Music Notation Quotes

“I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when no sound is intended.”
― John Cage, M: Writings '67–'72

“He held the papers up to the moonlight. There was a little smudging, there, right where the chorus was supposed to come in with a D major triad. But it wasn't so bad.
His eyes drifted from the pages to the moon, which shone clearly through his unglazed window. A bright star kept it company. A faint breeze blew, causing the thick leaves of the trees below to make shoe-like clacking noises against the castle wall. It carried with it whatever scents it had picked up on its way from the sea: sandalwood, sand, oranges, dust. Dry things, stuff of the land.
Eric looked back at his music, tried to recapture the sound and feel of the ocean that had played in his head before waking, aquamarine and sweet.”
― Liz Braswell, Part of Your World

“Where do you think the notes were before Chopin wrote his nocturnes?”
With a nod of confusion I asked, “Where?”
She leaned back, exhaling a stream of smoke, as if unraveling a hidden truth. “I believe those notes were always present, suspended in the air, waiting for an artist's embrace. It's as if there's an intangible essence, an elusive sense, that artists possess. They have the ability to pluck those ethereal notes from the unseen and mold them into tangible forms, giving voice to our deepest emotions and translating them into melodies that resonate within us.”
― Asif Hossain, Serenade of Solitude