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"One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there."

Stephen Sondheim, American Composer

Music, Writer, Writing

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"One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there."

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"I can't read a note of music. I just do it all from ear."

Jane Horrocks, English Actress

"What I try to impart to a musician is to really try to practice the instrument in a really sincere way. Learn as much about music as you possibly can. Learn composition. Study to try to create compositions of your own and put your own personal touch on your music."

Roscoe Mitchell, American Composer

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"I'm thinking in terms of a point of departure, a field of action for performers to express an expressive need of mine which hopefully the context of music would convey."

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"Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior."

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"I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music."

Steve Lacy, American Musician

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"If you talk bad about country music, it's like saying bad things about my momma. Them's fightin' words."

Dolly Parton, American Musician

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"Music is the highest form of philosophy of the conscious mind."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

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"I think it's like music for the sake of music, and a lot of the words stem from liking music a lot, wanting to be a good band and having a good sense of humour, and living in a situation where we're free to pretty much do what we want."

Jon Fishman, American Musician

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"I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time."

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"To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but, with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed."

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Explore more quotes by Stephen Sondheim

"Nowadays, there are sometimes more producers than there are people in the cast, because it takes that much money to put a show on."

"When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors."

"A close-up on screen can say all a song can."

"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."

"By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur."

"Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead."

"One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music."

"Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it."

"Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall."

"You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people."

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