Meredith Monk Quotes (11 Quotes)


    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.

    Yes, 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 had a number of interests that were all strands of my childhood. I come from a musical family - I'm a fourth generation singer. My mother was a commercial singer and my grandfather had been a bass baritone who came from Russia to the United States, so music was very strong in my family. I loved to sing even before I spoke words I was singing melodies.

    I think I still have some confusion about the critical mind. But it seems that there's a difference between the critical mind, which is a kind of judgment, and has a harshness built in, cutting off impulses before they can develop, and discriminating intelligence, which can differentiate between what is authentic or genuine and what is contrived or forced.

    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.


    My partner sometimes liked to go into the studio and improvise voice things just for fun. When I returned from England I transcribed one of her melodies, and had some of the hospice participants sing it, because they said they liked to sing. Their singing is very raw, but I'm going to use it for the final work.

    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.

    A group called Rosetta Life, that sends artists out to hospices in England, came to talk to me in February 2003. I lost my partner of 22 years in November 2002, so I was really in my grieving process - I still am - but I was thinking of nothing but impermanence then.

    It's a continual excavation process, you could say. It's like being an archeologist of your own instrument as a kind of microcosm of the human voice, of human utterance, of sound itself. By digging into my own voice I'm uncovering feelings and energies for which we don't have words - it's like shades of feeling, early human utterance, and essential human nature.

    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'm sure that some of the hospice participants will be in the audience. One of them has already died. And, you know, all of us have impermanence in common.


    More Meredith Monk Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Work & Career - Art - Life - Mothers - Judgment - Honesty & Integrity - Emotions - Past - Music - Intelligence - England - Singing - Business & Commerce - Musicians - Mind - Intuition - Family - Teens - Childhood - View All Meredith Monk Quotations

    Related Authors


    Richard Wagner - Ludwig van Beethoven - Leonard Bernstein - Joseph Haydn - Johannes Brahms - Igor Stravinsky - Giuseppe Verdi - Giacomo Puccini - Franz Schubert - Bela Bartok


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections