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Quotes by Composer
"The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics."
46
"I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena."
46
"Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour."
45
"Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light."
45
"For me it's the instrument. If I want to think of a flute and the state of the arts I hear a vibrato; I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me."
44
"So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work."
44
"There's something inimical about the camera and song."
44
"The totality of a record is usually beyond ones ability to imagine when you start working on it, but the component parts are, usually, fairly clear one way or another."
44
"Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift."
44
"I would not say that I was, these days, a 'student' of philosophy, although in my youth I was quite deeply involved with certain aspects of the British pragmatists."
44
"What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds."
43
"The impressionists, Debussy, Faure, in France, did take a few steps forward."
43
"I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last."
43
"I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results."
43
"What that book does for me is give me the tools in the same way that I had the tools when I learned the regular scales or the alphabet. If you give me the tools, the syntax, and the grammar, it still doesn't tell me how to write Ulysses."
43
"The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio."
43
"I'm lucky to be in a profession where you can keep getting better."
43
"Unending was the stream, unending the misery, unending the sorrow."
43
"The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution."
43
"Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes."
43
"Our castle is not imposing, but is well built, and surrounded by a very fine garden. I live in the bailiff's house."
42
"When I was in Paris, all of the German refugees began to flow in and it was a very sad time."
42
"All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish."
42
"I always try to think of a vocabulary to match different musical situations."
42
"The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them."
42
"Well I tried to, but I could never write anything that I liked or was worthwhile. I threw it all out and realized that I had to make a serious study- that my tastes were far more advanced than my abilities."
42
"After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes."
42
"The whole problem of the sound-work is distancing oneself from the dramatic."
42
"Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries."
42
"What I think of as style - and I've gotten to this over years of really thinking about it - is that style is the unconscious choices I make."
41
"One experiments and has to choose always the best results."
41
"Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been put up to a critic."
41
"If you think you might have secret information listening to me, you're lost."
41
"I think there have been some periods when the writing almost became a bit of a burden."
41
"A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it."
41
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