I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Duke EllingtonRead
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Interpretation
Be authentic and trust your own creative instincts.
Duke Ellington emphasizes the importance of self-expression and authenticity in the creative process. He suggests that artists should remain true to their own visions and rely on their personal tastes rather than conforming to external expectations or trends.
In practice
In an art class, to inspire students to find their own style.
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
There is no art without intention.
There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.
All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!
For me personally, Elliott Carter was and remains one of the most meaningful composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries because he represents substance. He was the living proof of uncompromising, complex music, which at first seems inaccessible. But it becomes accessible if one digs in and sees the development through.
I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby.
If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.
I enjoy reading about the lives of musicians, and find many similarities in their ideas of preparation and their utter devotion to this great, eternal language: music.
And they three passed over the white sands, between the rocks, silent as the shadows.
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