Glen Campbell Quotes

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

I love working with Alicia Keys, because it's not just the ability to do the dance to me; I think it's the ability to interpret it that excites me the most.

I shall always respect the composer. If I embellish, it is his idea I am embellishing.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.

I'm an interpreter of music.

I look at the dancers and I get the inspiration for the work from them.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms.

With great artists like Elvis, sometimes the songs weren't the greatest thing about him. When I tried to perform some of the songs, I noticed some of the tunes weren't all that brilliant, but it was the performance that sold them.

Communication is very important. And the arts do that, whether it's film or theater.

I am like a TV antenna. I catch everything that is in the air, and then I do it my way.

I record cello Etudes that are fewer than four minutes long and post them on YouTube. How can one execute fully-formed ideas with utmost perfection, yet stay free enough to allow improvisatory nuance? This has immediate application in almost every area of life, but especially in performance.

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention.

Ballet is like any other art form in that we all start out knowing nothing about it.

Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn't there in the score.

I am an interpreter of music rather than a composer of it.

Dancers are a work of art - they are the canvas on which their work is painted.

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

I love the way in which I make up dances. It's a complicated way and the product is usually clear. Clear and simple. I don't need everybody to know that there are all of these fabulous things going on. If you CAN see it, that's wonderful.

The best thing an actor can bring to a role is himself - that's no secret.

The essential is to excite the spectators. If that means playing Hamlet on a flying trapeze or in an aquarium, you do it.

I've always been a songwriter.