Cure for the common chord

He [John Holmes] entered my room around midnight and said, “‘Eureka!’ shouted Arnold Schoenberg. ‘I’ve found the cure for the common chord.’”

Ned Rorem (2000) Lies: A Diary 1986-1999.  Cambridge: MA: Da Capo Press, p.104.


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I am the Lord your God – Psalm 80 (81)
Title: I am the Lord, your God. Text: Psalm 80 (81): 10-11ab, 12-13, 14-15 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Music and time
“There is also in this [nineteenth-century romantic] music an extraordinary sense of control over the passage of time; a moment will be held still as if suspended, and then released with a rush. Einstein has told us that time is relative, flexible and elastic; I have noticed these qualities whenever I have tried to play […]
Individuality
“I may not be better than other people, but at least I’m different.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Franco-Swiss philosopher and writer.
Music as a metaphor … or not
“Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.” – Morton Feldman, American composer Cited in Tom Johnson, Remembrance, September 1987. Accessed 11 May 2013.
Gymnopedies No. 1 (Satie)
Title: Gymnopedies No. 1 Composer: Eric Satie Arranger: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello quartet Product medium: PDF score and parts Sample:    
Guiding concepts of artistic creation
“…few of us talk and write about the bigger picture of how our musical and tactical efforts are guided by three distinctly non-musical concepts that don’t get talked and written about often or openly enough: positive vision, abundant thinking, and a sense of self-worth. Thanks to technology, we now live in a world of vast […]
Abstraction X
Title: Abstraction X Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF scoreRelated products: – Abstraction X (MP3) SAMPLE:
Einstein as a musician
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.” – Albert Einstein Cited in: Lyth, David (2019) The Road to Einstein’s Relativity. Boca Ranton: […]
The King’s Entrance
Title: The King’s Entrance Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I –  1 (five finger position) Product medium: PDF score and MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)
Schumann on music
As to what concerns the knotty question in general of how far instrumental music may go in the representation of thoughts and events, many are here too anxious in their attitude. We are certainly wrong if we believe that composers set out pen and paper to realize the miserable intention of expressing, describing, or painting […]