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 CoplandRead
Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.
Interpretation
Complex and simple music are both valuable and valid in their own ways.
Aaron Copland's quote emphasizes that the quality of music is not determined by its complexity but rather by its ability to resonate with listeners. Both complex and simple forms of music can evoke deep emotions and serve meaningful purposes, suggesting that artistic expression transcends technical difficulty.
In practice
In a discussion about different genres of music, you could share this quote to highlight that all forms have their own merits.
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.
I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.
Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: "Every day!"
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
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."
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.
Movies in Hollywood now, for the past 20 or 30 years, are made mainly by lawyers or agents.
Matisse makes a drawing, then he makes a copy of it. He copies it five times, ten times, always clarifying the line. Heβs convinced that the last, the most stripped down, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and in fact, most of the time, it was the first. In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.
Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
When I'm writing a new play, there's a period where I know I shouldn't be out in public much. I imagine most people who create go through something like this. You willfully loosen some of the inner straps that hold your core together.
I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere.
Music is what I have to do, I only answer the questions so that I can do it.
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