33+ Charles Ives Quotes On Education, Music And Success

Charles Ives was an American composer who lived from 1874 to 1954. He is known for his experimental and modernist approach to music, which often incorporated elements of traditional American music. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Charles Ives on education, music, life.

Top 10 Charles Ives Quotes

1. The fabric of existence weaves itself whole.
2. The possibilities of percussion sounds, I believe, have never been fully realized
3. Stand up and take your dissonance like a man.
4. Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth.
5. I don't write music for sissy ears.
6. But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense.
7. A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it?
8. If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances?
9. Every great inspiration is but an experiment.
10. It is more important to keep the horse going hard than to always play the exact notes.

Charles Ives Short Quotes

• Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's.
• You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.
• Everyone should have the opportunity of not being over-influenced.
• Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity.

Charles Ives Quotes About Music

The future of music may not lie entirely in music itself, but rather in the way it encourages and extends, rather than limits the aspirations and ideals of the people, in the way it makes itself a part with the finer things that humanity does and dreams of. — Charles Ives

In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind. — Charles Ives

Music is one of the ways that God has of beating in on man. — Charles Ives

One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife. — Charles Ives

Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy chair? — Charles Ives

My God! What has sound got to do with music? — Charles Ives

Charles Ives Quotes About Experience

An apparent confusion, if lived with long enough, may become orderly . . . A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity — Charles Ives

There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life. — Charles Ives

A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity. — Charles Ives

Charles Ives Famous Quotes And Sayings

The word 'beauty' is as easy to use as the word 'degenerate.' Both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you — Charles Ives

It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience. — Charles Ives

For the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of sense trivial and to count them nothing considerd with his devotion to his art. — Charles Ives

Most of the forward movements of life in general ... have been the work of essentially religiously-minded people. — Charles Ives

Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world. — Charles Ives

Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep. — Charles Ives

All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit is sounded-the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap of the trees. — Charles Ives

If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven. — Charles Ives

In some century to come, when the school children will whistle popular tunes in quarter-tones--when the diatonic scale will be as obsolete as the pentatonic is now--perhaps then these borderland experiences may be both easily expressed and readily recognized. But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense — Charles Ives

Please don't try to make things nice! All the wrong notes are right. Just copy as I have -- I want it that way. — Charles Ives

Life Lessons by Charles Ives

1. Charles Ives' work demonstrates the importance of pushing boundaries and experimenting with new sounds and techniques. He was a pioneer of modernist music who embraced dissonance and polytonality, and was unafraid to challenge traditional musical conventions.
2. Ives' work also emphasizes the importance of being true to one's own creative vision, as he was often criticized for his unorthodox compositions during his lifetime.
3. Charles Ives' work serves as an inspiration to all aspiring composers, reminding us that there is no one right way to make music, and that it is important to take risks and explore new ideas.