“What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music?” ThinkingWritingYearsPlayHappensWaitingPiecesExpressionAnd LoveThirtySincereComposerThirty Years Author:Charles Mingus
“When I'm writing a play I hear it like music. I use the same indications that a composer does for duration. There's a difference, I tell my students, between a semi-colon and a period. A difference in duration. And we have all these wonderful things, we use commas and underlining and all the wonderful punctuation things we can use in the same way a composer uses them in music. And we can indicate, as specifically as a composer, the way we want our piece to sound.” WayWantWritingDoePlayUseSoundDifferencesPiecesWonderfulStudentsPeriodsComposerWonderful ThingsIndicationDurationPunctuationPlaywriting Author:Edward Albee
“When people listen to my music, I hope that they will notice that if you take a piece by a composer like Schubert, the major and the minor triad is an extermely important thing not merely as harmony, but in creating melodic lines. Schubert is always walking up and down with arpeggios on C, E, G and so forth. I am not doing anything different really, except using a different system of harmony.” PeopleIfsImportantDifferentLinesPiecesWalkingCreatingMajorsHarmonyImportant ThingsComposerMinorsUp And DownSchubertTriads Author:Elliott Carter
“A large part of my work has been collaborating with composers; I think we've commissioned about 140 pieces now, a lot of them percussion concertos.” ThinkingHas BeensPiecesComposerCollaboratingPercussion Author:Evelyn Glennie
“Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines?” WritingEnoughFactsAbleSituationPiecesExerciseAmbitionMachinesComicUncomfortablePensComposerOfferingPrivilegedChamberAdvertisementsCartoonistUnheardComic StripsIllustratorsToyotaUncomfortable SituationsChoosy Author:Chris Ware
“As a pianist, our particular role is to enter a piece and its logic and create a particular interpretation from our understanding. The most important thing for the performer is, after all, to create a special atmosphere - we enter the composer's feelings and emotions and recreate them freshly for a given audience.” ImportantFeelingsGivenUnderstandingEmotionRolesAudiencePiecesSpecialParticularLogicImportant ThingsAtmosphereInterpretationPerformersComposerFeelings And EmotionsPianist Author:Rafal Blechacz
“I usually need a lot of time to be completely alone with the particular piece, the composer, and the instrument. I also prefer a very quiet atmosphere, and I usually choose pieces that are very close to my personality, my heart. I think the audience can feel it.” ThinkingNeedsFeelsHeartAudiencePiecesParticularPersonalityMy HeartQuietInstrumentsAtmosphereComposer Author:Rafal Blechacz
“In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. “Explaining” them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living.” NeedsArtValuesLevelsCasesTeacherPiecesWrittenPaintingFineCriticsPainterInstructionComposerSuperficialExplainingAmbiguityNonverbal Author:Stanley Kubrick
“I've always had my ear peeled for interesting music. As a student, I regularly spent time hunting for interesting repertoire, looking through music bins, buying stacks and stacks of CDs, and discovering rarely played pieces by composers.” InterestingPiecesStudentsEarsBuyingComposerHuntingDiscoveringCds Author:Anne Akiko Meyers
“I'm not a frustrated concert composer, and the concert pieces I've done have been a small part of my work. What I've sought there is instruction, variation from the demands of film and relief from its restrictions.” Has BeensDoneFilmPiecesDemandReliefConcertsInstructionComposerFrustratedRestrictionVariationSmall Parts Author:John Towner Williams
“I have often read critical pieces where the critic said that what the composer was trying to do didn't come off. I have wondered what the critic meant if he didn't know what the composer was trying to do.” IfsKnowsTryingSaidPiecesCriticsCriticalComposer Author:Ornette Coleman
“Elizabeth Lutyens was the first professional composer that I ever knew. I sent someextremely infantile pieces that I I'd written and got marvellous encouragement andinterest from her... she's certainly the English composer who's influenced me themost.” FirstsPiecesWrittenEncouragementComposerMarvellousInfantile Author:Richard Rodney Bennett