People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Instructive Music Composition quotations
When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it's composition.
I have never doubted the importance of melody.
I like melody very much, and I consider it the most important element in music, and I labour many years on the improvement of its quality in my compositions.
The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket.
Jazz music is a style, not compositions;
any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.
The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.
Part of Michael's uniqueness, I think, comes from the fact that he worked with music. He had a tape which he gave me with many different compositions, really eclectic. These pieces of music were sources of inspiration.
Musical composition should bring happiness and joy to people and make them forget their troubles.
Movies are pieces of film stuck together in a certain rhythm, an absolute beat, like a musical composition. The rhythm you create affects the audience.
I want less and less control with music.
Just playing music without any idea of composition or writing.
The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese.
Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?
In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.
For it is a plain fact that, most certainly in the West, the writings, works of art, musical compositions which are of central reference, comport that which is "grave and constant" (Joyce's epithets) in the mystery of our condition.
It's [music composition] the most effortless thing in the world because you don't do anything. I hate to say it like that, but it's the truth.
I cannot copy nature in a servile way;
I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. From the relationship I have found in all the tones there must result a living harmony of colors, a harmony analogous to that of a musical composition.
From a very early period of my life I have derived the highest enjoyment from listening to music, especially to melody, which is to me the most pleasing form of composition.
Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.
I treat the photograph as a work of great complexity in which you can find drama. Add to that a careful composition of landscapes, live photography, the right music and interviews with people, and it becomes a style.
I began seriously concentrating on music study after I entered senior high school. I went to a class in the arts section at the YMCA and learned music theory and composition. Today, there are many classes like this available, but this was not so much the case in those days.
When we look at a painting, listen to a piece of music, read a novel, or watch a movie we are taking in the artist's composition. The composition is the totality of the work.
What I try to impart to a musician is to really try to practice the instrument in a really sincere way. Learn as much about music as you possibly can. Learn composition. Study to try to create compositions of your own and put your own personal touch on your music.
And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition.
There is much modern music that is better adapted to a wind combination than to a string, although for obvious reasons originally scored for an orchestra. If in such cases the interpretation is equal to the composition the balance of a wind combination is more satisfying.
To the average mind popular music would mean compositions vulgarly conceived and commonplace in their treatment. That is absolutely false.
Cinema is a composite art into which you can include all conceivable art or entertainment forms. In film, I can work with novelistic elements, comedy, drama, music, and other forms of entertainment. Film is a versatile expression, combining all elements into one art form.
Most of my records are very dense, composition-heavy, and there's bits of different kinds of music like an acoustic ballad, instrumental trio pieces, and vocal tracks.
To me music is the sound of nature in process, either the full cacophony, one thread of it, or a deliberate composition. It's both expressive and causal and can organize reality atmosphere like a law of physics.
Writers and musicians know well the importance of extensive reading for successful writing or extensive listening for musical composition. Likewise, visual artists... understand that successful artistic creativity depends upon extensive visual exposure.
The more composed scenes are like elevator music compared to some of the more dynamic styles of music. One is not better than the other. They both deserve their spots in the world.
There is a kinship between music and painting - with the same words used to describe both, as when a musical composition is said to have color and a painting to have rhythm.
The sound of the rain needs no translation.
In music one doesn't make the end of the composition the point of the composition... Same way in dancing, you don't aim at one particular spot in the room... The whole point of dancing is the dance.
Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
All great musical composers have been connected, consciously or unconsciously, with this source of music-a fact that enabled them to become masters of their art. Their compositions contain specific messages brought through from high realms for the definite purpose of bettering world conditions and bestowing upon mankind greater illumination.