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Composing Quote by Nico Muhly

“My urge, when I go to the store, is to buy everything. And it's the same when I'm composing. My first instinct is basically to bring the whole store home, and not make a decision about how things play out.” quote by Nico Muhly — Download Open image

“My urge, when I go to the store, is to buy everything. And it's the same when I'm composing. My first instinct is basically to bring the whole store home, and not make a decision about how things play out.”

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Composing Decision Firsts Home Instinct Play Stores Urges Whole

More by Nico Muhly

In really fancy restaurants they never point to the bathroom, they just gesture toward the bathroom or they'll lead you to the bathroom. The…

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For me the best kind of film music is liturgical music. Liturgical music is essentially a million scores for the same film.

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Riding a horse is a relationship with a foreign creature, and with musicians it's a similar thing: "OK, I'm going to put something on…

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Every couple weeks I'll listen to Sibelius's Seventh Symphony, just to check in, to see how it's doing. It's doing OK.

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Because I had been in conservatory for so long, I was jealous of my friends in bands.

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As a composer you want to tell musicians two completely contradictory things. You want to say, "Play exactly what I wrote, but bring your…

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Whenever I get asked to write orchestra music or music that is for a lot of players, I try to make it a little…

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I'm pretty clear about what I'm capable of doing.

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Even more than in the concert hall, in church there are things you can and cannot do, just out of respect. You would never…

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The score is doing a lot of work. It's like Wagner. It's like a yak carrying people.

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There's a lot of violence in Beethoven not explicitly suggested by the notes or in his markings, necessarily. There's just a way that it…

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Composition is interesting because, in a sense, you always have to let it go. Unless you're a true composer/performer, you're always sending a PDF…

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Explore all 19 Nico Muhly quotes

More Composing quotes

Playing is much, much harder than composing in my opinion, becoming a player. If you want to be a player for all your life…

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As human beings, we are the only organisms that create for the sheer stupid pleasure of doing so. Whether it's laying out a garden,…

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Composing a piece of music is very feminine. It is sensitive, emotional, contemplative. By comparison, doing housework is positively masculine.

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I was really into the music of Cream after I finished composing the music for 'BTTB.'

Ryuichi Sakamoto

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I don't meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.

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Every day I lugged my backpack through the halls, waiting for the final bell. Then I'd race home and hole up in my room,…

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I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around…

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Every orchestra I know, every opera house I know, is desperately looking around trying to find new talent, new composing talent, supporting young composers,…

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.

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The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because…

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The mad is either insane or he is composing verses.

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I love jazz. I still do. Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz are so good. I took a notification course in Jazz Orchestration. It wasn't…

Gordon Lightfoot

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