from great directors. Then, we can call it influence.
All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory - of the absolute and of the particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.
It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.
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