You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
Interpretation
Melodies are a divine inspiration that cannot be fully learned through study alone.
In this quote, Quincy Jones emphasizes the importance of innate talent and divine inspiration in music creation. While technical skills such as orchestration and harmony can be studied and mastered, the essence of melody, which is often seen as the heart of music, is something that transcends academic learning and comes from a higher source, reflecting the spiritual nature of art.
In practice
A composer might use this quote during a masterclass to inspire students about the essence of creating melodies.
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
I think the attraction of 'American Idol' is about the basic human nature attitude that is, 'We can put you up there. But we can take you down.'
There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.
Beauty is something that burns the hand when you touch it.
The dominant invades the entire picture, as it were. In this way I seek to individualize the color, because I have come to believe that there is a living world of each color and I express these worlds.
I often use the same harmonies as pop music because the complexity of what I do is elsewhere.
You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.
I think in London - and I don't wanna offend anybody in America, but this is a real statement - they still have the right approach to making music. In the U.S., people see it as a way to make money; they see it as a means to get out. It's a hustle, which is great - any way you can provide for your family that's legal is fantastic.
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