Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Stephen Nachmanovitch
Stephen Nachmanovitch Quotes
41 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Play, creativity, art, spontaneity, all these experiences are their own rewards and are blocked when we perform for reward or punishment, profit or loss.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
We provide both irritation and inspiration for each other- the grist for each other's pearl making.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
Creative living, or the life of a creator, seems like a leap into the unknown only because "normal life" is rigid and traumatized.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
If form is mechanically applied, it may indeed result in work that is conventional, if not pedantic or stupid. But form used well can become the very vehicle of freedom, of discovering the creative surprises that liberate mind-at-play.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
If I "try" to play, I fail; if I force the play, I crush it; if I race, I trip. Any time I stiffen or brace myself against some error or problem, the very act of bracing would cause the problem to occur. The only road to strength is vulnerability.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
If a creative person has a sense of humor, a sense of style and a certain amount of stubbornness, he finds a way to do what he needs to in spite of the obstacles.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
If we split practice from the real thing, neither one of them will be very real.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Source
Report...
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
1
2
Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Born:
November 2, 1950
(age 73)
Bio:
Stephen Nachmanovitch is a musician, author, computer artist, and educator. He is an improvisational violinist, and writes and teaches about improvisation, creativity, and systems approaches in many fields of activity.
Stephen Nachmanovitch on Wikipedia
Suggest an edit or a new quote
American Musician Quotes
Musician Quotes
20th-century Musician Quotes
Related People
Barry Green
American Musician
Kenny Werner
American Musician
W. A. Mathieu
American Composer
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes