What really counts isn't whether your instrument is Baroque or modern: it's your mindset.
Simon RattleRead
Orchestras are like people. They're the sonic embodiment of their community.
Interpretation
Orchestras reflect the values and character of the communities they represent.
In this quote, Simon Rattle suggests that orchestras are not just a collection of musicians playing instruments; rather, they represent the collective spirit and identity of the community they arise from. Just as people are shaped by their surroundings and experiences, an orchestra embodies the cultural, emotional, and social fabric of its community, making music a profoundly shared human experience.
In practice
During a community event highlighting our local arts, this quote can underscore the importance of music in reflecting our collective identity.
What really counts isn't whether your instrument is Baroque or modern: it's your mindset.
I've always had a profound conviction that great music is about joy, even in the face of tragedy.
We need to bring music to the people, even to those who normally do not listen to classical music.
I believe if you're not completely in love with what you're doing, you'd better find another profession.
Some of my favorite music in the world is Haydn. I had a sabbatical one year and made myself one promise: to play a different Haydn piano sonata each day - they are inexhaustible treasures.
We have to be evangelists for music. We couldn't just be high priests of music.
You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one.
A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!
Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it's the last time.
The music of ABBA is not that happy. It might sound happy, in some strange way, but deep within, it's not happy music. It has that Nordic melancholic feeling to it. What fools you is the girls' voices. You know, I do think that is one of the secrets about ABBA. Even when we were really quite sad, we always sounded jubilant.
With pop music and pop musicians, you know everything about everyone all the time, particularly their physical appearance. With female musicians, that's made a big thing of, and I think people, certainly with me, have appreciated a bit of mystery.
Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.
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