George Gershwin Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

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

George Gershwin
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.

George Gershwin
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.

George Gershwin
A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation.

George Gershwin
An entire composition written in jazz could not live.

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

George Gershwin
The rhythms of American popular music are more or less brittle; they should be made to snap, and at times to crackle. The more sharply the music is played, the more effective it sounds.

George Gershwin
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.

George Gershwin
My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times.

George Gershwin
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.

George Gershwin
We can never rely on inspiration. Making music is actually little less than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion.

George Gershwin
True music... must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans. My time is today.

George Gershwin