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If we split practice from the real thing, neither one of them will be very real.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

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Stephen Nachmanovitch
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: November 2
Author
Jazz Musician
Real
Thing
Split
Splits
Neither
Practice

More quotes by Stephen Nachmanovitch

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The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
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When we are totally faithful to our own individuality, we are actually following a very intricate design. This kind of freedom is the opposite of just anything.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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An improviser does not operate from a formless vacuum, but from three billion years of organic evolution
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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.
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We can depend on the world being a perpetual surprise in perpetual motion.
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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
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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
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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
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With too little judgement, we get trash. With too much judgement, we get blockage.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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If we are transparent, with nothing to hide, the gap between language and being disappears. Then the Muse can speak.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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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 only once in the history of the universe.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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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
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The beauty of playing together is meeting in the One.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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There are only people doing their imperfect best at doing their imperfect jobs
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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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
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We provide both irritation and inspiration for each other- the grist for each other's pearl making.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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The professionalism of technique and flash of dexterity are more comfortable to be around than raw creative power, hence our society generally rewards virtuoso performers more highly than it rewards original creators.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of ones chosen form.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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Commitment to a set of rules frees your play to attain a profundity and vigor otherwise impossible.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
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As an improvising musician, I am not in the music business, I am not in the creativity business I am in the surrender business.
Stephen Nachmanovitch