It happens because you identify so completely with the composer, you’ve studied him so intently, that it’s as though you’ve written the piece yourself. You completely forget who you are or where you are and you write the piece write there. You just make it up as though you never heard it before. Because you become that composer. I always know when such a thing has happened because it takes me so long to come back. It takes four or five minutes to know what city I’m in, who the orchestra is, who are the people making all that noise behind me, who am I? It’s a great experience and it doesn’t happen often enough.
Leonard Bernstein. Cited in: Green, Barry (2003) The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry. New York: Broadway Books, pp. 3-4.
Bernstein on immersive performance
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Trombone Shorty on writer’s block
Sometimes, I’ll work through it, and sometimes, you know, you might have to make a couple of test bottles or test wines, and it helps you get closer. But if I don’t stop, I might get on the machine here and make five tracks, but I know that they’re not really worth anything. I’m just […]
The code of honor in great art“In higher art, only that is worth being presented which has never before been presented. There is no great work of art which does not convey a new message to humanity; there is no great artist who fails in this respect. This is the code of honor of all the great art, and consequently in […]
Tchaikovsky on Arensky“Arensky is a man of remarkable gifts, but morbidly nervous and lacking in firmness—altogether a strange man.” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a letter to N. F. von Meck, Frolovskoe, July 2nd (14th), 1890. Cited in Modest Tchiakovsky, The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, np., Outlook Verlag, 2018, p. 477.
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Believe in Luck“I am a great believer in luck and the harder I work the more of it I have.”— Stephen Leacock, Canadian author American Opinion, volume 2, issues 8-11, page 20
Sanctuary (The Boy and the Heron)Composer: Joe HisaishiArranger: Greg SmithTitle: “Sanctuary”, from The Boy and the HeronInstrumentation: Piano Solo Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.
Abstraction XIITitle: Abstraction XII Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Sample:
George and Ira Gershwin preview Porgy and BessThe stage director of the first Porgy and Bess production recalls hearing the score in Gerswhin's New York apartment: They both blissfully closed their eyes before they continued with the lovely "Summertime" song. George played with the most beatific smile on his face. He seemed to float on the waves of his own music with […]
The inner drama of manIt is not what the artist does that counts. But what he is. Cézanne would never have interested me if he had lived and thought like Jaques-Emile Blanche, even if the apple he had painted had been ten times more beautiful. What interests us is the anxiety of Cézanne, the teaching of Cézanne, the anguish […]
Following the crowd“The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.” Alan Ashley-Pitt (Francis Phillip Wernig) Cited in: Eda LeShan (1973) The Wonderfujl Crisis of Middle Age. New York: Warner Books, p. 304.