Donald Jay Grout Quote: How Music Shapes Our Soul and Character

„Music directly affects the passions or states of the soul—gentleness, anger, courage, temperance, and their opposites ... When one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued with the same passion. If over a long time he habitually listens to the kind of music that arouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to that ignoble form. In short, if one listens to the wrong kind of music—he will become the wrong kind of person.“