“
…So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky
”
”
John Dryden (The Major Works)
“
Do you know when they say soul-mates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. "Soul-mate wanted". It doesn't mean too much now. But soul mates- think about it. When your soul-whatever that is anyway-something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape-when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to-even if you can't be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul's wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. In must be like all the weddings in the world-gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets,showers of roses. And after that happens-that's it, this is it. But sometimes you have to let that person go. When you are little, people , movie and fairy tales all tell you that one day you're going to meet this person. So you keep waiting and it's a lot harder than they make it sound. Then you meet and you think, okay, now we can just get on with it but you find out that sometimes your sould brother partner lover has other ideas about that.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block (Dangerous Angels (Weetzie Bat, #1-5))
“
I ran a few miles, Davis, and they were musical. Then I made love like the sound of a trumpet, as heard by Helen Keller.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
There is language going on out there- the language of the wild. Roars, snorts, trumpets, squeals, whoops, and chirps all have meaning derived over eons of expression... We have yet to become fluent in the language -and music- of the wild.
”
”
Boyd Norton (Serengeti: The Eternal Beginning)
“
I'll never be a poet,' said Amory as he finished. 'I'm not enough of a sensualist really; there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful: women, spring evenings, music at night, the sea; I don't catch the subtle things like 'silver-snarling trumpets.' I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never right anything but mediocre poetry.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
i got 15 trumpets where other women got hips
& a upright bass for both sides of my heart
”
”
Ntozake Shange (I Live in Music: Poem)
“
Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashipn the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)
“
Do you know when they say soulmates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. “Soul mate wanted.” It doesn’t mean too much now. But soulmates – think about it. When your soul – whatever that is anyway – something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape – when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to – even if you can’t be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul’s wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. It must be like all the weddings in the world – gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets, showers of roses. And after that happens you know – that’s it. This is it.
”
”
Francesca Lia Block (Missing Angel Juan (Weetzie Bat, #4))
“
Eternity hums with every beating heart, with every up-lifted voice, with the crash of waves, the whirl of wind across the shifting dunes, the cry of sea birds, and the trumpets of heavenly angels.
”
”
Janell Rhiannon (Invisible Wings)
“
The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.
The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Durin's Day.
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.
There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.
Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.
The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.
-The Song of Durin
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“
[T]here were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)
“
Tonight I heard Louis's horn. My father heard it, too. The wind was right, and I could hear the notes of taps, just as darkness fell. There is nothing in all the world I like better than the trumpet of the swan.
”
”
E.B. White (The Trumpet of the Swan)
“
Its like reproaching someone who has no ear for music because he's bored at a symphony concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities that I hadn't got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn't. I was just pretty and gay. You don't ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham
“
Today you go into make a modern recording with all this technology. The bass plays first, then the drums come in later, then they track the trumpet and the singer comes in and they ship the tape somewhere. Well, none of the musicians have played together. You can’t play jazz music that way. In order for you to play jazz, you’ve got to listen to them. The music forces you at all times to address what other people are thinking and for you to interact with them with empathy and to deal with the process of working things out. And that’s how our music really could teach what the meaning of American democracy is.
”
”
Wynton Marsalis
“
A song called 'Earth Angel' played in her head all morning—also three trumpets and a piano.
”
”
Helen Oyeyemi (White Is for Witching)
“
So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky. —John Dryden
”
”
Robert Kirkman (The Fall of the Governor: Part One (The Walking Dead #3))
“
Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, once told me that when a brass band plays at a small club back up in one of the neighborhoods, it's as if the audience--dancing, singing to the refrains, laughing--is part of the band. They are two parts of the same thing. The dancers interpret, or it might be better to say literally embody, the sounds of the band, answering the instruments. Since everyone is listening to different parts of the music--she to the trumpet melody, he to the bass drum, she to the trombone--the audience is a working model in three dimensions of the music, a synesthesic transformation of materials. And of course the band is also watching the dancers, and getting ideas from the dancers' gestures. The relationship between band and audience is in that sense like the relationship between two lovers making love, where cause and effect becomes very hard to see, even impossible to call by its right name; one is literally getting down, as in particle physics, to some root stratum where one is freed from the lockstop of time itself, where time might even run backward, or sideways, and something eternal and transcendent is accessed.
”
”
Tom Piazza (Why New Orleans Matters)
“
What’s your favorite word?”
Startled, I looked up at him, unsure I’d heard him right. “My favorite word?”
He nodded, slipping his glasses up his nose with a quick, practiced scrunch of his face that made him look angry and then surprised within a single second. “You have seven boxes of books up here. A wild guess tells me you like words.”
I suppose I had never thought about having a favorite word, but now that he asked, I kind of liked the idea. I let my eyes lose focus as I thought.
“Ranunculus,” I said after a moment.
“What?”
“Ranunculus. It’s a kind of flower. It’s such a weird word but the flowers are so pretty, I like how unexpected that is.”
They were my Mom’s favorite, I didn’t say.
“That’s a pretty girly answer.”
“Well, I am a girl.”
He kept his eyes on his feet but I knew I wasn’t imagining the gleam of interest I’d seen when I said ranunculus. I bet he had expected me to say unicorn or daisy or vampire.
“What about you? What’s your favorite word? I bet it’s tungsten. Or, like, amphibian.”
He quirked a smile, answering, “Regurgitate.”
Scrunching my nose, I stared at him. “That is a gross word.”
This made him smile even wider. “I like the hard consonant sounds in it. It kinda sounds like exactly what it means.”
“An onomatopoeia?”
I half expected trumpets to blast revelatory music from an invisible speaker in the wall from the way Elliot stared at me, lips parted and glasses slowly sliding down his nose.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m not a complete idiot, you know. You don’t have to look so surprised that I know some big words.”
“I never thought you were an idiot,” he said quietly, looking toward the box and pulling out another book to hand to me.
For a long time after we returned to our slow, inefficient method of unpacking the books, I could feel him looking up and watching me, tiny flashes of stolen glances.
I pretended I didn’t notice.
”
”
Christina Lauren (Love and Other Words)
“
Bowman was aware of some changes in his behavior patterns; it would have been absurd to expect anything else in the circumstances. He could no longer tolerate silence; except when he was sleeping, or talking over the circuit to Earth, he kept the ship's sound system running at almost painful loudness. / At first, needing the companionship of the human voice, he had listened to classical plays--especially the works of Shaw, Ibsen, and Shakespeare--or poetry readings from Discovery's enormous library of recorded sounds. The problems they dealt with, however, seemed so remote, or so easily resolved with a little common sense, that after a while he lost patience with them. / So he switched to opera--usually in Italian or German, so that he was not distracted even by the minimal intellectual content that most operas contained. This phase lasted for two weeks before he realized that the sound of all these superbly trained voices was only exacerbating his loneliness. But what finally ended this cycle was Verdi's Requiem Mass, which he had never heard performed on Earth. The "Dies Irae," roaring with ominous appropriateness through the empty ship, left him completely shattered; and when the trumpets of Doomsday echoed from the heavens, he could endure no more. / Thereafter, he played only instrumental music. He started with the romantic composers, but shed them one by one as their emotional outpourings became too oppressive. Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, lasted a few weeks, Beethoven rather longer. He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally ornamented with Mozart. / And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years.
”
”
Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1))
“
I love people who play guitars on roofs!" said Rose, hopping along the pavement in one of her sudden happy moods. "Don't you?"
"Never knew anyone else who did it!"
"Don't you like Tom?"
"Of course I do. But I don't know about all the other guitar-on-roof players! They might be really awful people, with just that one good thing about them. Playing guitars on roofs... or bagpipes... Or drums... Sarah would like that, and Saffy could have the bagpipes! Caddy could have a harp.... What about Mum?"
"One of those gourds filled with beans!" said Rose at once. "And Daddy could have a grand piano. On a flat roof. With a balcony and pink flowers in pots around the edge! And I'll have a very loud trumpet! What about you?"
"I'll just listen," said Indigo.
”
”
Hilary McKay (Indigo's Star (Casson Family, #2))
“
If you like how jazz music sounds, you'll love how it tastes. My duck soup now comes in trumpet-solo flavor. You don't have to curl weights, because this is already pure Armstrong.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.)
