Working within the limits of the medium forces us to change our own limits. Improvisation is not breaking with forms and limitations… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Mastery means responsibility, ability to respond in real time to the need of the moment. Intuitive or inspired living means not just… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh. — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
I no longer sought skill, flexibility, strength, endurance, muscle tone, and quick responsiveness as means of imposing my will on the instrument,… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call. — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Writing, playing, composing, painting, reading, listening, looking-all require that we submit to being swept away by Eros, to a transformation of self of the… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Play cannot be defined, because in play all definitions slither, dance, combine, break apart, and recombine. — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Play enables us to rearrange our capacities and our very identity so that they can be used in unforeseen ways — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
If we are transparent, with nothing to hide, the gap between language and being disappears. Then the Muse can speak. — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Many musicians are fabulously skilled at playing the black dots on the printed page, but mystified by how the dots got there in the… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
In the art of teaching, we recognize that ideas and insights need to cook over a period of time. Sometimes the student who is… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Every moment of life is unique-a kiss, a sunset, a dance, a joke. None will ever recur in quite the same way. Each happens… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Every attempt we make is imperfect; yet each one of those imperfect attempts is an occasion for a delight unlike anything else on earth. — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
An improviser does not operate from a formless vacuum, but from three billion years of organic evolution — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of ones chosen form. — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Brahms once remarked that the mark of an artist is how much he throws away. Nature, the great creator, is always throwing things away.… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
