Musical Score Quotes

Love is like a musical score, sometimes very tuneful, creating a harmony of sounds, sometimes extremely harsh, striking a hell of false notes. ("Love lying fallow ") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Conflict is the essential core of a free and open society. If one were to project the democratic way of life in the form of a musical score, its major theme would be the harmony of dissonance. ~ Saul D. Alinsky

The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is in the head of the reader, where the symphony resounds, the seed germinates.A book is a heart that beats in the chest of another. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Our task is to implement Jesus' unique achievement. We are like the musicians called to play and sing the unique and once-only-written musical score. We don't have to write it again, but we have to play it. Or, in the image Paul uses in I Corinthians 3, we are now in the position of young architects discovering a wonderful foundation already laid by a master architect and having to work out what sort of building was intended. ~ N. T. Wright

It was during this period of work that Varda began to conceive a more theoretical approach to her art. She says, "[My work] deals with this question, 'What is cinema?' through how I found specific cinematic ways of telling what I was telling. I could have told you the same things that are in the film by just talking to you for six hours. But instead I found shapes" (Warwick). To give a name to her very particular and personal search for a cinematic language, Varda coined the term cinécriture. As she explains to Jean Decock: "When you write a musical score, someone else can play it, it's a sign. When an architect draws up a detailed floor plan, anyone can build his house. But for me, there's no way I could write a scenario that someone else could shoot, since the scenario doesn't represent the writing of the film." Later she would clarify, "The cutting, the movement, the points-of-view, the rhythm of filming and editing have been felt and considered in the way a writer chooses the depth of meaning of sentences, the type of words, number of adverbs, paragraphs, asides, chapters which advance the story or break its flow, etc. In writing its called style. In the cinema, style is cinécriture." (Varda par Agnès [1994], 14). ~ T. Jefferson Kline

Scriptural interpretation is properly an ecclesial activity whose goal is to participate in the reality of which the text speaks by bending the knee to worship the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Through Scripture the church receives the good news of the inbreaking kingdom of God and, in turn, proclaims the message of reconciliation. Scripture is like a musical score that must be played or sung in order to be understood; therefore, the church interprets Scripture by forming communities of prayer, service, and faithful witness. ~ Ellen F. Davis

An interesting question is whether symmetry with respect to translation, and indeed reflection and rotation too, is limited to the visual arts, or may be exhibited by other artistic forms, such as pieces of music. Evidently, if we refer to the sounds, rather than to the layout of the written musical score, we would have to define symmetry operations in terms other than purely geometrical, just as we did in the case of the palindromes. Once we do that, however, the answer to the question, Can we find translation-symmetric music? is a resounding yes. As Russian crystal physicist G. V. Wulff wrote in 1908: "The spirit of music is rhythm. It consists of the regular, periodic repetition of parts of the musical composition...the regular repetition of identical parts in the whole constitutes the essence of symmetry." Indeed, the recurring themes that are so common in musical composition are the temporal equivalents of Morris's designs and symmetry under translation. Even more generally, compositions are often based on a fundamental motif introduced at the beginning and then undergoing various metamorphoses. ~ Mario Livio

It is the nature of a nine-year-old mind to believe that each extreme experience signifies a lasting change in the quality of life henceforth. A bad day raises the expectation of a long chain of grim days through dismal decades, and a day of joy inspires an almost giddy certainty that the years thereafter will be marked by endless blessings. In fact, time teaches us that the musical score of life oscillates between that of Psycho and that of The Sound of Music, with by far the greatest number of our days lived to the strains of an innocuous and modestly budgeted picture, sometimes a romance sometimes a like comedy sometimes a little art film of puzzling purpose and elusive meeting. Yet I've known adults who live forever in that odd conviction of nine-year-olds. Because I am an optimist and always have been, the expectation of continued joy comes more easily to me than pessimism, which was especially true during that period of my childhood. ~ Dean Koontz

Unkar Delta at Mile 73
The layers of brick red sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone of the Dox formation deposited a billion years ago, erode easily, giving the landscape an open, rolling character very different that the narrow, limestone walled canyon upstream, both in lithology and color, fully fitting Van Dyke's description of "raspberry-red color, tempered with a what-not of mauve, heliotrope, and violet." Sediments flowing in from the west formed deltas, floodplains, and tidal flats, which indurated into these fine-grained sedimentary rocks thinly laid deposits of a restful sea, lined with shadows as precise as the staves of a musical score, ribboned layers, an elegant alteration of quiet siltings and delicious lappings, crinkled water compressed, solidified, lithified. ~ Ann Zwinger

The problem with real life is there's no musical score. In movies, you know you're in danger because there's an ominous chord underlining the scene, ~ Sue Grafton

[He] taught me many things: how to create a sentence, how to think about language and all its devices as an orchestra and search of a musical score, how to analyze a text and understand how it is constructed and why... He taught me to read and write again, but this time I knew what I was doing, why, and what for. And above all how. He never tired of telling me that in literature there is only one real theme: not what is narrated, but how it is narrated. The rest, he said, was decoration. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

For me, the sound design and the musical score is a big part of what makes scary movies work. ~ James Wan

The position of the planetary bodies at the moment of birth is a musical score done in planetary symbols of the heavenly harmonics and dissonances as these are played into the life of the incarnating ego. ~ Corinne Heline

There is a temptation for an actor to editorialize what they're doing. And you can't do that with Pinter. It's almost like a musical score. His lines are so specific, but they can mean different things to different people, like an alternating current. ~ Peter Riegert