“
I'm so good at math that you can ask me any question, any equation, and I'll convert it into trumpet sounds with my mouth. If it's tough enough, I may answer with Dizzy Gillespie noises.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can't)
“
I play mini-golf like I shoot pool like I swim in it. That's also how I play the trombone, which is why it makes trumpet noises. For a saxophone-free duck quacking experience, try adding more water.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Music is fluid, and my saxophone overflows when my ducks slosh in the sounds I make in elevators.)
“
Scattered among these things are reminders that sound once existed: a metronome, a drumming pad, a guitar pick, a trumpet mouthpiece, a music stand, a tuning fork, a block of rosin...The older instruments bear the marks of those who have already played them, the scuffs and bites and dents that are the mysterious scars of sound. In their midst the house hangs, tenuous and enveloping, a sounding board waiting to be struck.
”
”
Geoffrey O'Brien (Sonata for Jukebox: An Autobiography of My Ears)
“
I just invented a way to put the smooth sounds of a saxophone directly into a trumpet—with little or minimal rusting. When you listen to my music, just close your eyes, because your mind is about to take a romantic trip—inside of a mental elevator.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can't)
“
Crows are ferociously intelligent birds. I used to watch them gather as the men set off for another day of war. Drums, pipes, trumpets, the rhythmical pounding of swords on shields—to the fighters, this music meant honour, glory, courage, comradeship…To the crows, it only ever meant food.
”
”
Pat Barker (The Women of Troy (Women of Troy, #2))
“
Of course, if Saint Peter could come out today upon these streets below he would find all he could wish, voices from nowhere, music from unpopulated boxes, men ascending divine distances in gas balloons, and traveling at the speed of sound, apparitions from nowhere appear on the screen; the sick are raised from the dead, life is prolonged so that every detail of pain may be relished, the blind are given eyes and the cripples forced to walk, and there is an item which can blow a city of the beloved enemy into a place where their sins will be brought home to them, with of course as much noise as the trumpets on the walls of Jericho
”
”
William Gaddis (The Recognitions)
“
Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.
”
”
Voltaire (Candide)
“
Philippe also brought along musicians - mainly trumpeters and drummers - to scare the enemy. Even then, French music was known to terrify the English.
”
”
Stephen Clarke (1000 Years of Annoying the French)
“
Math equations converted by mouth into Dizzy Gillespie noises. That's a tax service I offer.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Eggs, they’re not just for breakfast)
“
My ducks have trumpets for beaks. I do NOT farm the way liquid jazz would fill up an elevator and turn it into an ascending pond.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Powdered Saxophone Music)
“
I play the only instrument that takes in music rather than propelling it out: the ear trumpet. Don’t bother snickering at me—I am deaf to your mockery.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (The Titanic would never have sunk if it were made out of a sink.)
“
The heat comes off the music.
”
”
Jackie Kay (Trumpet)
“
Growing up, my mom gave me the choice of either golf lessons or piano, and of course I chose the more musical option. That's how I learned to make triumphant trumpet noises with my mouth.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Powdered Saxophone Music)
“
There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.
”
”
Voltaire (Candide)
“
Dizzy Gillespie, the jazz trumpet player, once said, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.” He was one of my special ones. And he was quite correct. Silence enhances music. What you do not play can sweeten what you do. But
”
”
Mitch Albom (The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto)
“
The Dead Father was slaying, in a grove of music and musicians. First he slew a harpist and then a performer upon the serpent and also a banger upon the rattle and also a blower of the Persian trumpet and one upon the Indian trumpet and one upon the Hebrew trumpet and one upon the Roman trumpet and one upon the Chinese trumpet of copper-covered wood. Also a blower upon the marrow trumpet and one upon the slide trumpet and one who wearing upon his head the skin of a cat performed upon the menacing murmurous cornu and three blowers on the hunting horn and several blowers of the conch shell and a player of the double aulos and flautists of all descriptions and a Panpiper and a fagotto player and two virtuosos of the quail whistle and a zampogna player whose fingering of the chanters was sweet to the ear and by-the-bye and during the rest period he slew four buzzers and a shawmist and one blower upon the water jar and a clavicytheriumist who was before he slew her a woman, and a stroker of the theorbo and countless nervous-fingered drummers as well as an archlutist, and then whanging his sword this way and that the Dead Father slew a cittern plucker and five lyresmiters and various mandolinists, and slew too a violist and a player of the kit and a picker of the psaltery and a beater of the dulcimer and a hurdy-gurdier and a player of the spike fiddle and sundry kettledrummers and a triangulist and two-score finger cymbal clinkers and a xylophone artist and two gongers and a player of the small semantron who fell with his iron hammer still in his hand and a trictrac specialist and a marimbist and a maracist and a falcon drummer and a sheng blower and a sansa pusher and a manipulator of the gilded ball.
The Dead Father resting with his two hands on the hilt of his sword, which was planted in the red and steaming earth.
My anger, he said proudly.
Then the Dead Father sheathing his sword pulled from his trousers his ancient prick and pissed upon the dead artists, severally and together, to the best of his ability-four minutes, or one pint.
Impressive, said Julie, had they not been pure cardboard.
My dear, said Thomas, you deal too harshly with him.
I have the greatest possible respect for him and for what he represents, said Julie, let us proceed.
”
”
Donald Barthelme (The Dead Father)
“
The red-jacketed band stirred to life. The first musician raised his trumpet. The trombone dipped. The drumstick rose. Lea lowered her clarinet. It had been Brent's idea not to have their insturments rise and fall in unison. The staggered motion gave it a more exciting rhythm.
”
”
Paul Fleischman (Whirligig)
“
I drive back into town with the two crinkly notes in my pocket and wonder if I could support a family this way, doomed to play dinner dances until I too have one foot in the grave. I shudder at the possibility, and think about poor Meg in her sickbed. What am I going to do? On the way back I pass a big roundabout at the end of the Coast Road. It is March, and the roundabout is covered in daffodils. I circle it twice, an idea forming in my head. I park in a nearby street. It is early morning and there is no one around. I check for police cars and head across the road to the roundabout. Half an hour later I let myself into Megan’s flat and slowly open her bedroom door. My arms are full of daffodils, maybe a hundred all told, their drooping yellow trumpets lighting up the entire room. Meg starts to cry, and so do I. The next morning our prayers are answered, but our relief is mixed with a subtle, unspoken regret.
”
”
Sting (Broken Music: A Memoir)
“
They [the Puritans] disallowed of the cathedral mode of worship; of singing their prayers, and of the antiphone or chanting of the Psalms by turns, which the ecclesiastical commissioners in King Edward the Sixth’s time advised the laying aside. Nor did they approve of musical instruments, as trumpets, organs, etc.
”
”
Daniel Neal
“
Lakes, carillonst,
Pools and bells,
Fifes and freshets,
Harps and wells;
Flutes and rivers,
Streams, bassoons,
Geysers, trumpets,
Chimes lagoons,
Hear the music,
Drink the water,
As we poor lambs
All go to slaughter.
I love you Eliot.
Good-bye. I cry.
Tears and violins.
Hearts and flowers,
Flowers and tears.
Rosewater, good-bye.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
“
I've a long time trying to love
a brother whose only way of touching me is pain.
A long time escaping into music.
Practice, lessons, rehearsals that protect me
from the hurting parts of life.
I've been winning awards, applause,
acclaim for my trumpets since I was in grade school.
But love?
The word catches in my throat.
Do I love anything?
Have i forgotten how?
”
”
Stasia Ward Kehoe (The Sound of Letting Go)
“
Call it arrogance or male chauvinism, the male ego just doesn’t allow a woman to participate in key issues in family. Men seldom realize that it’s the housewife who has the most difficult job in the world: waking up early, preparing breakfast, getting the children ready for school, preparing lunch, cleaning up the mess at home and so much more. Even before they can some rest, the doorbell would ring and the children are back from school. Then, the routine again, and by the end of the day, they were tired. Women in the family are the last to sleep and the first to wake up. Sometimes, even during a crisis in the family or when there is a dispute, it’s the lady of the house that stands rock solid to calm things down and face challenges head on.
”
”
Jagdish Joghee (The Colour of Love: Trumpets and bugles, there was music all over...)
