In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind. — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if… — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
In some century to come, when the school children will whistle popular tunes in quarter-tones--when the diatonic scale will be as obsolete as the pentatonic is now--perhaps then these borderland experiences may be both easily expressed and readily recognized. But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music… — Charles Ives Copy Share
It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience. — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it… — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
Most of the forward movements of life in general ... have been the work of essentially religiously-minded people. — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life… — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
The future of music may not lie entirely in music itself, but rather in the way it encourages and extends, rather than limits the… — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
An apparent confusion, if lived with long enough, may become orderly . . . A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something… — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
The possibilities of percussion sounds, I believe, have never been fully realized — Charles Ives Copy Share Image
Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is… — Charles Ives Copy Share
