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The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking Is there a meaning to music? My answer would be, Yes, And Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? My answer to that would be No.

Aaron Copland

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Aaron Copland
Age: 90 †
Born: 1900
Born: November 14
Died: 1990
Died: December 2
Choreographer
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Musician
Music Critic
Music Pedagogue
Musicologist
Pianist
Brooklyn
New York
Would
State
Jazz
Words
Musical
Art
Asking
Problem
Answer
States
Meaning
Music
Answers
Whole
Simply
Stated
Many
Quite
Composer

More quotes by Aaron Copland

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For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.
Aaron Copland
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Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.
Aaron Copland
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This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”
Aaron Copland
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You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
Aaron Copland
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I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.
Aaron Copland
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I don't compose. I assemble materials.
Aaron Copland
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I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.
Aaron Copland
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If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.
Aaron Copland
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You may feel depressed, but it can't be so depressing that you can't move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!
Aaron Copland
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If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.
Aaron Copland
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To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
Aaron Copland
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A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.
Aaron Copland
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You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
Aaron Copland
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The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.
Aaron Copland
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If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.
Aaron Copland
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Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
Aaron Copland
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When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.
Aaron Copland
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The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.
Aaron Copland
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A melody is not merely something you can hum.
Aaron Copland
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So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.
Aaron Copland