Quotes About Composition

I am a collection of the family's body parts.

The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.

It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.

Johann Sebastian Bach presumably had other things in mind when, in about 1723, he wrote his "Air on a G string" (actually so named by a later arranger.) Part of a larger piece for string quartet, the "Air" includes a violin solo that fits entirely on the G string, the lowest of the violin's four strings.

Write the story. Don't write sentences.

Style jazzes up your canvas.

Yo dedico un capítulo entero al elegante método de Cicerón, que consta de cinco pasos para la construcción de un discurso (invención, organización, estilo, memoria y ejecución)

Ví dob?e, že provedení ur?ité skladby, zejména pomalé, vyžaduje výdej fyzické síly, ?emuž se radši vyhne. O? lepší je ležérní p?ístup - ten nedávno k dokonalosti, když zkomponoval doprovod k Ronsardovi na duši jen pro levou ruku, nebo? p?edpokládal, že sám bude prava?kou kou?it.

He was experiencing minutes as light as minuets, minutes composed of anxiety and tenderness.

Either it's a good plot or it isn't. And if it's not a good plot, the best writing isn't going to help. And if it is, the worst writing isn't going to hurt it.

The smaller ones should always be preferred to the larger; i.e., rather than having the bass ascend or descend a sixth, we should have it descend or ascend a third, since ascending a third is the same as descending a sixth, just as ascending a sixth and descending a third, ascending a fifth and descending a fourth, or ascending a fourth and descending a

This is what Zarlino means when he says that the bass should proceed by separated intervals, for intervals cannot be consonant unless they are separated. Although Zarlino also says that the bass

Writing is writing

I used to think of them as prolegomena for a book; now I would see a book as prolegomena for the notes.

A theory was forming in his head, like a musical composition he could hum from vague memories but not quite yet name or play.

because material composition so unquestionably entails motion (making a sculpture or a shield or a painting requires motion just as much as walking or horseback riding or rising from one's chair does), we may be predisposed to discover it in mental composition as well.

We find ourselves contemplating at once the compositional surface on which motion occurs and the things that move on that compositional surface because imagining motion requires us to blur the distinction between figure and ground, as when passengers sitting in a stationary train feel themselves begin to fall through space when another train passes by.

She was so pitiful as she lay there on the cold, damp ground that only a heart of stone could have been unmoved. There are many hearts of that composition, however.

Art should aim at the production of individuality in the component details of its compositions.

The song Paul chose for this second session, 'Get on the Right Thing,' is built around McCartney's interesting use of a common-tone harmonic trick: the chords accompanying the song's verses all contain an E natural, but the melody McCartney sings against them steadily rises, creating a subtle tension harmonically, and between stasis and movement.

I had considered orchestrating 'The Long and Winding Road' but I decided against it. I therefore want it altered to these specifications: Strings, horns, voices and all added noises to be reduced in volume. Vocal and Beatle instrumentation to be brought up in volume. Harp to be removed completely at the end of the song and original piano notes to be substituted. Don't ever do it again. Signed, PAUL McCARTNEY c.c. Phil Spector, John Eastman

I can make a song up about anything: garbage, the weather, things in the news.

I had to do this very aggressive, big score in a very short time, and knowing that in the beginning, middle, and end would be this very, very famous theme, but I still had to weave a score around it and make it work as a score was really challenging.

I often use the same harmonies as pop music because the complexity of what I do is elsewhere.