Words matter. These are the best Lukas Foss Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The best way to investigate the elusive phenomenon called the creative process may well be to target all the misconceptions, to explain what the creative process is not.
Truth implies meaning.
In the nineteenth century the more grandiose word inspiration began to replace the word idea in the arts.
There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one’s identity by falling in love.
Any creator owes a debt to past creation.
Great music does not just make me feel good. It means something. It makes us understand. It makes us happy.
Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.
Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.
To understand Mozart’s contradictory qualities would indeed be to understand genius.
For years that may mean imitation. Then, one day, it is like a door opening, and a new thought comes in. Why not try this instead. Suddenly he is doing something original, almost in spite of himself.
Since age seven, I’ve been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.
I don’t dare postulate about science, but I know that it takes both emotion and intellect in order for art to happen.
My students frequently ask what their next project should be. My advice: immerse yourself in the music you love and you will find what you want to do; you will discover your next project.
Mozart wrote so many works in his thirty-five years that it would take a lifetime just to write out the notes. We literally do not know how he did it.
Personality is essential. It is in every work of art. When someone walks on stage for a performance and has charisma, everyone is convinced that he has personality. I find that charisma is merely a form of showmanship. Movie stars usually have it. A politician has to have it.
It is the element I miss in electronic music – no performance, no loving immersion. Maybe that is why I was never particularly drawn to electronic music.
The creative act is like writing a letter. A letter is a project; you don’t sit down to write a letter unless you know what you want to say and to whom you want to say it.
That is why the analogy of stealing does not work. With a thief, we want to know how much money he stole, and from whom. With the artist it is not how much he took and from whom, but what he did with it.
If one uses music that one does not really love, then one will not succeed in making it one’s own.
As I sit down and start to work, I often panic. I stare at the empty piece of music paper. How can I say that my piece will be ready for performance next January when I do not have a recipe for making it happen?
It is obvious that anything a scientist discovers or invents is based on previous discoveries and inventions. The same applies to the arts.
Truth is a big concept.
