Quotes About Composition

A photo essay (otherwise known as a fucking slide show)...

In all known life, there are primarily twenty different amino acids. Stringing these twenty amino acids together in varied sequences produces varied proteins, just as intelligently stringing together the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet in varied sequences will produce varied sentences and sonnets.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

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

Music is only sound expressing certain patterns, so to what extent is that sound architecture and to what extent theatre?

I paint from the top down. First the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new.

When the style is fully formed, if it has a sweet undersong, we call it beautiful, and the writer may do what he likes in words or syntax.

Words and sentences are subjects of revision; paragraphs and whole compositions are subjects of prevision.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.

Yet all agree that the Pentateuch is not a single, seamless composition but a patchwork of different sources, each written under different historical circumstances to express different religious or political viewpoints.

All of our songs take these really big creative turns and twists throughout the process, so sometimes songs will start out as a melody or some musical chord progressions.

Editing is really like plumbing a good deal of the time. You put two things together, and a current runs through it.

In fact, I think when we carry out a complete analysis of time, I think what we're going to discover is that like matter, time is composed of elemental, discrete types.

In some types of music I'm working out all the chords one bar at a time - the whole structure, because it's about that. And there are other pieces which are really about - okay, the melody is going to start here and play through to here.

Lyrics can be important, but ultimately, what pulls people in on a song is melody and the tracks and the way music feels.

In my own recent String Trio I attempt to superimpose two quite different sets of formal strategies, both of which, ultimately, refer back to historical precedent.

I write and do all my arrangements on my Mac. And um, I use Logic Pro, which is a great software program.

There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.

Of whatsoever number a fleet of ships of war is composed, it is usually divided into three squadrons; and these, if numerous, are again separated into divisions.

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

Not by wisdom do they [poets] make what they compose, but by a gift of nature and an inspiration similar to that of the diviners and the oracles.

And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.