Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist.

• [W]ant to bring it? Bring it. But, we ain't singing. We're bringing drama.
  • 2Pac, "Hit Em Up" (4 June 1996), California: Death Row Records

• I saw the people gather/I heard the music start/The song that they were singing/Is ringing in my heart
  • Joan Baez, No Man Is an Island 1968

• Debe ser la caricia de lo inútil,/la tristeza sin fin de ser poeta,/de cantar y cantar, sin que se rompa/la tragedia sin par de la existencia.
  • It must be the caress of the useless,/the endless sadness of being a poet,/of singing and singing, without breaking/the peerless tragedy of existence.
  • Canción de la verdad sencilla/Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos translated by Jack Agüeros (1997)

• The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation,
  And for the bass, the beast can only bellow;
  In fact, he had no singing education,
  An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto IV, Stanza 87.

• Let's sing now because life is leaving
  • Cantemos desde ahora, que la vida se va
  • Canción de la verdad sencilla/Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos translated by Jack Agüeros (1997)

• I suffer so much in this life, Doro. That is what they feeling when I sing, that is why they cry. People who felt nothing in this life cannot sing. Once I had a great suffering and from it came a new voice.
  • Enrico Caruso, as quoted in Enrico Caruso - His Life and Death, by Dorothy Caruso

• The softer you sing, the louder you're heard.
  • Donovan interviewed in the first issue Rolling Stone magazine (9 November 1967); also in Pop Chronicles, Show 48 - The British are Coming! The British are Coming!: With an emphasis on Donovan, the Bee Gees and the Who.

• Come, sing now, sing; for I know you sing well;
  I see you have a singing face.
  • John Fletcher, The Wild Goose Chase (c. 1621; published 1652), Act II. 2.

• Three merry boys, and three merry boys,
  And three merry boys are we,
  As ever did sing in a hempen string
  Under the gallow-tree.
  • John Fletcher, Rollo Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, (c. 1617; revised c. 1627–30; 1639), Act III, scene 2. Song

• Be like the grasshopper and make night musical. Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears. Watch and be like the sparrow alone upon the housetop. Sing with the spirit, but sing with the understanding also. 1 Corinthians 14:15 And let your song be that of the psalmist: Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits; who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from destruction. Can we, any of us, honestly make his words our own: I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping? Yet, should we not weep and groan when the serpent invites us, as he invited our first parents, to eat forbidden fruit, and when after expelling us from the paradise of virginity he desires to clothe us with mantles of skins such as that which Elijah, on his return to paradise, left behind him on earth? 2 Kings 2:13 Say to yourself: What have I to do with the pleasures of sense that so soon come to an end? What have I to do with the song of the sirens so sweet and so fatal to those who hear it?
  • Jerome, Letter 22, p.18; as qtd. in "CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 22 (Jerome)", New Advent, translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.

• Urusvati has developed her musical talent beautifully. This proficiency is achieved as the result of much labor in other lives. According to the Teachings of Plato, music should not be understood in the narrow sense of music alone, but as participation in all the harmonious arts. In singing, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in speech, and, finally, in all manifestations of sound, musicality is expressed. In Hellas a ceremony to all the Muses was performed. Tragedy, dance, and all rhythmic movement served the harmony of Cosmos. Much is spoken about beauty, but the importance of harmony is little understood. Beauty is an uplifting concept, and each offering to beauty is an offering to the equilibrium of Cosmos. Everyone who expresses music in himself sacrifices, not for himself, but for others, for humanity, for Cosmos. Perfection of thought is an expression of beautiful musicality. The highest rhythm is the best prophylaxis, a pure bridge to the highest worlds. Thus We affirm Beauty in Our Abode. Urusvati has noted that the music of the spheres is characterized by a harmony of rhythm. It is precisely this quality that brings inspiration to humanity. People usually do not think about the sources of inspiration, but if they did they would help Our work greatly. 42.
  • Koot Hoomi, Supermundane (1938)

• You know about the special musical instruments that are in Our possession. Urusvati has heard them. The refined scale and rhythm of Sister Oriole should be acknowledged as the highest harmony. Often such singing has served to bring peace to the world... One should learn how to develop one’s own musicality by all possible means. The heart’s feeling is sensed not in the words themselves but in their sound. There can be no irritation in harmony. Malice cannot exist where the spirit ascends. It is not by chance that in antiquity the epic scriptures were sung, not only to facilitate memorizing but also for inspiration. Likewise, it is rhythm and harmony that protect us against fatigue. The quality of music and rhythm should be developed from infancy.
  • Koot Hoomi, Supermundane (1938)

• Once, according to an old legend, there came a messenger from a distant world to give people equality, brotherhood and joy. Long since had people forgotten their songs. They remained in a stupor of hate. The messenger banished darkness and crowdedness, smote infection, and instituted joyful labor. Hatred was stilled, and the sword of the messenger remained on the wall. But all were silent and knew not how to begin singing. Then the messenger assembled the little children, led them into the woods, and said to them: “These are your flowers, your brooks, your trees. No one has followed us. I shall rest—and you fill yourselves with joy.” Thereupon, timidly they ventured into the forest. At last the littlest one came to a meadow and sighted a ray of the sun. Then a yellow oriole sounded its call. The little one followed it, whispering. And soon joyously he sang out, “The sun is ours!” One by one the children gathered upon the meadow, and a new hymn to Light rang out. The messenger said: “Man has again begun to sing. Come is the date!” 162
  • Morya, New Era Community (1926)