“
Manfred sighed. He looked at the ceiling and declared, ‘I am behind words on the way to music beneath a wing and before trumpets, masks and brushes.’ He paused for effect and brought his gaze back to Charlie. ‘Do I make myself clear?’ In any other circumstances, Charlie would have said, ‘Clear as ditchwater,’ but as the situation was already pretty grim, he decided to say, ‘Yes, Manfred.
”
”
Jenny Nimmo (Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors (Charlie Bone) (Charlie Bone series Book 4))
“
The wild notes of tuba and trumpet and trombone rattled and hummed through the trees. In the first group of musicians, there were kids as young as fourteen playing the tuba and one kid who probably couldn’t drive banging a bass drum. They stomped together in rhythm to the music. Two ladies had dressed up in what looked like princess outfits. They wore white gloves and socks with tassels.
”
”
Hunter Murphy (Imogene in New Orleans (Imogene and the Boys #1))
“
She watched him take the trumpet from its case and fit the mouthpiece. She watched as he raised it to his lips and then, so suddenly, from that tiny cup of metal against his flesh, the sound would burst out like a glorious, brilliant knife dividing the air. And the little room would reverberate and the flies, jolted out of their torpor, would buzz round and round as if riding the swirling notes.
”
”
Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #1))
“
And then wonder took him, and a great joy; and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it. And all eyes followed his gaze, and behold! upon the foremost ship a great standard broke, and the wind displayed it as she turned towards the Harlond. There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, the signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years beyond count. And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond; and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold.
Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur's heir, out of the Paths of the Dead, borne upon a wind from the Sea to the kingdom of Gondor; and the mirth of the Rohirrim was a torrent of laughter and a flashing of swords, and the joy and wonder of the City was a music of trumpets and a ringing of bells. But the hosts of Mordor were seized with bewilderment, and a great wizardry it seemed to them that their own ships should be filled with their foes; and a black dread fell on them, knowing that the tides of fate had turned against them and their doom was at hand.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“
The bass engaged my imagination so differently than the trumpet. Blowing the trumpet, I dreamed of playing with the jazz greats, being in a majestic symphony orchestra, growing into a respected man, cool and distinct. But as soon as I picked up that bass I was an animal... I fell in love with rock music... I started looking at music in a new way, seeing color and attitude instead of notes and scales.
”
”
Flea (Acid for the Children)
“
And so it is in poetry also: all this love of curious French metres like the Ballade, the Villanelle, the Rondel; all this increased value laid on elaborate alliterations, and on curious words and refrains, such as you will find in Dante Rossetti and Swinburne, is merely the attempt to perfect flute and viol and trumpet through which the spirit of the age and the lips of the poet may blow the music of their many messages. And so it has been with this romantic movement of ours: it is a reaction against the empty conventional workmanship, the lax execution of previous poetry and painting, showing itself in the work of such men as Rossetti and Burne-Jones by a far greater splendour of colour, a far more intricate wonder of design than English imaginative art has shown before. In Rossetti’s poetry and the poetry of Morris, Swinburne and Tennyson a perfect precision and choice of language, a style flawless and fearless, a seeking for all sweet and precious melodies and a sustaining consciousness of the musical value of each word are opposed to that value which is merely intellectual. In this respect they are one with the romantic movement of France of which not the least characteristic note was struck by Theophile Gautier’s advice to the young poet to read his dictionary every day, as being the only book worth a poet’s reading.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The English Renaissance of Art)
“
Love is Heaven on a Hinge
Memory enfolds upon her's sovereignty of sleep;
her beauty manifests not as pleasing proportion
but as an arcane assemblage of Ming porcelain,
clues pieced together to reveal
the numinous Yin within.
Tangrams of facile shapes recollect
into priceless chinoiserie
excavated with a toothbrush
beneath the clay noses
of a thousand entombed sentinels.
She reposes within my niche,
an ingenuous vase,
her dreams fulcromed by my lever.
My right arm, her nocturnal tiara,
diademed in jewels of sweat,
perfumed in muskiness and ferment,
heralded in the dulcet wail of snores.
Beneath the bay window of her oneiric realm
frogs belch Chopin's Impromptus,
chanticleers trumpet Hayden
cicadas chirp Mozart's Elvira Madigan.
Under the mask of night my niche becomes
her royal box at the Viennese Opera:
concertinas of Chinese silk,
the empyreal music of limns,
the fateful reprise of heaven
on a hinge.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
There are more guys than girls in jazz.
Next-to-no lady trumpeters
(oh, there are a few)
but it doesn't matter because, for me, jazz trumpet is all about one guy
Miles Davis.
He made this famous album in 1959
called Kind of Blue
which is kind of, always,
how I feel.
That album gets into your bones
goes and goes
starts, hesitates, reaches out, feels
for the music, the sound, the thing you want to change.
Always grasping for the unattainable makes you
kind of excited,
kind of sorry.
”
”
Stasia Ward Kehoe (The Sound of Letting Go)
“
The cream of the Negro musicians then in France, like Cricket Smith on the trumpet, Louis Jones on the violin, Palmer Jones at the piano, Frank Withers on the clarinet, and Buddy Gilmore at the drums, would weave out music that would almost make your heart stand still at dawn in a Paris night club in the rue Pigalle, when most of the guests were gone and you were washing the last pots and pans in a two-by-four kitchen, with the fire in the range dying and the one high window letting the soft dawn in.
”
”
Langston Hughes (The Big Sea (American Century Series))
“
The music, Beethoven's Ninth, opened with a blast: violins, trumpet, an explosion loud enough to knock thought and worry from the mind. It was reminiscent of war - thundering footsteps, the rumble of tanks, the screech & crack of planes overhead, an exploding bomb. The audience sat at attention, gripping their seats. Something small and gentle might have lost them. Something tender and they might have begun to cry and never stopped. They were there, but they were not strong. They would do anything to protect themselves from sadness.
”
”
Jessica Shattuck (The Women in the Castle)
“
Love is a feeling that must be felt from the heart and seen through inner beauty. Only if this was known to the youth, many a marriages would have blossomed with age and cherished through decades. Just like a plant that needs the sun, water and more time to grow into a beautiful tree with lovely leaves and flowers, love needs time to be nurtured over time, built on a strong foundation of friendship, trust and honesty. When this foundation is built and combined with the feeling that tickles you from within, that is when love actually happens, the rest is all infatuation, attraction or even lust.
”
”
Jagdish Joghee (The Colour of Love: Trumpets and bugles, there was music all over...)
“
As a musician, when you listen to music, it’s not a passive act; you’re fully engaged in the experience, almost swimming around in it, perceiving detail and depth that casual hearing just can’t pick up. The way musicians listen to music is both more intense and more purposeful than the way “normal” people listen, especially if you’re listening to music you love, or music you want to learn. Tabla player Rupesh Kotecha calls it intricate listening, New York Philharmonic trumpeter Ethan Bensdorf calls it active listening, free-improvising pioneer and composer Pauline Oliveros calls it deep listening. Whatever you call it, listening this intensely takes practice.
”
”
Jonathan Harnum (The Practice of Practice)
“
As a trumpet joined the organ in Jeremiah Clark's triumphant march, John was glad Pamela had chosen the piece over the more traditional "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin. Even though he had familiarity with the music because Mrs. Norton had played the piece by Wagner at every wedding he'd attended.
The music sent goosebumps down John's arms, bringing him into stark awareness of the sanctity of this ceremony, the weight of the commitment he was about to make, the new life journey he and Pamela were about to embark upon... together.
Goosebumps shivered over his skin, and his legs trembled. He didn't chide himself for the unmanly reactions, just took some deep breaths to steady himself.
”
”
Debra Holland (Beneath Montana's Sky (Mail-Order Brides of the West, #0.5; Montana Sky, #0.5))
“
breath,
life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing. seventy three years on this
earth is a lot of taking in and giving out, is a
life of coming from somewhere and for many a bunch
of going nowhere.
how do we celebrate a poet who has created
music with words for over fifty years, who has
showered magic on her people, who has redefined
poetry into a black world exactness
thereby giving the universe an insight into
darkroads?
just say she interprets beauty and wants to
give life, say she is patient with phoniness
and doesn’t mind people calling her gwen or sister.
say she sees the genius in our children, is visionary
about possibilities, sees as clearly as ray charles and
stevie wonder, hears like determined elephants looking
for food. say that her touch is fine wood, her memory
is like an african roadmap detailing adventure and
clarity, yet returning to chicago’s south evans
to record the journey. say her voice is majestic
and magnetic as she speaks in poetry, rhythms, song
and spirited trumpets, say she is dark skinned,
melanin rich, small-boned, hurricane-willed,
with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape.
life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing.
gwendolyn, gwen, sister g has
not disappointed our expectations.
in the middle
of her eldership she brings us
vigorous language, memory,
illumination.
she brings breath.
