Fidgeting and boredom are the symptoms of fear of emptiness, which we try to fill up with whatever we can lay our hands on.
Stephen NachmanovitchWriting, playing, composing, painting, reading, listening, looking-all require that we submit to being swept away by Eros, to a transformation of self of the kind that happens when we fall in love.
Stephen NachmanovitchTo do anything artistically you have to acquire technique, but create through your technique and not with it.
Stephen NachmanovitchImprovisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and learn to respond to her call.
Stephen NachmanovitchThe Western Idea of practice is to acquire a skill. It is very much related to your work ethic, which enjoins us to endure struggle or boredom now in return for future rewards. The Eastern idea of practice, on the other hand, is to create the person, or rather to actualize or reveal the complete person who is already there.... Not only is practice necessary to art, it is art.
Stephen Nachmanovitch