Composition Quotes - Page 25

• it may be said that children are but newly-issued editions of old compositions, re-bound and corrected, with fresh introductions, modern print and headpieces, but the text is that of former editions handed down from generation to generation.

  Anna Kingsford

  Children, Generations, May

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• The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

  William Hazlitt

  Critics, Originals

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1498, Delphi Classics

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• A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition.

  Joseph Joubert

  Essence, Ideas, Giving

  Joseph Joubert (1867). “Some of the "Thoughts" of Joseph Joubert”, p.150

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• I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the yes. I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.

  Richard Avedon

  Light, White, Narrative

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• When newspapers are the principal vehicles of the wit and wisdom of a people, the higher graces of composition can hardly be looked for.

  Frances Trollope

  People, Grace, Newspapers

  Frances Trollope (2014). “Domestic Manners of the Americans”, p.208, Oxford University Press

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• Have a special interest, a positive prejudice about some clump of trees or one particular knoll, an excitement about them can spread through the whole composition, and so fire the rest of the things that you are only mildly interested in.

  John French Sloan

  Fire, Tree, Special

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• Degas is a master of creating compositions that don't look composed.

  Max Liebermann

  Creating, Looks, Degas

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• I put myself in the student's place and remember the frustrations, doubts, determination, and desires I felt when I was going through the initial learning process. The things we now do automatically, such as perspective, pencil control, values and composition were as unfamiliar and intimidating as a foreign language.

  Ted Martinez

  Determination, Frustration, Perspective

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• The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command, if it is to do the work assigned to it - if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate - for while a judge must discover some composition with the dominant trends of his times, he must preserve his authority by cloaking himself in the majesty of an overshadowing past.

  Learned Hand

  Character, Past, Judging

  The New York Times, October 06, 1963.

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• Every limited mind demands a certain freedom of expression, and the man who cannot express himself satisfactorily without the stimulation derived from the spirited mode of two centuries ago should certainly be permitted to follow without undue restraint a practice so harmless, so free from essential error, and so sanctioned by precedent, as that of employing in his poetical compositions the smooth and inoffensive allowable rhyme.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Men, Errors, Expression

  "The Allowable Rhyme". Book by H. P. Lovecraft, 1915.

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• Freud believed that our dreams sometimes recapitulate a speech, a comment we've heard or something that we've read. I always had compositions in my dreams. They would be a joke, a piece of a novel, a witticism or a piece of dialogue from a play, and I would dream them. I would actually express them line by line in the dream. Sometimes after waking up I would remember a snatch or two and write them down. There's something in me that just wants to create dialogue.

  David Mamet

  Dream, Writing, Play

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• Body language is so important, as is composition. You can not say something, and then the body reacts, and it says a lot of things dialogue can also say.

  Anton Corbijn

  Important, Body, Language

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• You haven't time to think about the composition. In working directly from nature, the painter ends up by simply aiming at an effect, and not composing the picture at all; and he soon becomes monotonous.

  Pierre-Auguste Renoir

  Thinking, Ends, Painter

  "Renoir: His Life and Work". Book by François Fosca, p. 176, 1975.

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• Photography is unlike any other art form. In the other arts there is always a continuous interplay between the artist and his art. He has the painting or sculpture before him. What we have tried to do is to provide a medium for "artistic expression" to anyone with only a reasonable amount of time. By giving him a camera system with which he need only control his selection of focus, composition and lighting, we free him to select the moment and to criticize immediately what he has done. We enable him to see what else he wants to do on the basis of what he has just learned.

  Edwin Land

  Photography, Art, Expression

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• On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.

  Thucydides

  Believe, Historical Value, Crafts

  Thucydides, Ruth Finnegan “History of Greece”, Lulu.com

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• It's better to find a composition through an instrument and to play it and record it because you have something. It's a composition, and the song is good. It lives as a song. The worst is when you have a song and nothing is working well when you produce it. It's not like what you expect in your imagination. It's the worst because it requires a lot of work.