(Quality: Gwendolyn Brooks at 73)
”
”
Haki R. Madhubuti (Heartlove: Wedding and Love Poems)
“
He could not reconcile himself to her beauty, that was mother to his own, the exquisite neck and shoulders, the grace of a fortunate woman of thirty.
"Amory, dear," she crooned softly, "I had such a strange, weird time after I left you."
"Did you, Beatrice?"
"When I had my last breakdown"—she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant feat.
"The doctors told me"—her voice sang on a confidential note—"that if any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would have been physically shattered, my dear, and in his grave—long in his grave."
Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker.
"Yes," continued Beatrice tragically, "I had dreams—wonderful visions." She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and the flare of barbaric trumpets—what?"
Amory had snickered.
"What, Amory?"
"I said go on, Beatrice."
"That was all—it merely recurred and recurred—gardens that flaunted coloring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and swayed, paler than winter moons, more golden than harvest moons——"
"Are you quite well now, Beatrice?"
"Quite well—as well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Amory. I know that can't express it to you, Amory, but—I am not understood."
Amory was quite moved. He put his arm around his mother, rubbing his head gently against her shoulder.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
But when Aragorn arose all that beheld him gazed in silence, for it seemed to
them that he was revealed to them now for the first time. Tall as the sea-kings of old, he
stood above all that were near; ancient of days he seemed and yet in the flower of
manhood; and wisdom sat upon his brow, and strength and healing were in his hands,
and a light was about him. And then Faramir cried:
'Behold the King!'
And in that moment all the trumpets were blown, and the King Elessar went
forth and came to the barrier, and Húrin of the Keys thrust it back; and amid the music
of harp and of viol and of flute and the singing of clear voices the King passed through
the flower-laden streets, and came to the Citadel, and entered in; and the banner of the Tree and the Stars was unfurled upon the topmost tower, and the reign of King Elessar
began, of which many songs have told.
In his time the City was made more fair than it had ever been, even in the days of
its first glory; and it was filled with trees and with fountains, and its gates were
wrought of mithril and steel, and its streets were paved with white marble; and the Folk
of the Mountain laboured in it, and the Folk of the Wood rejoiced to come there; and all
was healed and made good, and the houses were filled with men and women and the
laughter of children, and no window was blind nor any courtyard empty; and after the
ending of the Third Age of the world into the new age it preserved the memory and the
glory of the years that were gone.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“
And barbarians were inventors not only of philosophy, but almost of every art. The Egyptians were the first to introduce astrology among men. Similarly also the Chaldeans. The Egyptians first showed how to burn lamps, and divided the year into twelve months, prohibited intercourse with women in the temples, and enacted that no one should enter the temples from a woman without bathing. Again, they were the inventors of geometry. There are some who say that the Carians invented prognostication by the stars. The Phrygians were the first who attended to the flight of birds. And the Tuscans, neighbours of Italy, were adepts at the art of the Haruspex. The Isaurians and the Arabians invented augury, as the Telmesians divination by dreams. The Etruscans invented the trumpet, and the Phrygians the flute. For Olympus and Marsyas were Phrygians. And Cadmus, the inventor of letters among the Greeks, as Euphorus says, was a Phoenician; whence also Herodotus writes that they were called Phoenician letters. And they say that the Phoenicians and the Syrians first invented letters; and that Apis, an aboriginal inhabitant of Egypt, invented the healing art before Io came into Egypt. But afterwards they say that Asclepius improved the art. Atlas the Libyan was the first who built a ship and navigated the sea. Kelmis and Damnaneus, Idaean Dactyli, first discovered iron in Cyprus. Another Idaean discovered the tempering of brass; according to Hesiod, a Scythian. The Thracians first invented what is called a scimitar (arph), -- it is a curved sword, -- and were the first to use shields on horseback. Similarly also the Illyrians invented the shield (pelth). Besides, they say that the Tuscans invented the art of moulding clay; and that Itanus (he was a Samnite) first fashioned the oblong shield (qureos). Cadmus the Phoenician invented stonecutting, and discovered the gold mines on the Pangaean mountain. Further, another nation, the Cappadocians, first invented the instrument called the nabla, and the Assyrians in the same way the dichord. The Carthaginians were the first that constructed a triterme; and it was built by Bosporus, an aboriginal. Medea, the daughter of Æetas, a Colchian, first invented the dyeing of hair. Besides, the Noropes (they are a Paeonian race, and are now called the Norici) worked copper, and were the first that purified iron. Amycus the king of the Bebryci was the first inventor of boxing-gloves. In music, Olympus the Mysian practised the Lydian harmony; and the people called Troglodytes invented the sambuca, a musical instrument. It is said that the crooked pipe was invented by Satyrus the Phrygian; likewise also diatonic harmony by Hyagnis, a Phrygian too; and notes by Olympus, a Phrygian; as also the Phrygian harmony, and the half-Phrygian and the half-Lydian, by Marsyas, who belonged to the same region as those mentioned above. And the Doric was invented by Thamyris the Thracian. We have heard that the Persians were the first who fashioned the chariot, and bed, and footstool; and the Sidonians the first to construct a trireme. The Sicilians, close to Italy, were the first inventors of the phorminx, which is not much inferior to the lyre. And they invented castanets. In the time of Semiramis queen of the Assyrians, they relate that linen garments were invented. And Hellanicus says that Atossa queen of the Persians was the first who composed a letter. These things are reported by Seame of Mitylene, Theophrastus of Ephesus, Cydippus of Mantinea also Antiphanes, Aristodemus, and Aristotle and besides these, Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic, in his books Concerning Inventions. I have added a few details from them, in order to confirm the inventive and practically useful genius of the barbarians, by whom the Greeks profited in their studies. And if any one objects to the barbarous language, Anacharsis says, "All the Greeks speak Scythian to me." [...]
”
”
Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis, Books 1-3 (Fathers of the Church))
“
The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
“
Just listen you poor creature, listen without either pathos or mockery, while far away behind the veil of this hopeless idiotic and ridiculous apparatus the form of this divine music passes by. Pay attention and you will learn something. Observe what this crazy speaking-trumpet, apparently the most stupid, the most useless and the most damnable thing that the world contains, contrives to do. It take hold of some music played where you please, without distinction or discretion, lamentably distorted, to boot, and chucks it into space to land where it has no business to be; and yet after all this it cannot destroy the spirit of the music; it can only, however it may meddle and mar, lay its senseless mechanism at its feet. Listen, then, you poor thing. Listen well. You have need of it. And now you hear not only a Handel who, disfigured by radio, is, all the same, in the most ghastly of disguises, still divine;
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
“
There was a warrior once who fought
Against man's subtlest, mightiest foe,
And more than valiant deeds he wrought
T' effect th' enslaver's overthrow.
But ah! how dread was his campaign,
Forc'd in the wilderness to stray,
Lone, hungry, stung with grief and pain,
And thus sustain the arduous fray.
Prompt at each call from place to place,
'Mid sin's dark shade and sorrow's flow,
He sped to save man's erring race,
And bear for him the vengeful blow.
But when his soldiers saw the strife,
When imminent the danger grew,
Though 'twas for them he pledg'd his life,
Like dastards from the field they flew.
Wearied, forsaken, still he strove,
And gain'd the glorious victory;
Yet such achievements few could move,
To hail his triumpn 'beath the sky.
Dying he conquer'd; yet at last
No human honours grac'd his bier;
No trumpet wail'd its mournful blast,
No muffl'd drum made music drear.
But when he dy'd the rocks were rent,
The sun his radiant beams withheld,
All nature shudder'd at th' event,
And horror every bosom swell'd.
E'en Death, fell Death! could not detain
Him, who for man his life had given,
He burst the ineffectual chain,
And soar'd his advocate to heaven.
