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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

Aaron Copland

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.
AARON COPLAND

Audience Happy Satisfied Useless
This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”
AARON COPLAND

Answer Jazz Music Problem Quite Simply State
Arthur V. Berger commenting on the music of Aaron Copland: Here is at last an American that we may place unapologetically beside the great recognized creative figures of any other country.
AARON COPLAND

Comment Country Creativity Figure Music
I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
AARON COPLAND

Assemble Compose Material
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
AARON COPLAND

Generally Melody Piece
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
AARON COPLAND

Breathtaking Express Flow Mozart Source Spontaneity Tap
You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
AARON COPLAND

Alive Compose Feeling Live Permanent Today
Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness – I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
AARON COPLAND

Art Inspirational Perhaps Self Subconscious Super
Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.
AARON COPLAND

Couch Music People Relax Stress Wisdom
If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
AARON COPLAND

Literary Men Together Two Word Wrong
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer would be, “Yes”, And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be “No.”
AARON COPLAND

Art Ask Music Problem Quite State
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
AARON COPLAND

Flow Inconceivable Incredible Music Stop Time
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
AARON COPLAND

Cow Fifth Listening Ralph Vaughan Symphony Time
A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.
AARON COPLAND

Flow Great Irresistibly Long Men Mississippi Symphony
Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
AARON COPLAND

Born Complex Inherently Musical Simple
If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.
AARON COPLAND

Ask Compose Flaw Human Musician Name

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

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