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"But without the experience of actually singing or playing these things yourself, you don't have the same kind of involvement or understanding of what these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music."
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"There is a huge difference between learning about truth and experiencing truth. Touch the source."

"All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it."

"No matter how loud the sirens or how numerous the hazard signs, we all touch the flames at least once to prove they're hot."

"I wear my wrinkles like battle scars, having earned every last one slaying life's dragons. They boast of my victories and some defeats while their beauty is a wealth of wisdom gained."

"Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young."

"Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice."

"Just because a person successfully steers a voyage through hell doesn't mean he ever wants to sail that route again."

"Experience is by industry achiev'd,And perfected by the swift course of time."

"What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?"

"There is more experience on the field of justification than on the camp of training. Sometimes, you got to take actions to learn more."
Explore more quotes by Michael Tilson Thomas

"But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean."

"But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands."

"But still as compared to many, many orchestras in the world, I think you find a lot more new music and living composers on our programs than many other places."

"The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions."

"If we are able to get inside the music and inhabit it convincingly enough, it will cause everyone to find each other in this new psychological space. And that's most exciting."

"But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us."

"You know, they were returning to the language of the people and trying to use musical language, particularly as Copland did to create a musical language in which all Americans would feel that they had a stake."

"In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you'd go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you'd learn to sing a lot of songs."

"But some people will say you just did these programs. Well, yes, the programs are important and I'm proud of the programs, but mostly I'm proud of the way the San Francisco Symphony plays these programs."
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