A book may outlive its author, and it moves too, and it too can be said to change - but not in the manner of the telling. It changes in the manner of the reading. As many commentators have remarked, works of literature are recreated by each generation of readers, who make them new by finding fresh meanings in them. The printed text of a book is thus like a musical score, which is not itself music, but becomes music when played by musicians, or "interpreted" by them, as we say. The act of reading a text is like playing music and listening to it at the same time, and the reader becomes its own interpreter. ~ Margaret Atwood

For me, learning is a continuous process and an all-inclusive one - reading a book, learning a musical instrument or learning the martial art called taekwondo. Teach myself something new - that's my prayer. ~ Sonu Nigam

As a youngster, my mother and father always drilled into my head having something to fall back on. My father was kind of funny. I'd score 40 points. I'd come home and say, 'Look dad, I scored 40.' He'd never have a smile on his face. He'd be like, 'I saw that move you did. What if you'd hurt your knee?' ~ Shaquille O'Neal

The reverence accorded to the composer's score suggests that it is a sacred object, which is not to be tampered with, whose authority over the actions of all the musicians playing here tonight is absolute, which commands absolute stillness and silence from those devotees who have assembled to hear it performed. ~ Christopher Small

Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world. ~ Ahmad Alaadeen

My mother insisted that I pursue music. I rented out my father's musical equipment and earned some money. As a child, I wasn't sure about a career goal, but I was always fascinated by electronic gadgets, specially musical equipment. ~ A.R. Rahman

One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past. ~ George Crumb

Definition of Love: A score of zero in tennis. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My name ain't Steve Miller, but I fly like an Eagle. ~ Coolio

I'm always writing something. There's always some structure sitting around someplace. There's always things on the computer, things scratched on score paper, legal tablets full of lyrics. It's never not buzzing around me all the time. I'm always doing it. ~ J. D. Souther

NEFARIOUS means utterly, completely wicked. The character in The Wizard of Oz could have been called the Nefarious Witch of the West but authors like to use the same beginning consonant, often. Perhaps L. Frank Baum crossed out nefarious after wicked came to his mind. Thank goodness, because Nefarious would be a terrible name for a musical. ~ Lois Lowry

If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music. ~ Maurice Ravel

Well we got nine and you can't score more than that ~ Bobby Robson

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street. ~ Miles Davis

I became an actor by accident. I suppose I figured since I was in musical comedy from the time I was a teenager, I suppose I figured that I'd always been in that world to some extent. ~ Christopher Walken

There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, ~ Plato

I blow my own mind like Nirvana, and go the whole nine like Madonna. ~ Big Pun

You have got to shoot, otherwise you can't score. ~ Johan Cruyff

The primary thing writing and basketball share is the sense that each time you go out, each time you play or begin a piece, it's a new day. You can score 40 points one game, but the next game, those points don't count. You can win the Nobel Literature Prize, but that doesn't make the next sentence of the next book appear. ~ John Edgar Wideman

Singing about your sadness unburdens your soul. But the blues hollers shouted about more than being sad. They were also delivering messages in musical code. If the master was coming, you might sing a hidden warning to the other field hands ... The blues could warn you what was coming. I could see the blues was about survival. ~ B.B. King

David Bowie is the quintessential English gentleman and, of course, a musical and generational institution. I only played support for him for one night (not a whole tour) but he was incredibly gracious and generous toward me and I've certainly never forgotten it. ~ Brooke Fraser

When I'm writing a score, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve on it, even when I think it's working well. I don't give up on things, and am always trying to make incremental improvements, which means I never finish writing a score early! ~ Geoff Zanelli

I hoped to win a medal and hoped it would be gold. I knew I was good but didn't know I would be the one to score something that had never been done before. ~ Nadia Comaneci

I can only guess that, for guys in their 30s and 40s who watched me play, they understood that the score never mattered and my paycheck never mattered (in relation) to how I played. I played with Little League enthusiasm and professional flair. That's what fans are really looking for. ~ Andy Van Slyke

It seemed [there are] musical nodes on the planet where cultures meet and mix, sometimes as a result of unfortunate circumstances, like slavery or something else, in places like New Orleans and Havana and Brazil. And those are places where the European culture and indigenous culture and African culture all met and lived together, and some new kind of culture and especially music came out of that. ~ David Byrne

I remember really bonding with the first generation kids, the Chinese Canadian kids, and in high school bonding with the Latin kids and the East Indian kids. It was very interesting because it made me open to lots of musical sounds. ~ Nelly Furtado

His father had smashed his very first guitar for him, in an early attempt to rid Jude of his musical ambitions. Jude hadn't been able to repeat the act himself, not even onstage, for show, when he could afford all the guitars he wanted. He was, however, perfectly willing to use one as a weapon to defend himself. In a sense he supposed he had always used them as weapons. ~ Joe Hill

And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition. ~ Karlheinz Stockhausen

I wanted to play my violin and have my musical expression through the instrument. But then I was really young when I had my first opportunity to conduct. ~ Gustavo Dudamel

Well, it appears that Rufus found a way to corner you at last." "He accused me of being 'Dumbledore's man through and through.'" "How very rude of him." "I told him I was." Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Behind Harry, Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To ~ J.K. Rowling

SHORE AND GROUND Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move. Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. RUMI ~ Anne Lamott

I was born to score goals, I feel. ~ Michael Owen

Healing cannot be done by settling a score. ~ Alice Walker