Composing Quotes - Page 8

• Composing is a slowed-down improvisation; often one cannot write fast enough to keep up with the stream of ideas.

  Arnold Schoenberg

  Writing, Ideas, Enough

  Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Stein (1975). “Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg”, p.439, Univ of California Press

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• Writing, playing, composing, painting, reading, listening, looking-all require that we submit to being swept away by Eros, to a transformation of self of the kind that happens when we fall in love.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Falling In Love, Reading, Writing

  Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.164, Penguin

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• I have lots of notebooks around, because one great advantage of writing by hand-in addition to how much it slows you down-is that it makes me write at the speed that I feel I should be composing, rather than faster than I can think, which is what happens to me on any keyboard.

  John Irving

  Notebook, Writing, Thinking

  "John Irving Always Knows Where He's Going". "Morning Edition" with Lynn Neary, www.npr.org. November 3, 2015.

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• Composing mortals with immortal fire.

  W. H. Auden

  Fire, Immortal, Mortals

  'Three Songs for St Cecilia's Day' (1941)

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• Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer.

  Ornette Coleman

  Thinking, People, Composer

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• I think of myself of a primitivist. I have never had any of these electronic instruments and I have never had the slightest interest in using them. I use the computer as a tool, simply because it makes composing a lot faster. But I don't go on stage with a computer and make a lot of goofy sounds.

  Glenn Branca

  Thinking, Sound, Tools

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

  Thom Gunn

  Trying, Want, Corny

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• I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Writing, Sentences, Ifs

  Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5298, NYU Press

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• The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.

  Albert Einstein

  Political, Independence, Cohesion

  Albert Einstein (2011). “The World As I See It”, p.17, Open Road Media

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• I began composing the next poem, the one that was to be written next. Not the last poem of those I had read, but the poem written in the head of someone who may never have existed but who had certainly written another poem nonetheless, and just never had the chance to commit it to ink and the page.

  Steve Erickson

  Ink, May, Pages

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• Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.

  Matt Hardy

  Inspirational, Photography, Portraits

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• The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.

  John Stuart Mill

  Running, Long, Citizenship

  'On Liberty' (1859) ch. 5

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• All of your experience comes into play when you're composing.

  Terry Bozzio

  Play

  Source: beintheloopchicago.com

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• Composing was more difficult than writing things down.

  Benjamin Clementine

  Writing, Writing Things Down, Difficult

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When you're composing for somebody, that means you have a boss. You have to do what it takes to, at the end of the day, appease them.

  Adrian Younge

  Mean, Boss, The End Of The Day

  "Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge Turned the '2016 Black Experience' Into the 'Luke Cage' Soundtrack". Interview with Justin Davis, www.complex.com. October 5, 2016.

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• Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.

  Gustav Holst

  Nuisance, Stimulation

  Gustav Holst, Michael Short, William Gillies Whittaker (1974). “Gustav Holst, letters to W. G. Whittaker”, University of Glasgow French and German Publications

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• The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, America, Principles

  Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Caldwell Calhoun (1832). “The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and '99: With Jefferson's Original Draught Thereof. Also, Madison's Report, Calhoun's Address, Resolutions of the Several States in Relation to State Rights. With Other Documents in Support of the Jeffersonian Doctrines of '98”, p.15

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• Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.

  Clara Schumann

  Winning, Self, Giving

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• The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.

  John Cage

  Listening, Facts

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• In a way, composing on the melodic level is an expression of a melodic truth, almost like a geometric truth. If it has clarity, other people will recognize it. There's no way of isolating it in a gallery on a white wall and saying, "This is a work of art. This is a mathematical proof."

  Eyvind Kang

  Art, Wall, Expression

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Our individual consciousness is actually part of a larger system. There are many levels of consciousness, and the creativity used in composing the music comes from another level that is not purely personal.

  Eyvind Kang

  Creativity, Levels, Consciousness

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• That's how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that.

  Benjamin Clementine

  Writing, Trying, Firsts

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.

  Donald Knuth

  Digital, Computer, Program

  Donald E. Knuth (1997). “The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms”, p.6, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• I would love to compose more fantasy music, whether it's for a film or a game. That genre has so much opportunity for harmonic experimentation, not to mention all the interesting instruments that become available when composing music for alien species and other worlds.

  Jason Graves

  Opportunity, Other Worlds, Games

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• I'm trying to conduct only five months a year, and the rest will be composing time. I'm trying to spend as much as I can out of those months here in L.A., because for creative work, this is a fantastic place.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Years, Creative, Trying

  Source: www.pbs.org

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