”
”
Thomas Gillet (The Juvenile Wreath; Consisting of Poems, Chiefly on the Subject of Natural History)
“
Nestor said to me. "A
row of Hussars on horseback will come to take me. What will it be for you?"
I remembered don Juan telling me once that death might be behind anything imaginable, even
behind a dot on my writing pad. He gave me then the definitive metaphor of my death.
I had told him that once while walking on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles I had heard
the sound of a trumpet playing an old, idiotic popular tune. The music was coming from a
record shop across the street.
Never had I heard a more beautiful sound. I became enraptured by it. I had to sit down on the
curb. The limpid brass sound of that trumpet was going directly to my brain. I felt it just
above my right temple. It soothed me until I was drunk with it.
When it concluded, I knew that there would be no way of ever repeating that experience, and I
had enough detachment not to rush into the store and buy the record and a stereo set to play it
on.
Don Juan said that it had been a sign given to me by the powers that rule the destiny of men.
When the time comes for me to leave the world, in whatever form, I will hear the same sound
of that trumpet, the same idiotic tune, the same peerless trumpeter.
”
”
Carlos Castaneda
“
Then Daniel stepped forward and a trumpet sounded, followed by a drum. The dance was beginning. He took her hand. When he spoke, he spoke to her, not to the audience,as the other players did.
"The fairest hand I ever touched," Daniel said. "O Beauty, till now I never knew thee." As if the lines had been written for the two of them.
They began to dance,and Daniel locked eyes with her the whole time. His eyes were crystal clear and violet, and the way they never strayed from hers chipped away at Luce's heart. She knew he'd loved her always,but until this moment,dancing with him on the stage in front of all these people,she had never really thought about what it meant.
It meant that when she saw him for the first time in every life,Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fall in love with him from scratch.He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time.
Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream.It was the purest form of love there was,purer even than the love Luce returned. His love flowed without breaking,without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across all eternity. How powerfully strong must it be by now? Hundreds of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend.
He loved her that much,and yet in every lifetime,over and over again,he had to wait for her to catch up.
All this time,they had been dancing with the rest of the troupe, bounding in and out of the wings at breaks in the music,coming back onstage for more gallantry,for longer sets with more ornate steps,until the whole company was dancing.
At the close of the scene,even though it wasn't in the script,even though Cam was standing right there watching,Luce held fast to Daniel's hand and pulled him to her,up against the potted orange trees.He looked at her like she was crazy and tried to tug her to the mark dictated by her stage directions. "What are you doing?" he murmured.
He had doubted her before,backstage when she'd tried to speak freely about her feelings.She had to make him believe her.Especially if Lucinda died tonight,understanding the depth of her love would mean everything to him. It would help him to carry on,to keep loving her for hundreds more years, through all the pain and hardship she'd witnessed,right up to the present.
Luce knew that it wasn't in the script, but she couldn't stop herself: She grabbed Daniel and she kissed him.
She expected him to stop her,but instead he swooped her into his arms and kissed her back.Hard and passionately, responding with such intensity that she felt the way she did when they were flying,though she knew her feet were planted on the ground.
For a moment, the audience was silent. Then they began to holler and jeer.Someone threw a shoe at Daniel, but he ignored it. His kisses told Luce that he believed her,that he understood the depth of her love,but she wanted to be absolutely sure.
"I will always love you,Daniel." Only, that didn't seem quite right-or not quite enough. She had to make him understand,and damn the consequences-if she changed history,so be it. "I'll always choose you." Yes, that was the word. "Every single lifetime, I'll choose you.Just as you have always chosen me.Forever."
His lips parted.Did he believe her? Did he already know? It was a choice, a long-standing, deep-seated choice that reached beyond anything else Luce was capable of.Something powerful was behind it.Something beautiful and-
Shadows began to swirl in the rigging overhead. Heat quaked through her body, making her convulse,desperate for the fiery release she knew was coming.
Daniel's eyes flashed with pain. "No," he whispered. "Please don't go yet."
Somehow,it always took both of them by surprise.
”
”
Lauren Kate (Passion (Fallen, #3))
“
The sixty acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from foliage-hung hiding-places; there was a great and constantly increasing family of white cats that prowled the many flower-beds and were silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after Mr. Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library. After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long tête-a-tête in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her beauty, that was mother to his own, the exquisite neck and shoulders, the grace of a fortunate woman of thirty.
"Amory, dear," she crooned softly, "I had such a strange, weird time after I left you."
"Did you, Beatrice?"
"When I had my last breakdown"—she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant feat.
"The doctors told me"—her voice sang on a confidential note—"that if any many alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would have been physically shattered, my dear, and in his grave—long in his grave."
Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker.
"Yes," continued Beatrice tragically, "I had dreams—wonderful visions." She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and the flare of barbaric trumpets—what?"
Amory had snickered.
"What, Amory?"
"I said go on, Beatrice."
"That was all—it merely recurred and recurred—gardens that flaunted coloring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and swayed, paler than winter moons, more golden than harvest moons——"
"Are you quite well now, Beatrice?"
"Quite well—as well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Amory. I know that can't express it to you, Amory, but—I am not understood."
Amory was quite moved. He put his arm around his mother, rubbing his head gently against her shoulder.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
Trumpets blared.
’Denham’s Dentifrice.’
Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field.
’Denham’s Dentifrice.’
They toil not —
’Denham’s —’
He tore the book open and flicked the pages and felt them as if he were blind, he picked at the shape of the individual letters, not blinking.
’Denham’s. Spelled: D-E-N —’
They toil not, neither do they …
A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve.
’Denham’s does it!’
Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies …
’Denham’s dental detergent.’
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet, the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring, moving back from this man with the insane, gorged face, the gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist. The people who have been sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice. The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run; there was no place to run; the great air-train fell down its shafts in the earth.
’Lilies of the field.’
’Denham’s.’
’Lilies, I said!’
The people stared.
’Call the guard.’
’The man’s off —’
’Knoll View!’
The train hissed to its stop.
’Knoll View!’ A cry.
’Denham’s.’ A whisper.
Montag’s mouth barely moved. ‘Lilies …’
The train door whistled open. Montag stood. The door gasped, started shut. Only then did he leap past the other passengers, screaming his mind, plunge through the slicing door only in time. He rain on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wanted to feel his feet move, arms swing, lungs clench, unclench, feel his throat go raw with air. A voice drifted after him, ‘Denham’s Denham’s Denham’s,’ the train hissed like a snake. The train vanished in its hole.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
“
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king;
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the Turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they lov'd, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen
'Twixt this Turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine
That the Turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix' sight:
Either was the other's mine.
Property was thus appalled
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded;
That it cried, "How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love has reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain."
Whereupon it made this threne
To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene:
Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.
Death is now the Phoenix' nest,
And the Turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem but cannot be;
Beauty brag but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer
”
”
William Shakespeare
“
I might disagree with them, but accept that they have some purpose to play in God’s larger plan,
Then Iluvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty. But the discord of Melkor rose in uproar and contended with it, and again there was a war of sound more violent than before, until many of the Ainur were dismayed and sang no longer, and Melkor had the mastery. Then again Ilu´ vatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that his countenance was stern; and he lifted up his right hand, and behold! a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others. For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies; but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.
In the midst of this strife, whereat the halls of Iluvatar shook and a tremor ran out into the silences yet unmoved, Ilu´ vatar arose a third time, and his face was terrible to behold. Then he raised up both his hands, and in one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Iluvatar, the Music ceased.
Then Ilu´ vatar spoke, and he said: ‘Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Iluvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.’
Then the Ainur were afraid, and they did not yet comprehend the words that were said to them; and Melkor was filled with shame, of which came secret anger. But Iluvatar arose in splendour, and he went forth from the fair regions that he had made for the Ainur; and the Ainur followed him.
