Does my iPhone require internet to play itunes?

I have an iPhone 5 and love listening to music. But before I spend money on iTunes, I was wondering, do I need internet to listen to my songs on iTunes when I'm on the go without a signal on my phone?

STREAMING your music - listening over the Internet, like a so-called"radio" station, etc. Eats up data - you either have to be connected to your home network, or use your own data plan. But if you DOWNLOAD music - or rip it from a CD, copy from a thumb drive onto our computer first, etc. And SAVE it on your phone - then once it is on your phone, you could be a thousand miles from signal, and you can listen forever - no data, just battery life. You can manage All your stuff thru iTunes, not just what you buy - I have thousands upon thousands of ripped things in there, and it is just a management system. Somebody asked a while ago WHY anyone would keep an mo3 player when you can put everything on your phone. Well, I have added memeory to my mp3 player, can carry ZILLIONS of things on it, and play anything I want without taking up phone space, buffering, transmission reset ( A real aggravation when you are in a hotel in another country, and keep getting knocked off their wireless- and your podcast or whatever keeps staring *from the beginning* again!) or variety of other things.

As a career professional classical musician, I listen to TONS of music - all kinds not just *work/classical* music - and use my mp3 player ever day to do so. I need to keep my phone charged, fresh, nimble for other things - yes, there's music on it, but not much (relatively speaking) compared to what goes thru my mp3 in a week.

Once it's in your music app, then no you won't need internet to listen to it.