Meredith Monk (b. 1942)
- That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.
- I think about that ’empty” space a lot. That emptiness is what allows for something to actually evolve in a natural way. I’ve had to learn that over the years – because one of the traps of being an artist is to always want to be creating, always wanting to produce.
- I have always believed that we all have male and female within us.
- Sometimes in the past when I was going to perform a piece again I would listen to old recordings and try to reproduce the material. This time I realized that carrying around old information, trying to get everything in, and still be in the moment just doesn’t work.
- I somehow sensed when I was a teenager that I wanted to do my own work. I was quite clear that I didn’t want to be an interpretative kind of artist. I had an intuition about wanting to create my own form, in one way or another, whatever that would be.
- The more I go through life I realize that there’s really no separation between practice and art at all. The two things more and more become one rather than two different aspects of my life.
- I’ve never had an empty house. Ever.
- When you start worrying about form, then you’re not in the moment.
- It’s been a continuity right from the beginning — that longing to weave together perceptions, to affirm the richness of us as human beings both as performers and audience members.
- As artists, I think that one of the good qualities we have is that we’re imaginative. We’re resourceful. We like challenges.
- When I’m an audience member I do not want to go and see something that I already know, I want to see something that I don’t know. I want to be surprised and stimulated to think about something. I want the magic. I want to be in a situation of uncertainty; that’s what excites me.
July 17, 2021 at 9:44 am
Yes, I agree. As a musical creator, independently or collaboratively, we need to find the inspiration from the work itself instead of trying to recreate someone else’s moment. While looking at poetry to set, I have to find writings that speak to me. If I do, I find the composing comes more easily. I also encourage my solo singers not to listen to recordings repeatedly to learn their pieces. Listen to a recording or a couple of different artists, but remember that you have to sing it with your voice. You can imitate someone’s interpretation because you don’t have the same, natural attributes in your voice. Bring YOUR own interpretation to the piece and you’ll likely find that others will appreciate yours more for the unique nuances you’re able to add that haven’t been included before.