Often, especially young artists, you feel like you should be doing something. And I think that can be very destructive because creativity is about connecting with the stuff that's deep inside you and making something out of that.
Max RichterRead
All music is just a collision of sounds until you know its internal conventions and understand the nuances. It's a question of familiarity.
Interpretation
Music requires understanding and familiarity to appreciate its depth.
Max Richter suggests that music, at first glance, may seem like a mere assortment of sounds. However, to truly appreciate and understand music, one must familiarize themselves with its structures, conventions, and subtleties, which transform those sounds into a profound experience. This highlights the importance of insight and experience in the appreciation of artistic forms.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of music in education, one could say, 'As Max Richter wisely noted, all music is just a collision of sounds until we learn to understand it.'
Often, especially young artists, you feel like you should be doing something. And I think that can be very destructive because creativity is about connecting with the stuff that's deep inside you and making something out of that.
I'm suspicious of the idea of categories in music and this idea of things being in boxes. To me, that seems unnatural. I write the music that somebody with my biography would write, and the thing that's always driven me is an enthusiasm for the material. I sort of follow the notes to where they want to go.
The thing that makes me want to write a piece of music is having something to talk about, you know? Something I want to get across. Because I'm a composer, music is my first language, and that's what I reach for when I want to convey something.
Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.
Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read,' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself.
I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'
I have a predilection for painting that lends joyousness to a wall.
I had to say to myself, 'I haven't written enough about blackness, yet it's part of my consciousness and my lived experience.' I had to get over that anxiety of 'I haven't done this before.'
Music isn't about music, it's about life.
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