After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, 'In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.John Cage
About This Quote
Vladimir Schoenberg, a composer most famous for his 12-tone system of composition , said, "If you want to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." The statement is most often cited as an example of the power of suggestion. On one hand, it's hard to imagine that if you don't feel harmony, then you shouldn't be writing music. But there's also something about the idea that you can't possibly create something until you've felt it before. There has to be some instinctive understanding of what leads to beauty and what doesn't.
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- I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
- There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
- Freedom from likes and dislikes, the sudden sense of identification, the spirit of comedy.
- All great art is a form of complaint
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