Because music, like color, or a cloud, is neither intelligent nor unintelligent - it just is. The chord, the simplest building block for even the tritest, silliest chart song, is a beautiful, perfect, mysterious thing, and when an ill-read, uneducated, uncultured, emotionally illiterate boor puts a couple of them together, he has every chance of creating something wonderful and powerful. All I ask of music is that is sounds good.
Nick Hornby Songbook
(0 Reviews)

In "Songbook," Nick Hornby reflects on the nature of music, comparing it to color or clouds, emphasizing that it exists autonomously, without inherent intelligence. He appreciates the beauty and mystery of a simple chord, which is fundamental to any piece of music, regardless of its complexity or sophistication. Hornby suggests that anyone, regardless of their background or education, can produce something meaningful and impactful from these basic elements of music.

The essential plea Hornby makes is for music to resonate well with the listener. He believes that what truly matters is the enjoyment and aesthetic appeal of music, rather than the credentials of its creator. This perspective celebrates the universal accessibility of music, where even those who may lack formal understanding can achieve artistic greatness simply by taking the chance to create something that sounds pleasing.

Categories
book quote
Book
Songbook
Author
Nick Hornby
Votes
0
Page views
51
Update
February 24, 2025
Report
Report a Problem

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in Songbook

It was almost like discovering a writer you haven't read, although you all encounter and of themselves on writers that you have not read while it is very rare, at least in adulthood, that you suddenly find a great pop artist who has published Lots of good slices. Most often it is prejudice rather than ignorance that makes you miss great artists, and prejudice is difficult to get rid of {it is so fun to have them confirmed}.
Nick Hornby Songbook
It was almost like discovering a writer you haven't read, although you all encounter and of themselves on writers that you have not read while it is very rare, at least in adulthood, that you suddenly find a great pop artist who has published Lots of good slices. Most often it is prejudice rather than ignorance that makes you miss great artists, and prejudice is difficult to get rid of {it is so fun to have them confirmed}.
This is the real lies of shock-art: such art insists on its democracy, but this democracy is only for those who can afford it. And many of us, becoming older, suddenly understand that we do not have any more strength and desire to waste ourselves.
Nick Hornby Songbook
This is the real lies of shock-art: such art insists on its democracy, but this democracy is only for those who can afford it. And many of us, becoming older, suddenly understand that we do not have any more strength and desire to waste ourselves.
Several times a year I make a cassette for myself to put it in the car, a collection of songs that I loved in the last few months, and every time I finish it, I do not believe that someday I will need another. Nevertheless, this is repeated with enviable regularity, and each time I look forward to the next one. You only need a few hundred such things, and your life will not be lived in vain.
Nick Hornby Songbook
Several times a year I make a cassette for myself to put it in the car, a collection of songs that I loved in the last few months, and every time I finish it, I do not believe that someday I will need another. Nevertheless, this is repeated with enviable regularity, and each time I look forward to the next one. You only need a few hundred such things, and your life will not be lived in vain.
Only the story will pronounce the verdict - whether Miss Furtado will become a great artist, and although I suspect that she hardly resolutely changed my view of the world, I think this is not so important: I will always be grateful to her for creating an intrusive desire in me Listen to her song again and again. In the end, this is a harmless dependence, easily satisfactory, and in the world there are not too many of them.
Nick Hornby Songbook
Only the story will pronounce the verdict - whether Miss Furtado will become a great artist, and although I suspect that she hardly resolutely changed my view of the world, I think this is not so important: I will always be grateful to her for creating an intrusive desire in me Listen to her song again and again. In the end, this is a harmless dependence, easily satisfactory, and in the world there are not too many of them.
The music you already have is not enough for a lifetime, not if you listen to music every day and as soon as you can access.
Nick Hornby Songbook
The music you already have is not enough for a lifetime, not if you listen to music every day and as soon as you can access.
If you have not heard this composition and have the intention to listen to it, forget about all other matters this evening, make sure that you are not one in the room {Listening to a song in the headphones, most likely threatens you with hospitalization}, and do not go to work to the next day.
Nick Hornby Songbook
If you have not heard this composition and have the intention to listen to it, forget about all other matters this evening, make sure that you are not one in the room {Listening to a song in the headphones, most likely threatens you with hospitalization}, and do not go to work to the next day.
More »

Other quotes in book quote

All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.
Edward Gorey Ascending Peculiarity:...
All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.
For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.
Holly Black White Cat
For me the curse is a crutch, but the con is everything.
I don't have anything against God. Far from it. But I don't understand Him. And I don't trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they're working in His best interests.
Jim Butcher Grave Peril
I don't have anything against God. Far from it. But I don't understand Him. And I don't trust a lot of the people that go around claiming that they're working in His best interests.
I found Esau's field guide at the bottom of my pack. Taking a candle into the bedroom, I read his book until my eyes grew heavy. From his vast notes, it seemed that almost every plant and tree in the jungle had a reason for existing. I caught myself wishing there was a page in his guide that had my picture on it with the reason for my existence written underneath in Esau's neat hand.
Maria V. Snyder Magic Study
I found Esau's field guide at the bottom of my pack. Taking a candle into the bedroom, I read his book until my eyes grew heavy. From his vast notes, it seemed that almost every plant and tree in the jungle had a reason for existing. I caught myself wishing there was a page in his guide that had my picture on it with the reason for my existence written underneath in Esau's neat hand.
Here's a nifty solution: Each couple that marries should take on an entirely new surname, chosen however they want as long as both agree to it, so that a day after the wedding, both husband and wife can hold hands and joyfully journey off to the municipal offices to change their passports, driver's licenses, signatures, initials, bank accounts, etc.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Dear Ijeawele, or A...
Here's a nifty solution: Each couple that marries should take on an entirely new surname, chosen however they want as long as both agree to it, so that a day after the wedding, both husband and wife can hold hands and joyfully journey off to the municipal offices to change their passports, driver's licenses, signatures, initials, bank accounts, etc.
{...} what I wish for Chizalum is the following: that she is full of opinions, and that her opinions stem from a well-informed, humane, and open mind. That she have health and happiness. That she have the life she wants to have.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Dear Ijeawele, or A...
{...} what I wish for Chizalum is the following: that she is full of opinions, and that her opinions stem from a well-informed, humane, and open mind. That she have health and happiness. That she have the life she wants to have.
More »

Popular quotes

The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they might be related to one another in ways frowned on by the Old Testament. Sebastian Faulks
Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her. Mitch Albom
All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last. Alexander McCall Smith
The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. {All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.} Alexander McCall Smith
In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days. Alexander McCall Smith
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins. Mitch Albom
Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes. Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. Mitch Albom
we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality-and, in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization. Mitch Albom
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind. David Mitchell
All Categories »

Categories

love
inspirational
history
soul