“Creative people, as I see them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the “divine madness,” to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks. They do not run away from non-being, […]

Logically, a hunch makes as much sense as saying, horses have tails; therefore, all tails have horses.”  But in the zany world of films you don’t explain hunches — you just live and die by them. Frank Capra (1971) The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography.  Macmillan, p. 123. 

Title: Unless the Lord has built the house Text: Psalm 126 (127) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB Product medium: PDF score Sample:

“I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.” — Thomas Edison, American inventor A. R. Calhoun How to Get On in the World; or, a Ladder to Pratical Success, New York, 1895, p.137.  Digitally archived at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20608/pg20608.html, accessed 18 September 2021. 

> Title: Tally Ho Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – 1.1 (five finger position with movement to the 6/4 position) Product medium: PDF score and MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLES: (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)

“My interest lies in my self-expression — what’s inside of me — not what I’m in.” – John Turturro, American actor Cited at: QuotationsBook  

Harpsichordist  Jane Chapman performs both early music and Avante music, including using techniques to use distortion on the harpsichord! “Many early music people are interested in contemporary music, too, and many composers are also interested in early music instruments because they don’t have the baggage of the [classical and romantic periods]. Increasingly, younger generation composers […]

We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can […]

What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. – T. S. Elliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Mozart was not at all a purely instinctive, intuitive artist. His remarks to the effect that he “loved to plan works, study, and meditate” and that “he preferred to work slowly and with deliberation” [demonstrate this] … On one level, Mozart’s musical aesthetic is informed by three fundamental and closely related principles that can be […]