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J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion)
“
These are the days of Elijah Declaring the Word of the Lord And these are the days of your servant Moses Righteousness being restored And though these are days of great trials Of famine and darkness and sword Still we are the voice in the desert crying Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Behold He comes! Riding on the clouds! Shining like the sun! At the trumpet call Lift your voice! It’s the year of Jubilee! And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes! And these are the days of Ezekiel The dry bones becoming as flesh And these are the days of your servant David Rebuilding a temple of praise And these are the days of the harvest The fields are as white in the world And we are the laborers in your vineyard Declaring the word of the Lord! Behold He comes! Riding on the clouds! Shining like the sun! At the trumpet call Lift your voice! It’s the year of Jubilee! And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes! There’s no God like Jehovah! There’s no God like Jehovah! There’s no God like Jehovah! Words and Music by Robin Mark
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Walid Shoebat (God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible)
“
We permit a new future to enter the room with these startling encounters. A young boy from Austin, Texas, Charles Black Jr., stood and knew it when he was just sixteen years old, thinking he was going to a coed social at the Driskill Hotel in his hometown in 1931. It was a dance, the first in a session of four, yet he remained transfixed by an image that he had never seen before. The trumpet player, a jazz musician whom he had not heard of, performed largely with his eyes closed, sounding out notes, ideas, laments, sonnets, “that had never before existed,” he said. His music sounded like an “utter transcendence of all else created.” He was with a friend, a “ ‘good old boy’ from Austin High,” who sensed it too, and was troubled. It rumbled the ground underneath them. His friend stood a while longer, “shook his head as if clearing it,” as if prying himself out of the trance. But Charles Black Jr. was sure even then. The trumpeter, “Louis Armstrong, King of the Trumpet” as it turned out, “was the first genius I had ever seen,” Black said, and that genius was housed in the body of a man whom Black’s childhood world had denigrated. The moment was “solemn.” Black had been staring at “genius,” yes, “fine control over total power, all height and depth, forever and ever,” and also staring at the gulf created by “the failure to recognize kinship.” He felt that Armstrong, who played as if “guided by a Daemon,” all “power” and lyricism, “opened my eyes wide, and put to me a choice”—to keep to a small view of humanity or to embrace a more expanded vision—and once Black made that choice, he never turned back. This is what aesthetic force can do—create a clear line forward, and an alternate route to choose.
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Sarah Lewis (The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery)
“
They came. I watched them come. The ones who have no names, the abominations, those who are flawed yet live, those who hunger yet can never be sated, those who hate eternally, who need beyond bearing with their twisted limbs and psychopathic dreams, those who know but one joy: the hunt, the kill, the nectar of dust and ashes. They soared over my head, high above the city, a vast, dark wave that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, obliterating the sky, shrieking, howling, trumpeting their victory, free, free, free for the first time in nearly a million years! Free in a world warmed by sun, populated by billions of strong hearts beating, exploding with life, bursting with sex and drugs and music and glories untold that had been forbidden to them forever. They came, the Wild Hunt, the winged ones, carrying their brethren in beaks and claws and other things that defied description, streaming from their icy hell, icing the world a slippery shining silvery frost in their wake.
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Karen Marie Moning (Faefever (Fever, #3))
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She had driven him downtown in the old Plymouth, and while she was at the doctor's seeing about her arthritis, Ignatius had bought some sheet music at Werlein's for this trumpet and a new string for his lute. Then he had wandered into the Penny Arcade on Royal Street to see whether any new games had been installed. He had been disappointed to find the miniature mechanical baseball game gone. Perhaps it was only being repaired. The last time he had played it the batter would not work and, after some argument, the management had returned his nickel, even though the Penny Arcade people had been base enough to suggest that Ignatius had himself broken the baseball machine by kicking it.
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John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
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The sound of trumpets rang out, signaling the arrival of the first course. A parade of glittering slaves trotted forward, some carrying decorations of the sea, statues made of shells, ribbons of blue and silver, or wearing costumes turning them into fish or mermaids. These slaves wandered among the diners as they ate, entertaining them with music or dances reminiscent of the sea. In the midst of these spectacles were the slaves carrying the food on massive trays covered in snow from the mountains, topped with stuffed mussels, lobster mince wrapped in grape leaves, and sea urchins boiled, honeyed, and served open in their own spiny husks.
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Crystal King (Feast of Sorrow)
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The military band did not make things easier. Having detected a larger than usual turnout of British travelers, and waiting with some infernal clairvoyance until Cyprian thought he had a grip on himself, just as he turned to bid Yashmeen a breezy arrivederci, they began to play an arrangement for brass of ‘Nimrod’ – what else? – from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Teutonic bluntness notwithstanding, at the first major-seventh chord, an uncertainty of pitch among the trumpets contributing its touch of unsought innocence, Cyprian felt the tap opening decisively. It was difficult to tell what Yashmeen was thinking as she offered her lips. He was concentrating on not getting her vestee wet. The music took them for an instant in its autumnal envelope, shutting out the tourist chatter, the steam horns and quayside traffic, in as honest an expression of friendship and farewell as the Victorian heart had ever managed to come up with, until finally, the band moved mercifully on to ‘La Gazza Ladra.’ It wasn’t till Yashmeen nodded and released him that Cyprian realized they had been holding each other.
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Thomas Pynchon
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I’m basically a nobody in the trumpet section. I like it that way. I hate being in front of people. I think I’m too nervous, or anxious, or something. The only time I ever played a solo was that time during concert band that I accidentally played during a rest. The whole band was silent and I honked out a right note at the wrong time. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to hide in my band locker. - Rigby Raines
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R.K. Slade (Because)
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He rose and standing in the dark he began to chant in a deep voice, while the echoes ran away into the roof. The world was young, the mountains green, No stain yet on the Moon was seen, No words were laid on stream or stone When Durin woke and walked alone. He named the nameless hills and dells; He drank from yet untasted wells; He stooped and looked in Mirrormere, And saw a crown of stars appear, As gems upon a silver thread, Above the shadow of his head. The world was fair, the mountains tall, In Elder Days before the fall Of mighty kings in Nargothrond And Gondolin, who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away: The world was fair in Durin’s Day. A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corslet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; The shadow lies upon his tomb In Moria, in Khazad-dûm. But still the sunken stars appear In dark and windless Mirrormere; There lies his crown in water deep, Till Durin wakes again from sleep. ‘I
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J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
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Not to be confused with Der Flügel, which is an earlier form of the baby grand piano, the Flugelhorn is a wind instrument akin to the trumpet, but has a wider, conical bore. It is actually a descendant of the valved bugle, which had been developed from a hunting horn known in eighteenth-century Germany as a Flügelhorn. This valved instrument is similar to the B♭pitch of many trumpets and cornets and was actually inspired by the eighteenth-century saxhorn on which the flugelhorn is modeled. The German word Flügel means wing and in the early part of the 18th century Germany the leader or Führer of the hunt was known as a Flügelmeister who issued his orders of the hunt with, you guessed it, a Flügelhorn.
Some modern flugelhorns feature a fourth valve that adds a lower range and extends the instrument's abilities, however some players use the fourth valve in place of the first and third valve combination making the instrument somewhat sharper and more confusing. The tone range is "fatter" and usually regarded as more “mellow” and “darker” than the trumpet or cornet. The sound of the flugelhorn has been described as halfway between a trumpet and a French horn and is a standard member of the British-style brass band. Joe Bishop an American jazz musician and composer, not to be confused with Joey Bishop of the Rat Pack, was a member of the Woody Herman band and was one of the earliest jazz musicians to use the flugelhorn.
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Hank Bracker
“
After a blast of trumpets the violins and cellos were left on their own for a while, creating a noise that started small and tender, and rose to create a kind of symphonic storm.
And, yes, it did nothing at first. But then, somehow, it got in.
No. Not got in. That’s the wrong way of putting it. Music doesn’t get in. Music is already in. Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn’t necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them all up. A rebirth of sorts.
