32 Quotes by Meredith Monk

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.

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 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.

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'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.

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 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.

My music is very, very precise. It's very rigorous. The forms are much more intricate than you would imagine.

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.