Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.
Musicals are very collaborative. Unless you find somebody who wants to do something with you and has equal commitment, it's not going to work.
Disco deserved a better name, a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form. It made the consumer beautiful. The consumer was the star.
I think the thing that music can do is be unsettling. It is abnormal - music that's perceived to be different in an unresolved or unusual way.
People never heard bells in Western music sounding really cataclysmic. You hear that more in Russian music or in Asian, Indonesian traditions.
One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife.
My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?
There is some music that's truly dark, in that it's dark in terms of hopeless. But then again, the act of hope is just making the work of art.
To be a great composer requires immense experience... One acquires this by listening not only to other men's work, but above all to one's own!
What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance.
Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.
I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.
I think it's good for the composer to teach because you always have new students and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.
There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!
This is a very insulting tribute But take it in good heart Congratulations Mom and Dad You've reached Silver together...apart Lots of love etc
What I love about film scoring is that all the answers are in the story. You just need to get in tune with the story and realize it musically.
We must have something of substance to say in our worship [services] that reminds us why Christ's story is so unique and so utterly essential.
The best critics leave the reader curious to pursue something further, but still to let the reader have his or her own honest, unique opinion.
So far as musical pedagogy is concerned - And by extension of musical creation - Nadia Boulanger is the most influential person who ever lived
I don't go to concerts much. I've heard everything. When I do go to movies, I walk out half the time. As for literature, I've read everything.
The qualities in music which I considered most important - and still do - were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.
My writing has always been a rather non-linear process. I've found if I get something down, I can listen to it and other things start to come.
Has it struck you that the music which is regarded as the most sublime in western civilization, which is the music of Bach, is called baroque?
I was watching him crawl, Back over the wall-! Then bang! Crash! And the lightning flash! And- well, that's another story, Never mind- Anyway.
I knew I was going to be composing. It all makes sense in retrospect. But you don't know while you're in the process of improvising your life.
How sad it is that these great gentlemen should believe what anyone tells them and do not choose to judge for themselves! But it is always so.
Composing a piece of music is very feminine. It is sensitive, emotional, contemplative. By comparison, doing housework is positively masculine.
Blacks own so little of the music business, it's pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.
I think everything should happen at halfway to dawn. That's when all the heads of government should meet. I think everybody would fall in love.
My opinion changes rapidly - one minute I can think it is very good and the next time I look at it, I see all the flaws and weaknesses therein.
This rule I propose, Always have an ace in the hole. Always try to arrive at Having an ace some place private . Always have an ace in the hole.
I'm trying to interpret the film through the director's head, but it all comes out through me. So, a composer is kind of like a psychic medium.
The idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting.
Allen Ginsberg was a world authority on the writing of William Blake, and had an incredible knowledge of classic literature and world politics.
Hurry, get on board, it's comin', listen to those rails a-thrumming all aboard. Get on the "A" train, soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem.
The Artist should not forget his mission, perhaps the most religious of all, of sustaining faith in the worthwhileness of art and thus of life.
Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.
Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
Old concept: Love is blind. Marriage is an eye opener. New concept: Love is not blind - it simply enables one to see things others fail to see.
You read about somebody, and doesn't really matter whether or not they really exist - the point is that you get into them like real characters.
I guess I think of a musical as something in which the music is sort of like the engine of the piece - whether it is in the theatre or in film.
Any composer who is gloriously conscious that he is a composer must believe that he receives his inspiration from a source higher than himself.
The heart may freeze, or it can burn. The pain will ease and I can learn. There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as, my last.
The relation between practical and spiritual spheres in music is obvious, if only because it demands ears, finger, consciousness and intellect.
Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.
We tend to think that when we're awake, we're on, and when we're sleeping our mind is off, but actually, we're not off. There's a lot going on!
We never did things as we were supposed to do. That was part of our ethic. We did what felt right to us, not what someone told us we should do.
The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document; it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age.
If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.
You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, You're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch. You're the world.