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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that music's true purpose may be beyond human understanding and definition.
Charles Ives reflects on the nature of music, proposing that it transcends human curiosity and the desire for clear definition. Instead of attempting to categorize or fully understand music, one might find greater value in embracing it as a form of expression that conveys deeper truths and emotions, serving as a universal language that cannot be completely defined.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of art in society, one might reference this quote to emphasize the ineffable nature of music.
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.
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
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?
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.
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
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
As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does
Perhaps creating something is nothing but an act of profound remembrance.
Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting.
To have the ability to withdraw into oneself and forget everything around one when one is creating - What, I think is the only requirement for being able to bring forth something beautiful. The whole thing is - a mystery.
Is the cinema more important than life?
For my art, there is a common theme most of the time: it is using the things we can see to search for the world we cannot see.
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