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Quotes by Composer
"There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things."
18
"If you're writing a piece for the Boston Pops, the balance is towards one end. If you're writing a piece for a chamber music society, then it's towards another point. I won't make a final answer on that. I think it changes with every piece."
18
"I think there are influences that you open the door to, and influences that come under the door."
Open,
18
"It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony."
17
"I guess many game music fans prefer original soundtrack albums."
17
"I listened more than I studied... therefore little by little my knowledge and ability were developed."
17
"I think the fact that I created something and had an enormous influence is indisputable."
17
"But somehow, I felt no inclination to be interested in it in any amateur way, let alone professional, until suddenly I became interested. And the first thing I did was to compose: not play an instrument, but to compose."
17
"I think I came across Cecil Taylor a bit later, in 65 or 66. That really impressed me - Cecil Taylor is an amazing character... Both his music and the way he approaches the instrument are astonishing."
17
"My operas and my theatre works are very formal pieces."
17
"So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories."
17
"If music leaves any impression at all, it does so without regard to stylistic issues."
17
"In all my years of performing, no audience member has ever actually assaulted me. I consider this to be the singular triumph of my performing career."
17
"I think about that "empty" space a lot. That emptiness is what allows for something to actually evolve in a natural way. I've had to learn that over the years - because one of the traps of being an artist is to always want to be creating, always wanting to produce."
17
"The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it!"
17
"It is much the best way... to lay the emphasis on the first part of the bar in triple time, and on the first and third parts of the bar in common time."
16
"I was an artistic dilettante for a while, in photography and collage and the visual arts."
16
"It's all about being flexible, and avoiding choices whenever possible. Choices suck, they are inherently limiting."
16
"I am not the world's greatest Negro violinist. I am the greatest violinist in the world!"
16
"When you stop to think about it, so many films today where we don't have that kind of contact are films about alienation. About alienated feelings. We are much more alienated from our colleagues nowadays."
16
"In music, as I find myself forever saying, things don't get better or worse: they evolve and transform themselves."
16
"The second album of Black Mages is currently in the process of recording and the basic tracks have already been completed. Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to have a concert."
16
"Schaeffer gave me permission to work in the studio with a technician, but I've never worked with him."
Work,
16
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