All music is what awakes from you

when you are reminded by the instruments,

It is not the violins and the cornets,

it is not the oboe nor the beating drums,

nor the score of the baritone singer singing

his sweet romanza,

nor that of the men's chorus,

nor that of the women's chorus.

It is nearer and farther than they.

-- Walt Whitman

(in Music: A Book of Quotations,

edited by Herb Galewitz)