Stephen Nachmanovitch Quotes - Page 2

Commitment to a set of rules frees your play to attain a profundity and vigor otherwise impossible.

The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.

Every attempt we make is imperfect; yet each one of those imperfect attempts is an occasion for a delight unlike anything else on earth.

In improvisation, there is only one time. This is what computer people call real time. The time of inspiration, the time of technically structuring and realizing... the time of playing it, and the time of communicating with the audience, are all one.

As an improvising musician, I am not in the music business, I am not in the creativity business; I am in the surrender business.

Every conversation is a form of Jazz. The activity of instantaneous creation is as ordinary to us as breathing.

Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of ones chosen form.

Artwork is not thought up in consciousness and then, as a separate phase, executed by the hand. The hand surprises us creates and solves problems on its own. Often, enigmas that baffle our brains are dealt with easily, unconsciously, by the hand.

If form is mechanically applied, it may indeed result in work that is conventional, if not pedantic or stupid. But form used well can become the very vehicle of freedom, of discovering the creative surprises that liberate mind-at-play.

If we are transparent, with nothing to hide, the gap between language and being disappears. Then the Muse can speak.

Whispered words can be devastatingly effective.

The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around...The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating, are in fact the growing edges. We see these opportunities the instant we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance.

With too little judgement, we get trash. With too much judgement, we get blockage.

Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his learning and technique.

There is not ultimate breakthrough; what we find in the development of a creative life is an open-ended series of provisional breakthroughs. In this journey there is no endpoint, because it is the journey into the soul.

If a creative person has a sense of humor, a sense of style and a certain amount of stubbornness, he finds a way to do what he needs to in spite of the obstacles.

Fidgeting and boredom are the symptoms of fear of emptiness, which we try to fill up with whatever we can lay our hands on.

If we split practice from the real thing, neither one of them will be very real.

There are only people doing their imperfect best at doing their imperfect jobs

The professionalism of technique and flash of dexterity are more comfortable to be around than raw creative power, hence our society generally rewards virtuoso performers more highly than it rewards original creators.

If we operate with a belief in long sweeps of time, we build cathedrals; if we operate from fiscal quarter to fiscal quarter, we build ugly shopping malls.

The beauty of playing together is meeting in the One.

We provide both irritation and inspiration for each other- the grist for each other's pearl making.

When we are totally faithful to our own individuality, we are actually following a very intricate design. This kind of freedom is the opposite of "just anything".

Play cannot be defined, because in play all definitions slither, dance, combine, break apart, and recombine.