  Nicolas Godin

  Song, Imagination, Worst

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• The new "ambiguity" means, in a way adjudged favorable to literary, poetic, intellectually and psychologically well-devised and praiseworthily executed linguistic performance, uncertainty of meaning, or difficulty for the interpreter in identifying just what the meaning in question is: it means the old meanings of ambiguity with a difference. It means uncertainty of meaning (of a word or combination of words) purposefully incorporated in a literary composition for the attainment of the utmost possible variety of meaning-play compressible within the verbal limits of the composition.

  Laura Riding

  Mean, Play, Differences

  "On Ambiguity". "Rational Meaning and Supplementary Essays". Book by Laura Riding and Schuyler B. Jackson, edited by William Harmon, 1997.

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• My first album was more about me making a statement, as I felt like I was kind of stuck in the smaller scene of underground House and Techno when the music I produce actually spanned a much wider range of genres, including the more Pop/Trip Hop stuff and more song-based compositions. Comfort was to kind of show that I wasn't just about one thing. Working on Take Flight was my chance to step back and merge the many worlds of music I enjoy working in and showcase it all through a journey of 24 tracks.

  Maya Jane Coles

  Journey, Track, House

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• I was with Miles Davisfor a couple of years as his bass player, and it was a beautiful experience. After two years I said to him, "Listen, man, I want to leave your band." He goes, "Why?" I said, "Because I want to develop not just as a bass player, but I want to get more into composition, into producing, and I'm working with Aretha Franklin and Luther Vandross and all these guys, and I want to really see how much I can grow and develop." He actually gave me his blessing.

  Marcus Miller

  Beautiful, Couple, Blessing

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I've been playing piano my whole life but I'd never tried to understand how compositions are made really. Try to imagine if you'd loved paintings your whole life but had never painted one. My aspiration now is just to understand. I don't have professional pretensions. I've learned so much. So many things I've been doing in the visual, two-dimensional painting world parallel many of the inner working of music - how intervals resolve into each other, harmonic rhythm, tonal things - there's a whole vocabulary that overlaps. Sometimes people see pianos in my works - that I never think.

  Caio Fonseca

  Thinking, People, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I always think about visual comedy. I was raised watching silents, and I'm always thinking about how to make cinema, not good talking - although I want good talking. I'm much more interested in framing, composition, and orchestration of bodies in space, and so forth. My goal is always what Chuck Jones wanted his Warner Brothers cartoons to be, which was if you turn down the sound, you could still tell what's going on.

  Alexander Payne

  Brother, Thinking, Goal

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• Prog-rock and concept records and some ambitious projects were kind of anathema post-punk. They were destroyed with the advent of punk rock. You don't necessarily need to have a degree in music composition to play in a rock band anymore, which is a great thing.

  Colin Meloy

  Ambitious, Kind, Advent

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• To get large groups of people to dance, there needs to be something accessible about the music. The beat can't be too esoteric, but unless we're talking about prog or etherealist composition, I think there's something simplistic about most music. What's completely insane to me is that people would consider music that's simple to be dumbed-down. Couldn't simplicity be a deliberate, smart choice? Those people aren't really listening; they're judging a song off of a beat, off of a pulse.

  Dan Deacon

  Song, Smart, Simple

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to myself with time, not only in terms of my career choices, but the choices I make within one role or performance. I used to compose characters that were farther from me, but I find now that I like to craft a subtle composition, a subtle change in your essence.

  Francois Arnaud

  Character, Choices, Term

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When I start writing a new imaginary future, I have no idea what it is. The characters arrive first. They help me figure out where they are living and I get to fill in the gaps with that and where we are. So when I get to the end of the process of composition, if I feel that I have really done my job, I have no idea what I've got - and I then spend essentially the rest of my life figuring out what it might mean.

  William Gibson

  Writing, Character, Mean

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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