Charles Ives quotes

Charles Ives was an American modernist composer and one of the pioneers of experimental music. His innovative works combined traditional American themes with bold new musical techniques. He is regarded as a visionary whose music influenced generations of composers. Here are 16 of his quotes:

Stand up and take your dissonance like a man. (Charles Ives)
Music is one of the ways that God has of beating in on man. View quote
Charles Ives
The word "beauty" is as easy to use as the word "degenerate." Both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you. View quote
Charles Ives
There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life. View quote
Charles Ives
If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances? View quote
Charles Ives
Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth. View quote
Charles Ives
In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind. View quote
Charles Ives
The fabric of existence weaves itself whole. View quote
Charles Ives
You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance. View quote
Charles Ives
Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration. View quote
Charles Ives
If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven. (Charles Ives)
But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense. View quote
Charles Ives
It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience. View quote
Charles Ives
Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world. View quote
Charles Ives
A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity. View quote
Charles Ives
One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife. View quote
Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Ives - Image
Occupation: American Composer
Born: October 20, 1874
Died: May 19, 1954
Quotes count: 16
Wikipedia: Charles Ives

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