• People feel sometimes something singing within them. Such a song is never disharmonious. One can rejoice when such vibrations stir one’s being. 18.
  • Morya, Fiery World II (1934)

• Among one’s human incarnations there is invariably found an incarnation devoted to rhythmic labor. Whether this be some sort of craftsmanship or music, singing or farm work, every man infallibly will cultivate in himself the rhythm which fills all of life. Upon learning of certain incarnations, people frequently are astonished as to why they should have been so insignificant. But in them there was being worked out the rhythm of labor. One of the greatest of qualities, this must be acquired through conflict and patience. 49.
  • Morya, Brotherhood (1937)

• She loves to laugh; she loves to sing. She does everything.
  • Steve Perry, "Any Way You Want It" (February 1980), Departure, Columbia Records

• Sing, sing a song
  Sing out loud, sing out strong
  Sing of good things not bad
  Sing of happy not sad.

  Sing, sing a song
  Make it simple to last your whole life long
  Don't worry that it's not good enough
  For anyone else to hear
  Just sing, sing a song.

  • Joe Raposo, in "Sing" (1972)

• A singer … is no more than an actor set to music.
  • Kay Starr, Pop Chronicles, Show 2 - Play A Simple Melody: American pop music in the early fifties. Part 2, interview recorded 11.2.1967.

• If I cannot sing where there is death, then I cannot sing in life, because life is a continuous death.
  • Zhuang Zhou, as quoted in Meetings with Remarkable People (2017), by Osho

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 712-13.

• Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante.
  • That which is not worth speaking they sing.
  • Pierre de Beaumarchais, Barbier de Séville, I. 1.

• Quien canta, sus males espanta.
  • He who sings frightens away his ills.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. 22.

• At every close she made, th' attending throng
  Replied, and bore the burden of the song:
  So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note,
  It seemed the music melted in the throat.
  • John Dryden, Flower and the Leaf, line 197.

• Y'ought to hyeah dat gal a-warblin'
  Robins, la'ks an' all dem things
  Heish de mouffs an' hides dey faces
  When Malindy sings.
  • Paul Laurence Dunbar, When Malindy Sings.

• Olympian bards who sung
  Divine ideas below,
  Which always find us young
  And always keep us so.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ode to Beauty.

• I see you have a singing face — a heavy, dull, sonata face.
  • George Farquhar, The Inconstant, Act II. 1.

• When I but hear her sing, I fare
  Like one that raised, holds his ear
  To some bright star in the supremest Round;
  Through which, besides the light that's seen
  There may be heard, from Heaven within,
  The rests of Anthems, that the Angels sound.
  • Owen Feltham, Lusoria, XXXIV. Appeared as a poem of Suckling's beginning "When dearest I but think of thee." Claimed by Feltham in note to ed. 1690, 1696 of his Resolves, Divine, Moral, Biblical

• Then they began to sing
  That extremely lovely thing,
  "Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp."
  • W. S. Gilbert, Bab Ballads, Story of Prince Agib.

• So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit.
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse, The Birthmark.

• He the sweetest of all singers.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Part VI, line 21.

• Sang in tones of deep emotion,
  Songs of love and songs of longing.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Part XI, line 136.

• God sent his Singers upon earth
  With songs of sadness and of mirth,
  That they might touch the hearts of men,
  And bring them back to heaven again.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Singers.

• Ils chantent, ils payeront.
  • They sing, they will pay.
  • Cardinal Mazarin. Originally "S'ils cantent la cansonette ils pageront." A patois.

• Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul
  And lap it in Elysium.
  • John Milton, Comus (1637), line 256.

• Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
  Such notes as, warbled to the string,
  Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.
  • John Milton, Il Penseroso (1631), line 105.

• O Carril, raise again thy voice! let me hear the song of Selma, which was sung in my halls of joy, when Fingal, king of shields, was there, and glowed at the deeds of his fathers.
  • Ossian, Fingal, Book III, Stanza 1.

• Sweetest the strain when in the song
  The singer has been lost.
  • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Poet and the Poem.

• But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain.
  The wond'ring forests soon should dance again;
  The moving mountains hear the powerful call,
  And headlong streams hang listening in their fall!
  • Alexander Pope, Summer, line 81.

• You know you haven't got a singing face.
  • William Barnes Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso (1810).

• Every night he comes
  With musics of all sorts and songs compos'd
  To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us
  To chide him from our eaves; for he persists
  As if his life lay on't.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act III, scene 7, line 39.

• Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
  With feigning voice verses of feigning love.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act I, scene 1, line 30.

• O! she will sing the savageness out of a bear.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act IV, scene 1, line 200.

• His tongue is now a stringless instrument.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act II, scene 1, line 149.

• Nay, now you are too flat
  And mar the concord with too harsh a descant.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 94.

• But one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.
  • William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610-11), Act IV, scene 3, line 46.

• Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
  A tone
  Of some world far from ours,
  Where music and moonlight and feeling
  Are one.
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, To Jane, The Keen Stars were Twinkling.

• Sing, sing freely
  • Naomi Shihab Nye Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (2018)

• If a singer knows only one song but makes the sound pleasant, he is indeed a singer! [...] When a singer's voice is sweet, he is indeed a singer.
  • Sumerian proverb, Collection II at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BCE.

• Music
• Song