The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counter...point. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, sh...ameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And in counterpoint, from other windows, the effort to be merry--ay, maracas!... Msibilant, intricate--the voices wailing pleasure, arriving perhaps at joy, late, after sets have been switched off, and silences are dark windows?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Improvisation was the blood and bone of jazz, and in the classic, New Orleans jazz it was collective improvisation in which each p...erformer, seemingly going his own melodic way, played in harmony, dissonance, or counterpoint with the improvisations of his colleagues. Quite unlike ragtime, which was written down in many cases by its composers and could be repeated note for note (if not expression for expression) by others, jazz was a performer's not a composer's art.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Music, theoretically considered, consists altogether of lines of tone. It more nearly resembles a picture or an architectural draw...ing, than any other art creation; the difference being that in a drawing the lines are visible and constant, while in music they are audible and in motion. The separate tones are the points through which the lines are drawn; and the impression which is intended, and which is apprehended by the intelligent listener, is not that of single tones, but of continuous lines of tones, describing movements, curves and angles, rising, falling, poising--directly analogous to the linear impressions conveyed by a picture or drawing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »