Stephen Nachmanovitch Quotes

Quotes about:

Art Creativity Improvisation Inspiration Muse Surrender

The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Children, Creativity, Imagination

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.47, Penguin

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There are no prescriptive solutions, no grand designs for grand problems. Life's solutions lie in the minute particulars involving more and more individual people daring to create their own life and art, daring to listen to the voice within their deepest, original nature, and deeper still, the voice within the earth.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Change, Art, Lying

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.183, Penguin

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Creativity exists more in the searching than in the finding.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Creativity, Findings

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Play enables us to rearrange our capacities and our very identity so that they can be used in unforeseen ways

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Play, Identity, Way

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.43, Penguin

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Every moment of life is unique-a kiss, a sunset, a dance, a joke. None will ever recur in quite the same way. Each happens only once in the history of the universe.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Sunset, Kissing, Unique

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.24, Penguin

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The Western Idea of practice is to acquire a skill. It is very much related to your work ethic, which enjoins us to endure struggle or boredom now in return for future rewards. The Eastern idea of practice, on the other hand, is to create the person, or rather to actualize or reveal the complete person who is already there.... Not only is practice necessary to art, it is art.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Art, Struggle, Hands

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Technique itself springs from play, because we can acquire technique only by the practice of practice, by persistently experimenting and playing with our tools and testing their limits and resistances.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Spring, Practice, Play

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.42, Penguin

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If I "try" to play, I fail; if I force the play, I crush it; if I race, I trip. Any time I stiffen or brace myself against some error or problem, the very act of bracing would cause the problem to occur. The only road to strength is vulnerability.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Crush, Errors, Race

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.64, Penguin

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The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Art, Way, Success And Failure

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.135, Penguin

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Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Attitude, Mean, Knowing

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Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Intuition, Way, Action

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.41, Penguin

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Structure ignites spontaneity. Limits yield intensity. When we play... by our self-chosen rules, we find that containment of strength amplifies strength.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Yield, Self, Play

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Any action can be practiced as an art, as a craft, or as drudgery.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Art, Crafts, Action

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.10, Penguin

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Play, creativity, art, spontaneity, all these experiences are their own rewards and are blocked when we perform for reward or punishment, profit or loss.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Art, Creativity, Loss

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.45, Penguin

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Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Moments, Surrender, Faithfulness

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.21, Penguin

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Mastery means responsibility, ability to respond in real time to the need of the moment. Intuitive or inspired living means not just passively hearing the voice, but acting on it.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Real, Mean, Responsibility

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.41, Penguin

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Working within the limits of the medium forces us to change our own limits. Improvisation is not breaking with forms and limitations just to be 'free,' but using them as the very means of transcending ourselves.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Mean, Limits, Form

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.84, Penguin

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To create, we need both technique and freedom of technique

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Technique, Needs

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.73, Penguin

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To do anything artistically you have to acquire technique, but create through your technique and not with it.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Technique, Acquire

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.21, Penguin

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In the art of teaching, we recognize that ideas and insights need to cook over a period of time.
Sometimes the student who is least articulate about expressing the ideas is in fact the one who is absorbing
and processing them most deeply. This applies as well to our own private learning of our art form; the
areas in which we feel most stuck and most incompetent may be our richest gold mine of developing
material. The use of silence in teaching then becomes very powerful.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Art, Powerful, Teaching

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Paradoxically, the more you are yourself, the more universal your message. As you develop and individuate more deeply, you break through into deeper layers of the collective consciousness and the collective unconsciousness.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Break Through, Layers, Messages

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.179, Penguin

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Brahms once remarked that the mark of an artist is how much he throws away. Nature, the great creator, is always throwing things away. A frog lays several million eggs at a sitting. Only a few dozen of these become tadpoles, and only a few of those become frogs. We can let imagination and practice be as profligate as nature.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Artist, Practice, Eggs

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.69, Penguin

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This is the evolutionary value of play- play makes us flexible. By reinterpreting reality and begetting novelty, we keep from becoming rigid. Play enables us to rearrange our capacities and our very identity so that they can be used in unforeseen ways.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Reality, Play, Identity

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.43, Penguin

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In improvisation, there is only one time. This is what computer people call real time. The time of inspiration, the time of technically structuring and realizing... the time of playing it, and the time of communicating with the audience, are all one.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Real, Inspiration, People

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.18, Penguin

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As an improvising musician, I am not in the music business, I am not in the creativity business; I am in the surrender business.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Creativity, Musician, Surrender

Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.21, Penguin

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Born: 1950
Occupation: Author
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