They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
I kept thinking there's bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the pursuit of creativity and the struggle to fully express one's artistic vision.
Charlie Parker's quote speaks to the feelings of yearning and frustration that often accompany the creative process. Despite the inherent talent and inspiration that an artist may possess, there can be an elusive element of their art that feels just out of reach, resulting in a continual quest to discover and manifest something deeper and more profound in their work. This struggle is a critical part of the artistic journey, highlighting both the challenges and the beauty of creative expression.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During an art class discussion, I shared this quote to emphasize the ongoing search for artistic inspiration.
More from Charlie Parker
All quotes βIf you come on a band tense, you're going to play tense. If you come a little bit foolish, act just a little bit foolish, and let yourself go, better ideas will come.
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would never have written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker would have never played anything but swing music.
When I first heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise. Something that people could understand, something that was beautiful.
Similar quotes
As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born.
Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.
For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential - the imagination.
My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.
The wonderful thing about writing for theatre is you can go anywhere you want with the language. There are no limits. With film, they frown on language - it's always 'Too many words.'
I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artistsβ relationship is essentially with their work β not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.