Elliott Carter Quotes
The first thing that struck me about contemporary music in general had been thatthere was not much interest in rhythm.
Quotes to Explore
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It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.
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Following graduation from Amherst, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled me to test the depth of my interest in literary scholarship by beginning graduate studies at Harvard University.
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Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.
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I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music.
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My specialty is two things: music or really strange stories.
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I feel that Christian music is a subculture directed towards the Christians. It's not really being exposed to non-Christians and it's not really created for non-Christians, so non-Christians almost never hear any of this music.
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Music is really nothing if you think about it - it only becomes something when somebody listens to it. And then it becomes uncontrollable.
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Obviously, you want to honour the sound of your music, but I'm definitely open to trying new things and making myself use a different palette of sounds.
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I'm the artist when I'm doing music that I am when I'm acting. I'm everything.
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One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
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The perfect day for me is waking up and having a cup of tea with my kids before I drive them to school; Then, I go into the studio and try and write some music for three or four hours and give up about noon.
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I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn't exist without the performance-art element.
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The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
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My dad was a huge big band and jazz fan, and we both sort of enjoyed be-bop, but man, it required so much skill to play it. And then there was cool jazz, the era that Miles, Coltrane, and Ornette ushered in, and that found a home in me. It turns out that that music was just really where I breathed.
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Music is the best means we have of digesting time.
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Sports without music is just a game. Music makes it entertaining.
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But anyone who knows anything about the music industry knows it's not only about the music.
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Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.
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That penetrating gaze, that intelligence; it's hard not to be anthropomorphic when you're looking at a great ape - at any primate - but especially with gorillas. They're just so magnificent.
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As things mature - whether they be real estate, rock n' roll, politics, festivals, radio - there's an efficiency that develops, and with it, very often, comes some soul-crushing truths.
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Nature constantly imitates art.
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The Social Register is a nice address book for some people, but that's about it.
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Practicing mindfulness calms down the sympathetic nervous system, so that you are less likely to be thrown into fight-or-flight.11 Learning to observe and tolerate your physical reactions is a prerequisite for safely revisiting the past. If you cannot tolerate what you are feeling right now, opening up the past will only compound the misery and retraumatize you further.12 We can tolerate a great deal of discomfort as long as we stay conscious of the fact that the body’s commotions constantly shift. One moment your chest tightens, but after you take a deep breath and exhale, that feeling softens and you may observe something else, perhaps a tension in your shoulder. Now you can start exploring what happens when you take a deeper breath and notice how your rib cage expands.13 Once you feel calmer and more curious, you can go back to that sensation in your shoulder. You should not be surprised if a memory spontaneously arises in which that shoulder was somehow involved.
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The first thing that struck me about contemporary music in general had been thatthere was not much interest in rhythm.
