“Writing music is seventy-five per cent an intellectual activity.  This effort is often more pleasant for me than having a rest.” Conversation with Ravel, recalled by Robert de Fragny, Echo liberté, 7 November 1950. Cited in: Nichols, Roger (1987) Ravel Remembered.  London: Faber & Faber., p. 61.

Vaughan Williams was commissioned to revise the hymn book of the Anglican Church: Hymns Ancient and Modern. This was amounted to a huge task, but beneficial to his compositional outlook. The study of folk music to ensure the “best” versions of tunes was stressed the importance of musical activity in all spheres of music. He […]

“A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.” – Benny Green, British saxophonist Benny Green (1975) A Reluctant Art: The Growth of Jazz.  Books for Libraries Press, p. 16.

“Happy Birthday to You” is not an accidental success. It is not a traditional song nor did it appear ex nihilo. It originated with the Hill sisters, Patty and Mildred, and was first sung in a kindergarten classroom in Louisville, Kentucky in the late 19th century, back when kindergarten was a social experiment. Patty Smith […]

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of all possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” Gloria Steinem, writer http://www.gloriasteinem.com  

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.  Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist. — Beethoven Edwards, Tyron (1891) A Dictionary of Thoughts.  New York: Cassell Publishing […]

I came to think that every notation is already the transcription of an abstract invention. From the instant the pen takes hold of it, the idea loses its original feature. … The invention (Einfall) becomes a sonata, a concerto: it is already an arrangement of the original. From this first transcription to the second, the […]

Title: Abstraction XIII Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score     Related products:     – Abstraction XIII (mp3)  

Title: Sleepy Bear Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE: Your browser does not support the audio element.

“In pantomime every single episode, each movement in each episode (its plastic modulations)—as well as the gestures of every character and the groupings of the ensemble—are determined precisely by the music, by its changes in tempo, its modulations, its overall structure. In pantomime the rhythm of the movements, gestures, and groupings synchronized precisely with the […]