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It's Easy To Get Next To Music Theory, Especially Between Your Peers And Music Classes And So Forth. You Just Pay Attention. I Had A Good Ear, So I Realized That Printed Music Was Just About Reminding You What To Play.

-Quincy Jones

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It's Easy To Get

Quincy Jones

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It's Easy To Get Next To Music Theory, Especially Between Your Peers And Music Classes And So Forth. You Just Pay Attention. I Had A Good Ear, So I Realized That Printed Music Was Just About Reminding You What To Play.

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You Can Study Orchestration, You Can Study Harmony And Theory And Everything Else, But Melodies Come Straight From God.

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I Tell My Kids And I Tell Proteges, Always Have Humility When You Create And Grace When You Succeed, Because Its Not About You. You Are A Terminal For A Higher Power. As Soon As You Accept That, You Can Do It Forever.

It Has Been Proven Time And Time Again In Countless Studies That Students Who Actively Participate In Arts Education Are Twice As Likely To Read For Pleasure, Have Strengthened Problem-solving And Critical Thinking Skills, Are Four Times More Likely To Be Recognized For Academic Achievement, Four Times More Likely To Participate In A Math And Science Fair.

My Dream Is To Put Together A Performance Of The Evolution Of Black Music With Cirque Du Soleil . I Would Also Like To Do Street Opera And Children's Books. But Even As I Work Toward These Things, I Want To Simplify My Life.

The Climate In The '50s And '60s For Black Performers Or Black People In The Entertainment Business Was Atrocious. It Was Atrocious.

I Was Inspired By A Lot Of People When I Was Young, Every Band That Came Through Town, To The Theater, Or The Dance Hall. I Was At Every Dance, Every Night Club, Listened To Every Band That Came Through, Because In Those Days We Didn't Have Mtv, We Didn't Have Television.

Music In Movies Is All About Dissonance And Consonance, Tension And Release.

I've Met Every Freak In The Business.

What Happens When You Get A Big Break And You Haven't Prepared Yourself? That Becomes The Biggest Mistake You've Ever Made. I See It Happen All The Time.

Biggest Mistake

Arts Is Just As Important As Military Defense, You Know? Emotional Defense Is Just As Important.

Benny [carter] Opened The Eyes Of A Lot Of Producers And Studios, So That They Could Understand That You Could Go To Blacks For Other Things Outside Of Blues And Barbecue. He's A Total Musician. He Was The Pioneer, He Was The Foundation. He Made It Possible For That Doubt To Be Taken Away.

A Person's Age Can Be Determined By The Degree Of Pain He Experiences When He Comes In Contact With A New Idea.

There's Power In The Collective. If You Don't Believe Me, Just Watch A Symphony Orchestra With A Conductor And 120 People Who Are Thinking About Exactly The Same Thing At The Same Moment - No Babies, No Stock Markets, No Mortgages. Just 32nd Notes.

You Cannot Get An A If You're Afraid Of Getting An F.

Every Country Can Be Defined Through Their Food, Their Music And Their Language. That's The Soul Of A Country.

Billy Strayhorn Wrote Multicolored Blue. Billy To Me Is The Boss Of The Arrangers.

Communications Are Making This One World. Back In The Day, 400-500 Years Ago, Nobody Knew What Anyone Else Was Doing. It's On The 6 O'clock News Now. Now We Can Say, Oh, That's The Way They Live. Oh, They Do That!! Opportunities, The Chance To Bring About Change, It's All Based On Communication. Communication And Jet Planes.

Im Probably The Only One In The World You Can Name Thats Worked With Billie Holiday, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Duke, Miles, Dizzy, Ray Charles, Aretha, Michael Jackson, Rappers. Fly Me To The Moon Was Played On The Moon By Buzz Aldrin. Sinatra. Paul Simon. Tony Bennett. Im The Only One.

Empty The Cup Every Time And It Comes Back At Twice As Full. I Developed That Attitude When I Was Very, Very Young, When I Decided I Didn't Want To Be A Gangster Anymore. Whether It's Just Shining Shoes, I Said Okay, I'm Going To Do This Better Than Anybody Else Did It In My Life.

