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Composing Quotes

Browse 246 quotes about Composing.

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Composing Quotes

“Deep breaths. I am taking deep breaths. Composure. Which, for me, means composing... Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over something I have no control over. Like, if it's just a story I'm telling or a song I'm singing, then I'll be okay because I'm the guy who's providing the words.”

IfsWayMeanStoriesGuySongCreatingSingingIllusionOkayBreathsMy WayProvidingComposingDeep BreathComposureIllusion Of Control
Book:Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
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“At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.”

IfsWayWantWritingMaySaidSelfCareOpinionRiskSentencesRidiculousPeersEvidentSeemingComposingPrevailingReviewers
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Whoever you are, bear in mind that appearance is not reality. Some people act like extroverts, but the effort costs them energy, authenticity, and even physical health. Others seem aloof or self-contained, but their inner landscapes are rich and full of drama. So the next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.”

PeopleMindPersonsSelfRealitySeemsMightRememberFacesNextEnergyVoiceEffortRichDesignBearsDramaCostQuietAppearanceAuthenticityLandscapeHatsNext TimeEquationsSonnetComposingPhysical HealthAloofExtrovertsSelf ContainedDeploying
Book:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
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“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.”

InspirationalArtSoundSilenceMusicListeningMusicianPaintPainterComparisonComposerCanvasDeep ThoughtListening To MusicClassical MusicPlaying MusicGreat MusicComposingConductorFiddleInspirational MusicArt And MusicMusic SoulArt MusicMusic LifeWorld MusicGreat MusicianSound Of MusicMusic And LifeFamous MusicianClassic MusicSound And MusicComposing MusicMusic PracticeJazz And LifeMusic SpeaksClassical ComposersMusic ArtistClassical MusiciansInstrumentalistsAmbient Music
Author:Leopold Stokowski
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“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

ArtSimpleMusicAchievementMusicianNotesRewardsFinalsSimplicityAccomplishmentSongwritingComposerQuantityClassical MusicSimple LifeSimple ThingsMinimalismPlaying MusicComposingSimple LivingLess Is MoreLiving A Simple LifePlaying PianoComposing MusicLife Is SimplePiano MusicPiano PlayingClassical ComposersSimplicity In ArtNotes Music
Author:Frederic Chopin
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“If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid.”

IfsShouldWellsMightFormLife IsDeathSpiritualityPracticeOughtHabitApproachSurpriseEggsRemembranceLife DeathComposingExpectancyInsipidThoughts Of Death
Author:Muriel Spark
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“The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; . . . the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression.”

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Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788
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“That's why I'm so passionate about making music for movies because you dive in and find the best ideas to bring tolife a collective piece of art. ... [Composing] is not a job for me. And that explains why I never stop. Even though it's tough on your body and your brain and the sacrifices you have to make, what can I do? I'm passionate about it so I never stop.”

ArtIdeasBodyJobsBrainMusicPiecesSacrificeToughPassionateYour BodyCollectivesComposing
Author:Alexandre Desplat
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“I think [game music] is something that should last with the player. It's interesting because it can't just be some random music, but something that can make its way into the player's heart. In that sense, this not only applies to game music, but I feel very strongly about composing songs that will leave a lasting impressionWhat I must not forget is that it must be entertaining to those who are listening. I don't think there's much else to it, to be honest. I don't do anything too audacious, so as long as the listeners like it, or feel that it's a really great song, then I've done my job.”

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Author:Yasunori Mitsuda
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“BEAUTY will result from the form and correspondence of the whole, with respect to the several parts, of the parts with regard to each other, and of these again to the whole; that the structure may appear an entire and compleat body, wherein each member agrees with the other, and all necessary to compose what you intend to form.”

MayWholeBodyFormResultsBeautyMembersRespectRegardAgreeStructureAppearanceCompletionComposingCorrespondenceEntiretyInterconnection
Author:Andrea Palladio
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“Because I have become such a solitary, and not in the Aristotelian sense: not a beast, not a god. Rather, a loner troubled by longings, incapable of finding a suitable language and despairing at the impossibility of composing messages in a playable key--as if I no longer understood the codes used by the estimable people who wanted to hear from me and would have so much to reply if only the impediments were taken away.”

PeopleIfsWantedUsedLanguageTakenKeysFindingsMessagesUnderstoodLongingCodeBeastSolitaryIncapableImpossibilitySuitableLonerComposingImpediments
Book:Saul Bellow: Letters
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“The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.”

PeopleLongGovernmentRunningFoundIndividualNationsLevelsBehindsLong RunsComposing
Book:Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct
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“From this time everything was copulated. Acetic, formic, butyric, margaric, &c., acids, alkaloids, ethers, amides, anilides, all became copulated bodies. So that to make acetanilide, for example, they no longer employed acetic acid and aniline, but they re-copulated a copulated oxalic acid with a copulated ammonia. I am inventing nothing-altering nothing. Is it my fault if, when writing history, I appear to be composing a romance?”

IfsWritingBodyRomanceScienceExampleFaultsEmployedAcidInventingComposingWriting History
Book:The Development of Chemistry, 1789-1914: Chemical method
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“What I am asserting is that in this particular epoch a conjunction of historical circumstances has led to the rise of an elite of power; that the men of the circles composing this elite, severally and collectively, now make such key decisions as are made; and that, given the enlargement and the centralization of the means of power now available, the decisions that they make and fail to make carry more consequences for more people than has ever been the case in the world history of mankind”

PeopleMenWorldMeanMadeGivenDecisionCasesFailingMankindParticularHe ManKeysCircumstancesConsequenceHistoricalAvailableCirclesElitesWorld HistoryComposingEpochConjunctionsCentralizationEnlargement
Book:The Power Elite
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“When anyone seriously pursues an art - painting, poetry, sculpture, composing - over twenty or thirty years, the sustained discipline carries the artist down to the countryside of grief, and that descent, resisted so long proves invigorating. . . . As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.”

YearsLongArtAbleArtistGriefPaintingDisciplineSorrowProveTwentiesPursueThirtyCarrieSculptureThirty YearsCountrysideComposingDescentInvigorating
Author:Robert Bly
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“I've found in composing that being simple and profound—having in-depthness in your music—is the most difficult thing to do. Anybody can write a whole lot of notes, which may or may not say something . . . But why make it complicated for the musicians to play? Why make it difficult for the listeners to hear?”

WritingMayPlayWholeFoundDifficultSimpleMusicianMusic IsNotesProfoundComplicatedThings To DoListenersDifficult ThingsComposing
Author:Horace Silver
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“When we hear a Mozart piano concerto today, we're most likely to hear the piano part played on a modern concert grand. In the hands of a professional pianist, such a piano can bury the strings and the winds and hold its own against the brass. But Mozart wasn't composing for a nine-foot-long, thousand-pound piano; he was composing for a five-and-a-half-foot-long, hundred-and-fifty-pound piano built from balsa wood and dental floss.”

LongHandsTodayHalfFiveFeetModernWindThousandHundredBuiltWoodsNinePianoFiftyPoundsStringsConcertsComposingPianistBrassDentalDental Floss
Author:Robert Greenberg
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