Remembering the life and music of legendary jazz guitarist Emily Remler

A lot of people approach risk as if it’s the enemy when it’s really fortune’s accomplice. — Sting

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. — Leopold Stokowski

A student might ask, how long will it take to learn guitar…, the answer is, as long as you live - that short. — Philip Toshio Sudo from Zen Guitar

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. — Aldous Huxley

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience. — Henry Miller

All the sounds of the earth are like music. — Oscar Hammerstein II

Approach your guitar intelligently, and if there are limits, don’t deny them. Work within your restrictions. Some things you can do better than others, some things you can’t do as well. So accentuate the positive. — Chet Atkins

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. — Edgar Degas

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread. Without it, it’s flat. — Carmen McRae

Chaos is the score upon which reality is written. — Henry Miller

Critics can’t even make music by rubbing their back legs together. — Mel Brooks

Debunking a common misconception: If I learn music by copying others, I will never have my own sound - THIS IS EGOTISTIC BULLSH*T and would be the same as saying If I learn to speak English by copying others, I will never write original books. — Fareed Haque

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music -the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. — Henry Miller

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there. — Miles Davis

Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him. — Louis Armstrong

Either be about it or be without it. — Awilda Rivera on musicians taking their jobs seriously.

Every guitarist has a special quality of sound. The best ones will use a good ear, much sensitivity, and a thorough knowledge of music to prepare the nuances and colors of sound. — Andre Segovia

Feel is a lot more important than accuracy. — Peter Mulvey

He who dares to teach must never cease to learn. — Richard Henry Dann

I am a devout Musician. — Charlie Parker

I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don’t treat me right - shame on you! — Louis Armstrong

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to wisdom and founts of knowledge. — Igor Stravinsky

I never ask how. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, giving advice as to how to compose a symphony.

I play the guitar because it lets me dream out loud. — Michael Hedges

I play the notes as they are written but it is God who makes the music. — J.S. Bach

I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress… So that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair. — Sonny Rollins

I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it’s supposed to be. — Dizzy Gillespie

If I have one mission, it’s to let people know that music is still something that has to do with the ears. When you get the pocket right, you can keep people dancing all night long. Music needs to live amongst the people. — Fareed Haque

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. … I get most joy in life out of music. — Albert Einstein

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good! — Duke Ellington

If music be the food of love, play on. — Shakespeare - Twelfth Night

If the rhythm section is really swinging it’s such a great feeling - you just want to laugh! — Emily Remler

If they act too hip, you know they can’t play sh*t! — Louis Armstrong

If you are touched by music you are touched by love in a very pure way. — Pepe Romero

If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing. — Zimbabwean Proverb

If you have patience and knowledge, and if you are aware of all that is happening around you, you will gain something unexpected. — Alhaji Ibrahim Abdulai

If you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original. — Sir Ken Robinson

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not — Bill Evans

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing — Duke Ellington

It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love. — Ricard

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play. — Dizzy Gillespie

Jazz is rhythm and meaning. — Henri Matisse

Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now. — Pat Martino

Jazz tickles your muscles, symphonies stretch your soul. — Paul Whiteman

Life is a lot like jazz. . . it’s best when you improvise. — George Gershwin

Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” John Lennon — John Lennon

Like a boxer’s punch, one good note is all it takes. — Angel Romero

Listen, listen, listen. — Joe Pass

Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that crap and just play. — Charlie Parker

Milton, of all people, gave the most perfect definition of the state of mind required to play jazz: ‘ with wanton heed and giddy cunning.’ That’s how you play jazz. — Paul Desmond

Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable. — Leonard Bernstein

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. — Victor Hugo

Music gives a soul to the universe. — Plato

Music has generated all the techniques I use. When I sit down to learn to play something… it is not because I want to master a technique. It is because I want to hear what an idea sounds like. — Pat Martino

Music is a form of prayer. — Toru Takemitsu

Music is an addiction, a religion, and a disease. There is no cure. No antidote. — Sting

Music is beautiful. It’s a gift. The most you can do is develop your own potential. That’s all you can do. We would all like to do more than that. — Mike Stern

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music. — Sergei Rachmaninov

Music is love in search of a word. — Sidney Lanier

Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life. — Leo Tolstoy

Music is only love looking for words. — Lawrence Durrell

Music is the art of thinking with sounds. — Jules Combarieu

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

Music is the strongest form of magic. — Marilyn Manson

Music is well said to be the speech of angels. — Thomas Carlyle

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. — Berthold Auerbach

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have below. — Joseph Addison

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener. — Pat Metheny

Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, save perhaps two. — Fredric Chopin

Oh, jazz and love are the hardest things to describe from rationale. — Mel Torme

One very fundamental thing has not changed and I realized that it will never change… is that I really need to go home and practice. — Pat Metheny

People talk about how art reflects life, but if jazz is art, how can it reflect life is there are only men playing it? — Susie Ibarra

Playing ‘Bop’ is like scrabble with all the vowels missing. — Duke Ellington

Reggae music is simple music - but it’s from the heart. Just as people need water to drink, people also need music. If it is true music, the people will be drawn to it. — Ziggy Marley

Schlepping all of the equipment is the part I hate more than anything. — John Abercrombie

Searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats. — Duke Ellington

Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. — Emory Austin

Sometimes, you don’t need a $5,000 guitar - you need $5,000 worth of lessons. — Chris Smither

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. — Chinese Proverb

The aim and final reason of all music is none else but the glory of God. — J.S. Bach

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. — Henry Miller

The artist must say it without saying it. — Duke Ellington

The guitar is a meditative tool to touch God and find love within yourself. — Pepe Romero

The guitar is a small orchestra. Every string is a different color, a different voice. — Andre Segovia

The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music. — Kurt Vonnegut

The Past is gone and the future might not even be, the only thing we ever experience is the now, I try to enjoy the minute. — George Harrison

There is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music. — Robert Browning

There’s a lot of different forms of communication but music is absolutely the purest one. — Duane Allman

To me if it’s anything, jazz is a verb - it’s more like a process than it is a thing. — Pat Metheny

To teach is to learn twice. — Joseph Joubert

Whatever is good to know is difficult to learn. — Greek Proverb

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. — Gandhi

When words fail, music speaks. — Hans Christian Anderson

When you play guitar you are drawing a frame around a moment and saying to the listener, ‘Here is how I want you to experience this. How you begin and end a solo is framing, How you structure a song is framing, how you present yourself onstage is framing. See every corner, not just the center, framing should heighten the impact of the art and give clarity to your vision. — Philip Toshio Sudo

You are the music while the music lasts. — T.S. Eliot