If I "try" to play, I fail; if I force the play, I crush it; if I race, I trip. Any time I stiffen or brace myself against some error or problem, the very act of bracing would cause the… — Stephen Nachmanovitch Copy Share Image
Structure ignites spontaneity. Limits yield intensity. When we play... by our self-chosen rules, we find that containment of strength amplifies strength. — 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