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Matt Haig (How to Stop Time)
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The theme of music making the dancer dance turns up everywhere in Astaire’s work. It is his most fundamental creative impulse. Following this theme also helps connect Astaire to trends in popular music and jazz, highlighting his desire to meet the changing tastes of his audience. His comic partner dance with Marjorie Reynolds to the Irving Berlin song “I Can’t Tell a Lie” in Holiday Inn (1942) provides a revealing example. Performed in eighteenth-century costumes and wigs for a Washington’s birthday–themed floor show, the dance is built around abrupt musical shifts between the light classical sound of flute, strings, and harpsichord and four contrasting popular music styles played on the soundtrack by Bob Crosby and His Orchestra, a popular dance band. Moderate swing, a bluesy trumpet shuffle, hot flag-waving swing, and the Conga take turns interrupting what would have been a graceful, if effete, gavotte. The script supervisor heard these contrasts on the set during filming to playback. In her notes, she used commonplace musical terms to describe the action: “going through routine to La Conga music, then music changing back and forth from minuet to jazz—cutting as he holds her hand and she whirls doing minuet.”13 Astaire and Reynolds play professional dancers who are expected to respond correctly and instantaneously to the musical cues being given by the band. In an era when variety was a hallmark of popular music, different dance rhythms and tempos cued different dances. Competency on the dance floor meant a working knowledge of different dance styles and the ability to match these moves to the shifting musical program of the bands that played in ballrooms large and small. The constant stylistic shifts in “I Can’t Tell a Lie” are all to the popular music point. The joke isn’t only that the classical-sounding music that matches the couple’s costumes keeps being interrupted by pop sounds; it’s that the interruptions reference real varieties of popular music heard everywhere outside the movie theaters where Holiday Inn first played to capacity audiences. The routine runs through a veritable catalog of popular dance music circa 1942. The brief bit of Conga was a particularly poignant joke at the time. A huge hit in the late 1930s, the Conga during the war became an invitation to controlled mayhem, a crazy release of energy in a time of crisis when the dance floor was an important place of escape. A regular feature at servicemen’s canteens, the Conga was an old novelty dance everybody knew, so its intrusion into “I Can’t Tell a Lie” can perhaps be imagined as something like hearing the mid-1990s hit “Macarena” after the 2001 terrorist attacks—old party music echoing from a less complicated time.14 If today we miss these finer points, in 1942 audiences—who flocked to this movie—certainly got them all. “I Can’t Tell a Lie” was funnier then, and for specifically musical reasons that had everything to do with the larger world of popular music and dance. As subsequent chapters will demonstrate, many such musical jokes or references can be recovered by listening to Astaire’s films in the context of the popular music marketplace.
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Todd Decker (Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz)
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The Three Estaits is a puzzle. In its original form it's an eight-hour dramatised sermon written by Sir David Lindsay of the Mount for the young King James V advising him on the responsibilities of kingship and government. Its relevance today is a bit misty. The art in preparing it for a modern audience starts with the cutting down of the original text to a manageable size. This Robert [Kemp] did superbly well. He was also well served by his original cast in 1948 who breathed life into the stereotypical characters. But the main advantage for that production and the later ones up till and including 1959 was in its producer. Tony [Tyrone] Guthrie took a fairly verbose script and wrung glory out of it. Movement, pageantry, crashing music with dozens of trumpets, banners, mass entrances and exits through the audience, anything to delight they eye and stop people trying to make sense of the dialogue. 1959 was the last time Guthrie produced it. I think by then he'd had enough and felt he was churning out productions without anything new to say. The play has been revived since, of course, but each revival has inevitably been a shadow of Guthrie's production and sometimes a pale replica of Robert's script.
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Michael Elder (What do You do During the Day?)
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It is exactly as I have heard it described: large, white turning to orange trumpet flowers with deep rust-colored stamens, and a sweet scent.'
Elizabeth had found herself able to breathe more easily. She was certain that he had not found the Devil's Trumpet. She knew this plant of which Chegwidden spoke--- her father had described it as the 'fiery trumpet', a glorious tree that featured bushels of pendulous trumpet-shaped flowers, hanging downwards, 'as if musical instruments left behind by a fairy orchestra' he had said.
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Kayte Nunn (The Botanist's Daughter)
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So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky. —John Dryden, “A Song for St. Cecelia’s Day
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Chuck Wendig (Wanderers)
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Davis: I didn’t grow up with any, not as friends, to speak of. But I went to school with some. In high school, I was the best in the music class on the trumpet. I knew it and all the rest knew it—but all the contest first prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. It made me so mad I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn. If I hadn’t met that prejudice, I probably wouldn’t have had as much drive in my work. I have thought about that a lot. I have thought that prejudice and curiosity have been responsible for what I have done in music.
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Miles Davis (Miles Davis: The Playboy Interview (Singles Classic) (50 Years of the Playboy Interview))
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Matthew Muckey is a renowned classical trumpet player currently based in New York City. Originally hailing from California, Muckey's passion for music was ignited at a young age. He pursued his education in music, excelling in his studies and honing his skills as a trumpeter.
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Matthew Muckey
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Louis Armstrong made the trumpet his mouthpiece. With the instrument, he was as complete as he would have been incomplete without it. Both man and instrument gave us jazz music as soft as velvet. As clear as the last speech of a grumbling thunder in a drizzling, slanting rain of a frugal tropical wet season! And as distinctive as any piece of jazz Satchmo himself, the virtuoso, would have rendered!
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Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
“
Perhaps the most likely answer is that, in the Bible, six is the number for human beings. People were created on the sixth day, and they are to work six of seven days. A Hebrew could not be a slave for more than six years. God’s number, on the other hand, is seven. He created seven days in a week. There are seven colors in the visible spectrum and seven notes in a musical scale. Biblically, there are seven feasts of Jehovah (Leviticus 23); seven sayings of Jesus from the cross; and seven “secrets” in the Kingdom parables (Matthew 13). At the fall of Jericho, seven priests marched in front of the army bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns, and on the seventh day they marched around the city seven times (Joshua 6).
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David Jeremiah (Agents of the Apocalypse: A Riveting Look at the Key Players of the End Times)
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IDENTITY CLUE 16: A LAND OF ENTERTAINMENT John tells us in Revelation 18:22 that when the Daughter of Babylon falls: “The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again. No workman of any trade will ever be found in you again.” He then writes that “By your magic spell all the nations were led astray” (Revelation 18:23d).
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John Price (The End of America: The Role of Islam in the End Times and Biblical Warnings to Flee America)
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according to Alamoth; 21Mattithiah, Elipheleh, Mikneiah, Obed-Edom, Jeiel, and Azaziah, to direct with harps on the Sheminith; 22Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, was in charge of the music because he was skillful; 23Berechiah and Elkanah were doorkeepers for the ark; 24Shebaniah, Joshaphat, Nethanel, Amasai, Zechariah, Benaiah, and Eliezer, the priests, were to blow the trumpets before the ark of God; and Obed-Edom and Jehiah were doorkeepers for the ark. The Ark Is Moved to Jerusalem 25With joy David and the elders of Israel and the captains over thousands went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the house of Obed-Edom.† 26And so it was, when God helped the Levites who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, they offered seven bulls and seven rams.† 27David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, as were all the Levites who bore the ark, the singers, and Chenaniah the music master with the singers. David also wore a linen ephod.† 28Thus all of Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting and the sound of the horn, with trumpets and cymbals, making music with stringed instruments and harps. 29And it happened, as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the City of David, that Michal, Saul's daughter, looked out through a window and saw King David dancing and playing music; and she despised him in her heart.
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Anonymous (The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World)
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Miss Tuppenceworth, W.’s pretty blonde secretary, looked out the window of her office, which served as antechamber to her superior’s sanctum sanctorum. “Why is it that whenever H.P. shows up, the sky is suddenly filled with multi-colored silhouettes of shapely women flying about? One can see outlines of guns among the female forms, and hear music filled with saxophones and trumpets. And there’s this sort of swirly gun-barrel shifting to and fro…Decidedly odd.
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Mark McLaughlin (Best Little Witch-House in Arkham)
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The julep’s difficulty and the commitment it requires are part of its appeal. One cool gulp of the minty sweet liquid on a hot day makes up for everything the drink demands. Anticipation is part of the julep’s genius—like Miles Davis playing trumpet on “All Blues,” coming into the song when he’s good and ready, knowing that waiting is just as important to the music as the next phrase. Juleps epitomize the concept of patience.
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Reid Mitenbuler (Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey)
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Timbre is the emblematic tone, or voice, generated by each type of instrument or biological sound source. Not only do musical instruments have singular voice characteristics but so does every living organism and most man-made machines. The difference between the sound of a violin and that of a trumpet is as distinctive as that between a cicada and an American robin, or a cat and a dog—or between a Rolls-Royce and a Formula 1 automobile. When Paul Beaver and I first began
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Bernie Krause (Sounds from The Great Animal Orchestra (Enhanced): Air)
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Mr. Nobley was walking briskly from one room to the next, his eyes up as though trying to avoid eye contact. He looked scrumptious in his black jacket and white tie. Even better when he saw her and stopped. Really looked. Zing. Hello, Nobley.
