Composer Quotes - Page 14

• I hadn’t realized that music could unlock things in you, could transport you to somewhere even the composer hadn’t predicted. It left an imprint in the air around you, as if you carried its remnants with you when you went.

  Jojo Moyes

  Air, Remnants, Transport

  Jojo Moyes (2012). “Me Before You: A Novel”, p.170, Penguin

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• I'm really grateful. But I never had the rock star dream. I thought it would be cool to be a modern-day composer.

  Julian Casablancas

  Dream, Stars, Grateful

  "Great white hopes" by Ted Kessler, www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2001.

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• Good composers don't borrow, they steal

  Igor Stravinsky

  Stealing

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• As a composer I might class myself as a Neo-Romantic, inasmuch as I have always regarded music as a highly personal and emotional form of expression. I like to write music which takes its inspiration from poetry, art and nature. I do not care for purely decorative music. Although I am in sympathy with modern idioms, I abhor music which attempts nothing more than the illustration of a stylistic fad. And in using modern techniques, I have tried at all times to subjugate them to a larger idea or a grander human feeling.

  Bernard Herrmann

  Art, Inspiration, Writing

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• I shall be the first composer in history not to have a biography.

  Pierre Boulez

  Biographies, Firsts

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• Everything we do is music." (Classical Composer)(From: 4'33")

  John Cage

  Classical Composers

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• In my view, the composer,
  just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter,
  is in duty bound to serve Man, the people.
  He must beautify life and defend it.
  He must be a citizen first and foremost,
  so that his art might consciously extol human life
  and lead man to a radiant future.

  Sergei Prokofiev

  Art, Men, Views

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• Composer” is a word which here means “a person who sits in a room, muttering and humming and figuring out what notes the orchestra is going to play.” This is called composing. But last night, the Composer was not muttering. He was not humming. He was not moving, or even breathing. This is called decomposing.

  Daniel Handler

  Moving, Mean, Night

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• Every piece of music is a form of personal expression for its creator...If a work doesnt express the composers own personal point of view, his own ideas, then it doesnt, in my opinion, even deserve to be born.

  Dmitri Shostakovich

  Views, Expression, Ideas

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• That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year.

  John Zorn

  Writing, Years, Challenges

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• Many of the greatest composers and musicians do their best work in extreme confinement but we are seeing it in other fields - uses of technology to link people together in networks to solve problems and almost certainly we'll get better ideas than we would from them just doing it on their own.

  Geoff Mulgan

  Technology, Ideas, People

  "Is crowd-sourcing the answer to restoring trust in government?". Interview with Eleanor Hall, www.abc.net.au. November 29, 2012.

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• Fred Sturm has proven to be a great asset to the musical world as a teacher, composer and author. His gifts have enriched the musical life of all the people who have been fortunate enough to share his wisdom and musicality.

  Bob Brookmeyer

  Teacher, Musical Life, People

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• Jerry Goldsmith is the #1 composer working now. He's open to new ideas and always inventing.

  Elmer Bernstein

  Ideas, Working Now, Jerry

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• Once in a while, a teacher gets rewarded with a brilliant student. My two years with Dan Szabo at the New England Conservatory were indeed a gift -- he is a pianist with unlimited potential and a composer that makes my heart sing. I deeply feel that he is an important musician for the coming years.

  Bob Brookmeyer

  Teacher, Heart, Unlimited Potential

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• Composers combine notes, that's all.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Notes

  Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft (1982). “Dialogues”, p.52, Univ of California Press

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• Composers aren't daring enough. They're afraid of that sacred idol called 'common sense', which is the most dreadful thing I know - after all, it's no more than a religion founded to excuse the ubiquity of imbeciles!

  Claude Debussy

  Idols, Ubiquity, Common Sense

  Claude Debussy, François Lesure, Roger Nichols (1987). “Debussy Letters: ,”, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

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• Three of tonights performers are members of the group Return To One, whose album Hopes and Dreams I heard for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Blown away by the album, I called Nathan Hubbard, the drummer and composer for the group, and with whom I've played on a couple of Trummerflora-related occasions, and asked him to round up several of his Return To One cohorts for tonight's show. I can't recommend their album highly enough; please pick up a copy.

  Mike Keneally

  Dream, Couple, Albums

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• Sibelius justified the austerity of his old age by saying that while other composers were engaged in manufacturing cocktails, he offered the public pure cold water.

  Neville Cardus

  Water, Age, Cocktails

  Sir Neville Cardus (1966). “The Delights of Music: A Critic's Choice”, London : Gollancz

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• The composer must bear in mind that the radio listener does not hear music directly. He hears it only after the sound has passed through a microphone, amplifiers, transmission lines, radio transmitter, receiving set, and, finally, the loud speaker apparatus itself.

  Raymond Scott

  Mind, Receiving, Sound

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The (photographic) negative is the equivalent of the composers score and the print is the equivalent of the conductors performance.

  Ansel Adams

  Negative, Score, Print

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• Seen from the point of view of the composer, the most nonsensical practice is that of casting people in musicals who are unable to sing. No one would cast a dancing part with someone who cannot dance sufficiently to come up to professional standards. The same is true of acting. But when it comes to singing, more often than not it is amateur night. . . . Either musicals should be written for specified performers in the first place, or they should be cast with people who are adequate to its dancing, acting and singing demands.

  Ernest Gold

  Night, Views, Practice

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• With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

  Francine Prose

  Reading, Sight, Temptation

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• Outlaws, like lovers, poets, and tubercular composers who cough blood onto piano keys, do their finest work in the slippery rays of the moon.

  Tom Robbins

  Moon, Keys, Blood

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.58, Bantam

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• The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.

  John F. Kennedy

  Fall, Artist, May

  Speech at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, on October 26, 1963. "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy", p. 817, 1963.

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• It's hard to decide how to match words to music. It's not like it's twice the work. It's always difficult for me to explain to the composer what I'm looking for. I'm not a professional; I lack even basic knowledge about writing music

  Ayumi Hamasaki

  Writing, Difficult, Working It

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