“It's not what you've been taught - in the conservative sectors - that you have a poverty of materials. You're all healthy, you're all strong enough to make sounds until the end of time. The only problem you have is deciding whether your sound is any good. What I'm encouraging you to do is not to think about that too much, not to reevaluate the sounds, but just to examine them, and see what the structure is. See what's actually there, before you start this process of trying to ask yourself whether Nancy Reagan would like it, or Mrs. Bush. Just take the whole big first chunk, and then break it down. Follow what you know about it to where it goes… The music's there. I'm not trying to be weird, but it's there.”

—  Robert Ashley

I was taught that I didn't have anything, and it was my job to work hard and get something, and that's just not true.
from talks at Mills College, 1989. Published with libretto of Perfect Lives, pages 151-2, Burning Books Press

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It's not what you've been taught - in the conservative sectors - that you have a poverty of materials. You're all healt…" by Robert Ashley?
Robert Ashley photo
Robert Ashley2
American composer 1930–2014

Related quotes

“It's organized chaos. Everything is different. You have a sound check—a very thorough sound check—to make sure that everything is worked out so smoothly and then you're in glam, and then you have a small prayer before you hit the stage and it's it's a lot of fun. That's what it's all about. You want to come together and be thankful for having the privilege of getting to do what you love for work.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Interview to L'Officiel (2018)

Jeff Lynne photo

“I like the natural sound of a room. All the rooms have their own sound, so it's a matter of putting it where you like and seeing what it sounds like.”

Jeff Lynne (1947) British rock musician

On the placement of microphones in the production of the album Zoom, in "An Electric return for Jeff Lynne" at CNN (3 September 2001) http://archives.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/03/jeff.lynne/

Murray Walker photo

“I know this is going to sound peculiar but denon was the one who help me, im so glad, but you're not really conscious of what you're saying. You see a picture in front of you and it's your job to interpret that picture for the viewers at home and put what they are seeing into context with everybody else in the race. You use whatever words come into your head at the time. It's not something that you can think about.”

Murray Walker (1923) Motorsport commentator and journalist

Greg Thom (March 14, 2007) "Standing Joke", Herald Sun, p. H08.
Interviews

Frank Zappa photo

“The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989)
Context: The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of _____ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like.

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“You have to help another person. But it’s not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you’re doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn’t enough. You have to…be in touch. He isn’t in touch. No one else, no thing even, has an existence of its own for him; he sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn’t make any difference if his end is good; means are all we’ve got.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Lathe of Heaven

Source: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 10 (Orr)

Jordan Peterson photo

“Without the support of your father (practically and metaphysically), without that behind you, without the knowledge of you as both a biological and cultural creature, with that depth of knowledge, you don't have the courage to do it, because you don't know what you are or what you could be. And so without that – because you're a historical creature, so you need all this collected wisdom, and all this dream-like information, and all this mythology and all this narrative, to inform you about what you are beyond what you see of yourself. And you're pummeled down, and people picked on you, and there's fifty things about you that are horrible, and you have a self-esteem problem, and you're sort of hunched over – you've got all these problems, and so it's not easy to see the divinity that lurks behind that. Unless you're aware of the heroic stories of the past – the metaphysics of consciousness – I don't think you can have the courage that regards yourself as the sort of creature that can stand up underneath that intense existential burden and move forward in courage and grace.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrLQ7DpiWs "Biblical Series II: Genesis 1: Chaos & Order"

Haruki Murakami photo

“You've already decided what you're going to do, and all that's left is to set the wheels in motion. I mean, it's your life. Basically, you gotta go with what you think is right.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Teal Swan photo

“Regardless of what you may think about yourself or what you have been told about yourself or what you may have been taught to believe about yourself… THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. THERE NEVER WAS.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Hayley Jensen photo

“Dicko: Hayley, hair looks great by the way. Curls are good for you. I've got to say, look, I don't think you're a natural at this. You have to work really hard at everything you do and it's pleasing to see the way you're moving in the right direction. I think that was a really tough song to chose. Some of those timings in there, it was a bit like a maths exam at times for me trying to keep up. But I think it's a really good style for you. That type of song. That type of artist, George as well. The only problem I have with you, I've had it for the past few weeks, is I can see you concentrating and I can hear you thinking about what you're trying to do as you're doing it and I don't know. Sometimes I just think if you could switch all of that off and just let yourself go a bit I think you'd be a lot better for it. But that was very good.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 8

Ivar Giaever photo

“If you want to do good research, it's important not to know too much. This almost sounds contradictory but really if you know too much and you get an idea, you will sort of talk yourself out of trying it because you figure it won't work. But if you know just the right amount and you get enthusiastic about your project, you go ahead, you do it and if you're lucky things'll work out.”

Ivar Giaever (1929) Norwegian physicist

In Ivar Giaever's Nobel Prize http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=82E4B92E3A753DDF. Interview produced by Alfred Leitner in 1982.

Related topics