Compositional Quotes & Sayings

Composition in photography is almost as varied as composition in music or words
melodic or atonal, safe or daring
and can enhance subject, theme, and style. Every photograph you take involves you in some compositional decision, even if this is simply where to set up the camera or when to press the button. — Michael Langford

A list of the thirteen types of photograph (plus an afterthought): Aide-memoire Reportage Work of art Topography Erotica/Pornography Advertisement Abstract image Literature Text Autobiography Compositional Functional illustration Snapshot — William Boyd

I try to find a compositional structure in the subject itself, in nature ... I rely on the angle where the wall meets the floor as a constant reference point, and against that I oppose the movements of the model's limbs. — Philip Pearlstein

Once I had defined myself as a compositional drummer, I thought, "Well, I want to be an improvisational drummer." — Neil Peart

When I eat, I always pick out the best parts in the middle and leave everything else on the side. It becomes a big sculptural mess, but there are nice compositional elements about how it all sits on the table. — Elizabeth Neel

Second edition of Earthworks I have the more traditional compositional approach, namely I write a piece from the piano. — Bill Bruford

It feels like we've grown enough as musicians over the last few years to go new places, and our conceptual and compositional abilities have developed along with it, so we're pushing all the envelopes we can at the same time and it still feels like cutting edge work to us. It seems to resonate with people. — Bent Saether

There is no piece of music that could relate to anything else but itself and its world. It is truly an independent. The one thing coplanar with music is the compositional aspect, the fact that you are composing something. Architecture is essentially a score, and what happens with it depends on the people who play it, enjoy it, use it, or hate it. — Rafael Vinoly

In serial music, the series itself is seldom audible ... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one in the same thing. — Steve Reich

spurious credit for compositional skills he didn't possess. — Will Birch

Yes, I have been studying piano since I was six. Classical, jazz, compositional, Broadway, everything. I just love it all. — Janel Parrish

As discussed earlier, when it comes to music, most of us tend to have confidence in our taste even though we may totally lack knowledge regarding historical development or compositional theory. I frequently hear, "I don't know anything about art" but hardly ever, "I don't know anything about music". — Michael Findlay

The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese. — Frank Zappa

I write at the piano, so I write things that fit comfortably under my hands, and I'm not thinking in terms of any specific compositional methods. I'm just seeking sounds. — Esperanza Spalding

When I hear the piano played in a compositional way, like in a songwriter's way in a compositional way, there's a certain arc to that that I love. — Chick Corea

People have made a living deconstructing Lennon and The Beatles songs because of their compositional sophistication. But what's so exciting about John is that he never had any of that training on musical theory; something just spoke to him, and he just knew what sounded right. — Randy Bachman

I feel safe and comfortable to do that once I know that the song structure around the bass part is very interesting and it satisfies me in a compositional sense. — Geddy Lee

Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'? How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye? How aware of variations in heat waves can that eye be? Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of color. Imagine a world before the 'beginning was the word. — Stan Brakhage

The studio is my main compositional tool. And I used to be horrible in the studio. I didn't know any kind of technical stuff. But when you have something in your head, you've gotta figure out a way of executing it. — Mike Patton

Improvisation is a compositional method. — Evan Parker

Whenever you play a song, you're basically playing with a lot of zeros and ones. These are Western compositional models that other cultures have explored in so many ways. — DJ Spooky

The artist's quest is to succeed in combining and balancing all compositional attributes and physical elements into those that are purely spiritual. That is the secret of art. — Edward J. Fraughton

I've always had an artistic hand. I took on paint when I started falling in love with the abstract expressionists. I approached it from a physical standpoint, but I've also been honing my compositional eye through film. — Billy Zane

Ragtime has about the same amount of respect as comics. And in a way they're similar art forms. Ragtime is highly compositional, and the emotion in the music is built in, whereas in jazz a lot of that emotion comes from the way it's performed. — Chris Ware

A curiosity prompt heightens the senses and hones compositional ability ... — Robert Genn

Bob Moses, composer, drummer, poet, artist, conceptualizer, inspirer of people, has created a musical environment that is balanced between discipline and freedom, compositional design and spontaneous inspiration. A party with a purpose. This album is original, soulful, funny and very special. I hope a lot of people get as much enjoyment from it as I have. — Gil Evans

Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background. — Twyla Tharp

Identify in your work opposites of color, form, compositional arrangements, space, etc. — Joshua L. Goldberg

The late twentieth century has been the locus of a new lurch on English's time line in America, where oratorical, poetic, and compositional craft of a rigorously exacting nature has been cast to the margins of the culture. — John McWhorter

Actually, most things I say in public lead more or less directly to my own compositional practice, so I should be careful about generalizing lest they come back to haunt me. — Brian Ferneyhough

I endeavor to make a picture, for instance, exert a positive influence on the observer by its coloring, mood, and compositional idea, encouraging, say, activation, tranquilization, concentration, or harmony ... — Max Bill

I don't want to wear my compositional tools on my sleeve. — Lou Harrison

One compositional element suggests and asks for another. This is what makes the activity interesting. — Robert Genn