A Quote by James Lane Allen

But the finest music in the room is that which streams out to the ear of the spirit in many an exquisite strain from the hanging shelf of books on the opposite wall. Every volume there is an instrument which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music, as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light. Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the silken-soft leaves of poppies had been made vocal and poured into the ear.
Perhaps it is to prepare to hear some day the music of the spheres that I am always turning my ears to the music of streams. There is indeed a music in streams, but it is not for the hurried. It has to be loitered by and imagined. Or imagined toward, for it is hardly for men at all. Nature has a patient ear. To her the slowest funeral march sounds like a jig. She is satisfied to have the notes drawn out to the lengths of days or weeks or months. Small variations are acceptable to her, modulations as leisurely as the opening of a flower.
My brother was listening to his transistor radio. He kept switching the earpiece from one ear to the other, which I thought was his idea of a joke. 'You can't do that,' I said. 'You can only hear out of one ear.' 'No, I can hear out of both,' he answered. And that was how I discovered I was deaf in my right ear.
I’m trying to embroider.” Hyacinth held up her handiwork as proof. “You’re trying to avoid—” Her mother stopped, blinking. “I say, why does that flower have an ear?” “It’s not an ear.” Hyacinth looked down. “And it’s not a flower.” “Wasn’t it a flower yesterday?” “I have a very creative mind,” Hyacinth ground out, giving the blasted flower another ear. “That,” Violet said, “has never been in any doubt.” Hyacinth looked down at the mess on the fabric. “It’s a tabby cat,” she announced. “I just need to give it a tail.
... the spirit, I think, is a stream, a fountain, and must be continually poured out, for only if it is poured out will more and clearer streams come.
If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed.
When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point.
I suppose because I have a good ear, I could pick out harmonies and learn by ear... I still think that you have to have an ear for music to really be able to feel and understand what you're playing. You can learn by watching and listening to other people.
I suppose because I have a good ear, I could pick out harmonies and learn by ear. I still think that you have to have an ear for music to really be able to feel and understand what you're playing. You can learn by watching and listening to other people.
I had no idea that I was ever getting into music. I did not prepare for a music career, and here I've found, out of pure luck, that I did have, not only a talent and an ear, but a passion for music. And I have it to this day.
Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.
Bowie mattered to me. He reinvented himself so many times - it must have been a daring statement to do that, risking failure. And hanging out with him and seeing him like that - he's my dad's age, born in the same month - when you find someone who's been through a really dark period, which most of his music I care about is from, Low, Lodger, "Heroes" era.... But he came out of it and made something that mattered.
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
Composers don't just sit in a room and write things that are in their heads, they actually listen to a lot of music, pop music, jazz, rock and roll, any combination of music that catches their ear.
Even though poetry was written for the 'minds ear' as well as the physical ear, the minds ear can be trained only by the other ... which comes back to reading poetry aloud.
I grew up playing about 15 instruments and the way that I was able to accomplish that was by cutting my classes, hanging out in the band room all day, and going from one instrument to the next to the next, until I learned how to play everything by ear.
Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed.
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