Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
AARON COPLANDThe main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.
More Aaron Copland Quotes
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If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
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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 -
The melody is generally what the piece is all about.
AARON COPLAND -
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 -
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.
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When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.
AARON COPLAND -
Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
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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.
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I don’t compose. I assemble materials.
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The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
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So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.
AARON COPLAND -
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.
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Someone once asked me… whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: “Every day!”
AARON COPLAND -
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.
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A melody is not merely something you can hum.
AARON COPLAND