Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Composers - Page 17

Works of art should be stimulating. They should wake people up rather than acting like a sedative.

I don't believe that a writer does something wonderful spontaneously. I believe it's the result of years of living, of study, reading, his very personality and temperament. At one particular moment, all these come together and the artist 'expresses' himself.

I write music, and I want people to listen to it and care about it and have it make some difference in their lives. When I'm fortunate for that to happen, then of course I feel very, very good about it.

I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.

Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted... to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home.

I've never been really interested in music, classical or otherwise, where the craft is more important than the result. I realized quickly that I'd never be a technical electronic musician.

It's a liminal thing, humming, And I'm always interested in liminal things.

In the 1990s music was a beautiful collaborative process between the composer, lyricist and director. They would exchange ideas and magic used to happen.

What better metaphor for the subliminal state than capitalism? This whole notion that you're trying to do good and make things good for the world, but at the same time the reality is that you have to eat other people to end up on top.

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

Who approaches collaboration with agenda in terms of content? The agenda is only in terms of process, which is generosity, listening, careful thinking.

The virtual choir would never replace live music or a real choir, but the same sort of focus and intent and esprit de corps is evident in both, and at the end of the day it seems to me a genuine artistic expression.

Eclectic is a word that appears almost as much as the word smarmy in rock journalism and I've come to the fact, just as a personal side, this reminds of Oscar Wilde's insight that criticism is the highest form of autobiography. I think that's exactly what rock journalism has attempted to do, to celebrate its autobiography at my expense.

I try to move people emotionally.

In Kerala, three of my movies release on the same day and interestingly I am the competitor for myself there.

Music is geometry in time.

Boulez seemed to me to be a guy who wrote laws. Like a company lawyer.

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.

Whatever the raw material, the material itself is unimportant until it's catalyzed by emotional fervor. So in the ideal exchange between me and my listeners, they wouldn't 'figure out' my music. They would feel their pulse racing and the hair standing up on the backs of their necks.

Young people can learn from my example that something can come from nothing. What I have become is the result of my hard efforts.

I think 'lunch' is one of the funniest words in the world.

It's no longer possible to find something which will shock other people, because everything has already been done.

Electronic music used pure sounds, completely calibrated. You had to think digitally, as it were, in a way that allowed you to extend serial ideas into other parameters through technology.

We cannot close our ears; we have no ear lids!

Chano Pozo created the role of the conga soloist in the modern band, somewhat th way Coleman Hawkins created the solo tenor sax.

If a singer wants to improvise while recording a song, he has to get the permission of the composer.

I felt Brighton was a perfect ending to a really interesting career.

Our world exists onlythrough our perception of it. Change our perception of our world and we change the world -- for us.

Of all the arts, music is really the most abstract.

As for my relationship to Beethoven, I admire people who can say what they really think. It's as though he's saying, 'That's how I feel about the world, and I don't care what people may say.' His music is pure and honest. Beethoven never pretends to be anybody else.

Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice.

Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.

If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.

That was more or less coincidental in the sense that my parents wanted me to come back to New York because that's the center of musical activity still to this day, more or less, and so I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera.

It's probable that in the artistic hierarchy birds are the greatest musicians existing on our planet.

Truth is a great flirt.

We've played two shows with seated audiences, and two with a standing audience. Both were cool. Sitting is more mental, in a way, [but] after a while they really want to get up and move. It's very euphoric, I think, because people see what's actually going on. The energy takes over.

I think that the great part of creativity is overcoming fear. Fear is a given. When you sit down and have to begin something, don't be afraid to be filled with fear, because it goes with the turf.

I'm very interested, for instance, in music in education - getting young people not only to listen to, but participate in the music that I write. I consider this one of the most vital aspects of my work.

My urge, when I go to the store, is to buy everything. And it's the same when I'm composing. My first instinct is basically to bring the whole store home, and not make a decision about how things play out.

I have often noticed that when Fate has a phenomenal run of ill luck in store for you, she begins by dropping a rare piece of good fortune into your lap, thereby enhancing the artistic effect of the sequel.

With repeated listenings, a piece eventually becomes its own being. I very often say to students that this is like meeting a person for the first time. When you first meet someone, you reference that person with others who are similar; but, as you get to know that person better, you begin to understand his unique qualities.

Usually, all I want is peace and quiet when I'm driving home.

Sometimes I write them down in musical notation as a trigger to remind me about certain directions to go. Or I can be specific about a sound I'm looking for.

You don't need any specialized education and you don't need to know anything about the world in which I work. I think my music should be able to speak to you even if you've never been to a concert of classical music before.

When I'm writing film music, I feel like I'm more a filmmaker than a composer. It's more about what the film needs. I'm basically part of the team that's creating a film, and the music is a very important part, but it's just one part of many.

All of us in the field must remain constantly vigilant and fight against all types of inappropriate and hurtful behavior and continue the essential work of creating a fair and safe work environment for all classical musicians.

A song is a lot of things. But, first of all, a song is the voice of its time. Setting words to music gives them weight, makes then somehow easier to say, and it helps them to be remembered.

I always believed 'The Fly' to be a classic opera story. It's a tale of love and death, true love surviving in the face of physical decay and ultimate sacrifice.

I am certainly not arguing for the de facto autonomy of the individual work, even though there is much to be said for making the attempt to see it in that light as one facet of the reception process.

Unquestionably, our contemporary world of music is far richer, in a sense, than earlier periods, due to the historical and geographical extensions of culture to which I have referred.

Whenever I get an idea for a song, even before jotting down the notes, I can hear it in the orchestra, I can smell it in the scenery, I can see the kind of actor who will sing it, and I am aware of an audience listening to it.

It was a natural thing for me to go become a musician, and then to start writing music. I don't even really remember making a decision to go into music, it was just there for me, always. If I weren't making a living at it, I'd still be writing music.

I love artists making cool music, regardless of the style.So, if a country artist making really cool music came along and asked me to work with them, I just might say yes, even though I'm not super-knowledgeable about country, like I am about hip-hop. I might do that because the idea is so interesting.

It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do.

I'm the kind of guy that if I go to a concert and hear something that knocks me out, I don't want to be left out of that. I'm going to try to get into that, and I'm running back home to practice.

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.

I think that sonically, music speaks volumes more than words do, and I have always thought that and will continue to think that for the rest of my life.

The idealists will always be in society, and we will survive.

If the music is good, and if it makes sense as a strong structure and as a drama, and things happen as a result of what happened before, not just as a string of unrelated events, then the question doesn't come up.