Daniel Levitin Quotes

Because you've been exposed to Western tonal music, you know after a certain chord sequence what the next possibilities are. Your brain has compiled a statistical map of which ones are most likely and least likely. If the song keeps hitting the most likely notes, you'll get bored, and if it's always the least likely ones, you'll get irritated.

Daniel Levitin

• Music
• Song
• Brain
• Bored

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• The idea of music is to liberate the listener and lead him to a frame where he feels he is elevated.

  

  A. R. Rahman
  • Music
  • Lead
  • Him

• Basically hated everything made in the '80s, music television - it was really about the '90s for me. 'Encino Man' was a big hit. 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights.'

  

  Kate McKinnon
  • Music
  • Men
  • Man

• If you ask me, rockabilly has had a raw deal for far too long. People never shunned the blues or jazz the way they do rockabilly. But it's the original punk-rock, and it changed the way people looked at music for ever.

  

  Imelda May
  • People
  • Music
  • Long

• The music comes through me, and I let it come the way it comes, and it shapes itself. I just hold space for it. I don't intend to write it for a purpose, but it comes as it comes and am proud of the way it can support change because I believe strongly in what I sing about.

  

  Xavier Rudd
  • Music
  • Believe
  • Change

• When you're collaborating with somebody, there has to be a spirit of cooperation. There are a lot of times when you just can't persuade someone to write a certain type of song, either musically or lyrically.

  

  Walter Becker China Crisis
  • Song
  • Spirit
  • Cooperation

• If there's anything that would unite the world, it would be music.

  

  Leighton Paul Walsh
  • World
  • Music
  • Unite

• With technology now, you can go in and sing a song, and for $100,000, you will sound flawless.

  

  Vince Neil Mötley Crüe
  • Song
  • Technology
  • Sound

• With Ghost Tunes, you just try to do what's right. And what's right is whatever the copyright owner wants to do with their music, they do it.

  

  Garth Brooks
  • Music
  • Try
  • Ghost

• I work on words quite separately to music. They're both ongoing, and I don't ever feel like I'm working in a cycle in that respect, because it's every day anyway, no matter what I'm doing. Then I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.

  

  P. J. Harvey
  • Work
  • Music
  • Together

• I don't really have an aversion to watching myself. I think I've been doing it for long enough that I have a system of separating it in my brain from my egotistical neuroses for the most part.

  

  Mae Whitman
  • Long
  • Myself
  • Brain

• I like to release music the way I feel it, as opposed to having a date. The idea of dates, boxes, categories are very scary for me.

  

  Usher
  • Music
  • Way
  • Idea

• I really like Ariana Grande, Jessie J, and Nicki Minaj's song, the 'Bang Bang' song. It's the new 'Lady Marmalade.' So good.

  

  Becky G
  • Good
  • Song
  • New

• Gospel music always relaxes me and calms my nerves.

  

  Gabby Douglas
  • Music
  • Me
  • Always

• Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

  

  W. H. Auden
  • Time
  • Music
  • Best

• It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'

  

  Valerie June
  • Great
  • Happy
  • Song

• Sports without music is just a game. Music makes it entertaining.

  

  Ice Cube
  • Music
  • Game
  • Sports

• If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

  

  Barry Mann
  • Song
  • Inspiration
  • Plumber

• For me, even if I'm singing to a very large audience, like in 'The Sound of Music Live' or in the 'She Loves Me' broadcast, I try to imagine that I am just singing to each individual. It doesn't change my energy other than being perhaps a bit more nervous. I try to sing to each person and right into their individual heart.

  

  Laura Benanti
  • Music
  • Live
  • Heart

• I don't think 'This Means War' is an appropriate picture to do in 3-D.

  

  McG
  • War
  • Picture

• I definitely think religion is responsible for a lot of the evils of the world. I mean that's not really in debate. But at the same time, I think whatever gets you through the day, whatever helps you make sense of life I'm not gonna begrudge my grandmother with her rosary beads. It works for them. And at the end of the day, I don't claim to know the answer to anything.

  

  Conor Oberst Bright Eyes
  • World
  • Thinking
  • Mean

• To us, there was Bob Dylan, and there was dad. As for what he meant to other people, that was never glorified in our house. There were no accolades there, no gold records.

  

  Jakob Dylan
  • People
  • House
  • Dad

• A libertarian is someone who can believe that the police are no more than a gang of thugs without realizing that in the absence of police, thugs will gather into gangs.

  

  S. M. Stirling
  • Believe
  • Police
  • Gang

• If there are none [gods], All our toil is without meaning.

  

  Euripides
  • Meaning
  • Gods
  • Toil

• Because you've been exposed to Western tonal music, you know after a certain chord sequence what the next possibilities are. Your brain has compiled a statistical map of which ones are most likely and least likely. If the song keeps hitting the most likely notes, you'll get bored, and if it's always the least likely ones, you'll get irritated.

  

  Daniel Levitin
  • Music
  • Song
  • Brain