A Quote by W. H. Auden
The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.
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It is one of our most exciting discoveries that local discovery leads to a complex of further discoveries. Corollary to this we find that we no sooner get a problem solved than we are overwhelmed with a multiplicity of additional problems in a most beautiful payoff of heretofore unknown, previously unrecognized, & as-yet unsolved problems.
It is strange, but true, that the most important turning-points of life often come at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected ways.
The most exciting science requires the most complex instruments.
The most beautiful sea hasn't been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child hasn't grown up yet.
The most beautiful days we haven't seen yet.
And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
I haven't said yet.
There can be no question of selecting in any direction, but of penetrating the whole cosmic law of rhythms, forces and material that are the real world, from the ugliest to the most beautiful, everything that has character and expression, from the crudest and most brutal to the gentlest and most delicate; everything that speaks to us in its capacity as life.
Many an American jazz musician has been beguiled by the lush melodies and sumptuous rhythms of Brazilian music, but Peter Sprague has taken the romance a good deal further than most.
Melodies can be good depending on the context. You can have a simple melody, and if the harmony behind it is interesting, it can make a very simple melody really different. You can also have a complex melody. The more complex it is, the harder it is to sing, and then sometimes it can sound contrived. You could write a melody that would be fine on a saxophone but if you give it to a singer, it can sound raunchy.
For me, it's the unexpected and surprising combinations of produce that are the most exciting and lure me into the kitchen for a little bit of experimenting. Apples and sweet potatoes together? Who knew? Carrots with grapes? Okay. I may not be Julia Child, but I can do pretty well with a simple recipe and a lot of enthusiasm.
Beauty means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A lot of different ways in which things can be beautiful. But this really has a very specific meaning and which is more along the lines of elegance which is that we say an idea is beautiful or elegant in mathematics or physics if a very simple principle or a very simple idea, or simple set of ideas, turns out to be very powerful and leads to all sort of unexpected structure and unexpected predictions.
Rather than studying the most complex form of memory in a very complicated animal, we had to take the most simple form - an implicit form of memory - in a very simple animal. So I began to look around for very simple animals. And I focused in on the marine snail Aplysia.
In western classical music with an orchestra, you focus the orchestra on melodies and harmony. In African music, the biggest focus is on rhythms and counter-rhythms - the complexity of rhythms.
Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.
For one person, Haydn is most exciting. Or Bach is the most exciting. For another, it's Carter or Strauss. For me - and for any musician - all of the music is exciting. And if you don't approach it with excitement, we can't be musicians.
Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable. In terms of idea the artist is free to even surprise himself. Ideas are discovered by intuition.
There is the idea that, when we look at things, it is the yellow light that helps us the most, that we are the most sensitive for. But our circadian rhythms, which are the rhythms that help us to wake and sleep and be alert and relaxed and so forth and so on, they are much more triggered by blue light.
All propaganda or popularization involves a putting of the complex into the simple, but such a move is instantly deconstructive. For if the complex can be put into the simple, then it cannot be as complex as it seemed in the first place; and if the simple can be an adequate medium of such complexity, then it cannot after all be as simple as all that.
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