We don't need to illustrate music; music illustrates itself.
Interpretation
Music is expressive and communicates its emotions without needing external explanation or illustration.
Twyla Tharp's quote emphasizes the inherent power of music to convey emotions, stories, and experiences on its own. Rather than requiring visual aids or additional explanations, music has the ability to evoke feelings and connect with listeners directly through its melody, rhythm, and harmony, demonstrating its self-illustrative nature.
In practice
In a presentation about the impact of music on culture.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot.
Out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. They're cheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap and are very small.
Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is no other way to put life into the story.
One of the interesting things an artist does is they keep rediscovering things, whether it's a jazz piece or a role you've done for 3,000 performances or a song you're singing for the 3,000th time. My job is to find that spark that keeps it fresh and alive.
The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before, and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching.
If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you're going to the bank to borrow money.
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