A Quote by Charles Ives

Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy chair? — © Charles Ives
Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy chair?
Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.
Beauty is too easy. Often in my work, I take beautiful objects and do extreme things to them so that they are overlaid with something a bit more sinister and violent.
Every so often I'll go back down to earth and I'll make reference to a phone or a house or something, something that's a bit more real. But I suppose what that does, is it puts you in a surreal place but also my music doesn't get too carried away in that sense, which I quite like.
What was once easy became confused and hard, which brings us back to the mystic question, who is God?
It's too easy now to find music, and it's therefore too easy to dismiss music, particularly music that doesn't hit you the first time you hear it.
The smile that illumines the features of beauty, When kindled by virtue, alluring appears; But smiles, tho' alluring, no magic can borrow, To vie with the softness of beauty in tears. The smiles that are sweetest are often deceiving; Too often a mask which the cold-hearted wears; But a tear is the holiest offspring of feeling, And monarchs are weak before beauty in tears.
The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.
I feel increasingly like age is very irrelevant. Quite often, cynicism is confused with wisdom, and my scorn is confused with a knowing, which I don't have.
A gentleman is one who is too brave to lie, too generous to cheat, and who takes his share othe world and lets other people have theirs.
Life's so much easier when you're not always maintaining two worlds: the one formed of lies, which feels real, and the one you live in, which often feels like lies. So easy to get them confused.
Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.
I don't like things that are obvious and so I always try to introduce something that is wrong, something that is different. Just beauty by itself is too easy.
Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises. Sometimes that beauty is too much for me to handle. Do you know that feeling? When something is just too beautiful? When someone says something or writes something or plays something that moves you to the point of tears, maybe even changes you.
It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.
Making music clips, I have a responsibility to depict the artist in a way that suits them, and feels comfortable with how they want to present their music. From there I usually try to tell a story visually that complements the music, that lets the music be the hero element of the project. I just try to do something that feels sincere and creative and a little bit home-brewed so it doesn't feel too plastic or phony.
The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.
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