Quote

Working within the limits of the medium forces us to change our own limits. Improvisation is not breaking with forms and limitations just to be 'free,' but using them as the very means of transcending ourselves.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Stephen Nachmanovitch
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: November 2
Author
Jazz Musician
Change
Using
Improvisation
Mean
Limits
Limitations
Within
Breaking
Working
Medium
Free
Limitation
Force
Mediums
Means
Forces
Form
Forms
Transcending

More quotes by Stephen Nachmanovitch

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. A frog lays several million eggs at a sitting. Only a few dozen of these become tadpoles, and only a few of those become frogs. We can let imagination and practice be as profligate as nature.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
We provide both irritation and inspiration for each other- the grist for each other's pearl making.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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 kind that happens when we fall in love.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
There are only people doing their imperfect best at doing their imperfect jobs
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
If we split practice from the real thing, neither one of them will be very real.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
There is not ultimate breakthrough what we find in the development of a creative life is an open-ended series of provisional breakthroughs. In this journey there is no endpoint, because it is the journey into the soul.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Any action can be practiced as an art, as a craft, or as drudgery.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Memory and intention and intuition are fused. The iron is always hot.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
With too little judgement, we get trash. With too much judgement, we get blockage.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Practice is an ever-fresh, challenging flow of work and play in which we continually test and demolish our own delusions therefore, it is sometimes painful.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around...The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating, are in fact the growing edges. We see these opportunities the instant we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of ones chosen form.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
There are no prescriptive solutions, no grand designs for grand problems. Life's solutions lie in the minute particulars involving more and more individual people daring to create their own life and art, daring to listen to the voice within their deepest, original nature, and deeper still, the voice within the earth.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Paradoxically, the more you are yourself, the more universal your message. As you develop and individuate more deeply, you break through into deeper layers of the collective consciousness and the collective unconsciousness.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
Commitment to a set of rules frees your play to attain a profundity and vigor otherwise impossible.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
The beauty of playing together is meeting in the One.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Image
If the art is created with the whole person, then the work will come out whole. Education must teach, reach, and vibrate the whole person rather than merely transfer knowledge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch