“The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.”

Isaac Goldberg Tin Pan Alley (New York: John Day, 1930) p. viii.

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George Gershwin 12
American composer and pianist 1898–1937

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“Always be honest with yourself about how you are feeling, no matter what kinds of emotions might be building up inside of you. …Pretending to ourselves that we are not feeling something, does not make that emotion disappear.”

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“What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music?”

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As quoted in Setting the Tempo : Fifty Years of Great Jazz Liner Notes (1996) by Tom Piazza. p. 339
Context: What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music? Had I been born in a different country or had I been born white, I am sure I would have expressed my ideas long ago. Maybe they wouldn't have been as good because when people are born free — I can't imagine it, but I've got a feeling that if it's so easy for you — the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say.

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