George Gershwin Quotes

Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise.

I like to think of music as an emotional science.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.

Originality is the only thing that counts. But the originator uses material and ideas that occur round him and pass through him. And out of his experience comes the original creation.

The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself...Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.

I frequently hear music in the heart of noise.

Look at the piano. You'll notice that there are white notes and black notes. Figure out the difference between them and you'll be able to make whatever kind of music you want.

Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend.

Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.

It is always possible to create something original.

I didn't even start playing the piano until I was about 13 or 14. I guess I must have had a little talent or whatever-you-call-it, but I practised regularly, and that's what counts.

Music sets up certain vibration which unquestionably results in a physical reaction. Eventually the proper vibration for every person will be found and utilized.

When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America.

Why should I limit myself to only one woman when I can have as many women as I want?

What the hell do you want to work for somebody else for? Work for yourself!

Writing music is not so much inspiration as hard work.

All great composers of the past spent most of their time studying. Feeling alone won't do the job. A man also needs technique.

Out of my entire annual output of songs, perhaps two, or at the most three, came as a result of inspiration. We can never rely on inspiration. When we most want it, it does not come.

My people are Americans. My time is today.

Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America.

When I'm in my normal mood, music drips from my fingers.

Gershwin's melodic gift was phenomenal. His songs contain the essence of New York in the 1920s and have deservedly become classics of their kind, part of the 20th-century folk-song tradition in the sense that they are popular music which has been spread by oral tradition (for many must have sung a Gershwin song without having any idea who wrote it).

Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.

Modern European composers...have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly.

The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up.