“Mr. Nobley!” A stranger woman of retirement age waved a handkerchief gleefully and bustle-jogged toward him. Mr. Nobley fled.
And then, Martin was there, in tails, cravat, and all, and scanning the crowd.
For my face, she thought.
It was Martin’s turn to look up, to see her. His expression was--whoa, she knew now that she was looking pretty good. Others noticed his expression and turned as well. The murmuring hushed and music swirled from the other room. She was Cinderella entering alone. What, no trumpets?
Martin rushed up several steps to escort her down.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
He took her arm anyway. “That’s a crackin’ dress, Jane. I mean…Miss Erstwhile. Might I have the pleasure of obtaining your hand for the next two dances?”
Ah, his smell! She was in his room again, static on the TV, a can of root beer so cold it was sweating, his hands touching her face. She wanted him close. She wanted to feel as real as she had those nights. Her sleeves pinched her shoulders, her dress felt heavy in the skirts.
“I can’t, Martin,” she said. “I already promised--”
“Miss Erstwhile,” Mr. Nobley was standing at her elbow. He bowed civilly. “The first dance is beginning, if you care to accompany me.”
Was there a look that passed between the two men? Some heated past? Or would they (wahoo!) have a jealous tussle over Jane’s attentions?
Nope. Mr. Nobley led her away. Martin stayed put, watching her go, something of a puppy dog in his eyes. She tried to say with her own, “I’m sorry I ignored you the night of the theatrical and I understand why you judged me for being the kind of woman to fall in love with this fantasy and I’ll be back and maybe we can talk then or just make out,” though she didn’t know how much of that she actually communicated. Maybe just a part, like “I’m sorry” or “you judged me” or “make out.
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Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
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Not everything needs to be said, some things are just understood. Sometimes one’s eyes are enough to express hidden emotions. When two people are truly, madly and deeply in love each other, nature will conspire to bring them together.
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Jagdish Joghee (The Colour of Love: Trumpets and bugles, there was music all over...)
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I love you.”
“Wow. That too on Valentine’s Day!”
“That’s just a coincidence.”
A perfect love story started to brew as they embarked on a journey of love and romance. The day the world celebrated love was the day they would start their love story too. What a perfect melodrama, even the best of romantic movies might not have such a climax. A perfect love story was just brewing.
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Jagdish Joghee (The Colour of Love: Trumpets and bugles, there was music all over...)
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The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking (Edward B. Burger;Michael Starbird) - Your Highlight on page 17 | location 251-270 | Added on Monday, 6 April 2015 03:03:56 Understand simple things deeply The most fundamental ideas in any subject can be understood with ever-increasing depth. Professional tennis players watch the ball; mathematicians understand a nuanced notion of number; successful students continue to improve their mastery of the concepts from previous chapters and courses as they move toward the more advanced material on the horizon; successful people regularly focus on the core purpose of their profession or life. True experts continually deepen their mastery of the basics. Trumpeting understanding through a note-worthy lesson. Tony Plog is an internationally acclaimed trumpet virtuoso, composer, and teacher. A few years ago we had the opportunity to observe him conducting a master class for accomplished soloists. During the class, each student played a portion of his or her selected virtuosic piece. They played wonderfully. Tony listened politely and always started his comments, “Very good, very good. That is a challenging piece, isn’t it?” As expected, he proceeded to give the students advice about how the piece could be played more beautifully, offering suggestions about physical technique and musicality. No surprise. But then he shifted gears. He asked the students to play a very easy warm-up exercise that any beginning trumpet player might be given. They played the handful of simple notes, which sounded childish compared to the dramatically fast, high notes from the earlier, more sophisticated pieces. After they played the simple phrase, Tony, for the first time during the lesson, picked up the trumpet. He played that same phrase, but when he played it, it was not childish. It was exquisite. Each note was a rich, delightful sound. He gave the small phrase a delicate shape, revealing a flowing sense of dynamics that enabled us to hear meaning in those simple notes. The students’ attempts did not come close—the contrast was astounding. The fundamental difference between the true master and the talented students clearly occurred at a far more basic level than in the intricacies of complex pieces. Tony explained that mastering an efficient, nuanced performance of simple pieces allows one to play spectacularly difficult pieces with greater control and artistry. The lesson was simple. The master teacher suggested that the advanced students focus more of their time on practicing simple pieces intensely—learning to perform them with technical efficiency and beautiful elegance. Deep work on simple, basic ideas helps to build true virtuosity—not just in music but in everything. ==========
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Anonymous
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One smiles often when reading incidents in their labors. A string of packhorses is so driven as to break up a congregation, and a fire-engine is brought out and played over the throng to achieve the same purpose. Hand-bells, old kettles, marrowbones and cleavers, trumpets, drums, and entire bands of music were engaged to drown the Preachers' voices. In one case the parish bull was let loose, and in others dogs were set to fight. The preachers needed to have faces set like flints, and so indeed they had. John Furz says,: "As soon as I began to preach, a man came straight forward, and presented a gun at my face; swearing that he would blow my brains out, if I spake another word. However, I continued speaking, and he continued swearing, sometimes putting the muzzle of the gun to my mouth, sometimes against my ear. While we were singing the last hymn, he got behind me, fired the gun, and burned off part of my hair." After this, my brethren, We ought never to speak of petty interruptions or annoyances. The proximity of a blunderbuss in the hands of a son of Belial is not very conducive to collected thought and clear utterance, but the experience of Furz was probably no worse than that of John Nelson, who coolly says, "But when I was in the middle of my discourse, one at the outside of the congregation threw a stone, which cut me on the head: however, that made the people give -greater attention, especially when they saw the blood run down my face; so that all was quiet till I had done, and was Singing a hymn.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Lectures To My Students)
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heartful. PR: You really did it. Music is an amazing art, to me. I love to recount to myself the number of human beings it takes, each skilled in a different area, to make possible a symphony concert. The composers, and those who copied and preserved the compositions, the instrument makers, skilled at their crafts—tubas, trumpets, timpani, woodwinds, strings—the music teachers who taught the performers, the performers who studied their instruments and practiced and rehearsed, all the builders who erected the concert hall—carpenters, electricians, etc.—the architect who designed it, the conductor who studied, who learned the language of music, the languages of all the instruments, the members of the audience who bought tickets, got dressed, came to the concert hall to be transported, to be informed, by sound, came for an experience that had nothing to do with physical survival. Most amazing. Always makes me certain absolutely without doubt that something is going on with the human species, something good. Two heroes to me are my middle school music teacher and my son’s middle school music teacher. What courage! All those twelve- and thirteen-year-old children, each with a noise-making instrument in his hands and these two enormously courageous teachers are attempting to teach them how to make music together. At my son’s first sixthgrade band concert, the music teacher turned to the audience of glowing, proud parents and said, “I’m not certain what’s going to happen here, but I’m just hoping that we’ll all begin at the same time.” It brought tears to my eyes, literally. And they did it! One step forward, in my opinion, in understanding what it means to be human.
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Pattiann Rogers (The Grand Array: Writings on Nature, Science, and Spirit)
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I have no musical talent. My clarinet sounded like an apoplectic yak. For the brief days I blew the trumpet, a hostile-sounding pig snorted along in jerky fits and starts with the rest of the irritated band. I never knew when a sound was actually going to come out of the horn and it always startled me when it did. My violin unleashed a trio of enraged, tone-deaf banshees, and I couldn’t blow the flute well enough to make any more sound than with my lower lip on a soda bottle. Something about the pucker eluded me. The drums turned my arms into a pretzel-prison from which there was no escape. I would have given the tambourine a try—I really think I might have excelled at the hip-bump—but sadly the instrument wasn’t offered at my school. I think that’s why I love my iPod so much. I have music in my soul and can’t get it out.
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Karen Marie Moning (Burned (Fever #7))
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The devilish tin trumpet spat out, without more ado, a mixture of bronchial slime and chewed rubber; that noise that owners of gramophones and radios have agreed to call music.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons: (Opinions))