Though Negative Things Have Happened To Me, God Somehow Let Me Know That Becoming Bitter Was Not The Way To Go. You Die When You Do That. Someone Once Told Me That If You Fully Open Your Arms To Receive Love, You'll Get Some Scratches And Cuts On Your Arms, But A Lot Of Love Will Come In. If You Close Your Arms, You Might Never Get Cut - But The Good Stuff Won't Come In Either.

If Architecture Is Frozen Music Then Music Must Be Liquid Architecture.

There’s Nothing In The World Worse Than Having An Opportunity That You’re Not Prepared For. Good Luck Usually Follows The Collision Of Opportunity And Preparation - It’s A Result Of That Collision. You’ve Got To Be Prepared. So, Make Your Mistakes Now And Make Them Quickly. If You’ve Made The Mistakes, You Know What To Expect The Next Time. That’s How You Become Valuable.

Young People Should Travel, And They Don’t. You Can’t Know If You Don’t Go.

My Son Is A Hip-hop Producer.

We Were In The Heart Of The Ghetto In Chicago During The Depression, And Every Block - It Was Probably The Biggest Black Ghetto In America - Every Block Also Is The Spawning Ground Practically For Every Gangster, Black And White, In America Too.

Prince.. A True Artist In Every Sense Of The World.gone Way Too Soon.

I Never Felt Like That In My Life. I Didn't Know Human Beings Played These Instruments. I Heard Them In Chicago And Louisville And St. Louis All My Life, You Know? But I Didn't Know Human Beings Played Them, You Know? So The Next Day I Went To Coontz Junior High School And I Started On Sousaphone, Tuba, B-flat Baritone, E-flat Alto, French Horn, Trombone.

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I'm A Great Believer In Letting Lyrics Just Flow Out, Wherever They Come From.

It's Easy To Get Next To Music Theory, Especially Between Your Peers And Music Classes And So Forth. You Just Pay Attention. I Had A Good Ear, So I Realized That Printed Music Was Just About Reminding You What To Play.

My Earliest Memories Are Being Pinned To A Fence With A Switchblade.

I've Been Driven All My Life By A Spirit Of Adventure And A Criminal Level Of Optimism. I Believed In My Dreams Because They Were My Only Option. The People Who Make It To The Top Are Addicted To Their Calling. You Have To Honor The Gift God Has Given You. The People Who Get The Call Are The Ones Who'd Be Doing Whatever It Is They Love, Even If They Weren't Being Paid.

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It's Very Freaky In Chicago.there's Something In The Water There, I Don't Know What It Is. But The Actual Word Chicago Means, In The Indian Language, Garlic. It Was Just Garlic And Mosquitoes There. And That Is The Roughest City On The Planet, And I Been To Every Place In The World.

Every Day, My Daddy Told Me The Same Thing. 'once A Task Is Just Begun, Never Leave It Till It's Done. Be The Labour Great Or Small, Do It Well Or Not At All.'

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Excellence Isn't An Act, It's A Habit

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To Me It's No Accident That All The Symphony Orchestras Around The World Tune Up To The Note A. And A Is 440 Cycles, Except In Germany Where It's 444. But The Universe Is 450 Cycles. So What I'm Trying To Say Is, I Think It's God's Voice, Melody Especially. Counterpoint, Retrograde Inversion, Harmony... That's The Science And The Craft.

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You Make Your Mistakes To Learn How To Get To The Good Stuff

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I Look Back And Say, "this Must Have Been Somebody Else." I Am Not Going To Tell You That When I Was 4, I Dreamed About All Of This.

I Improvised My Life Along The Way - I Just Moved Step-by-step. And I Knew That If I Got Better, Something Would Happen.

You Want Your Parents To Say, "hey, I'm Proud Of You." When You Don't Hear That, You Learn To Compensate. You Say, "hell, I Don't Need Their Approval. If I Get My Music Right, I'll Have Everyone Else's Approval." I Didn't Understand It Then, But I Now Know That's What Happened To Me.

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