“if you forget why you’re doing it, sound turns into noise. bring back meaning and music returns.”
— Johann Sebastian Bach
From Bach's 1738 Leipzig manuscript Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thorough-Bass, written while teaching thoroughbass.
In Leipzig in 1738, while writing my thoroughbass rules, I was tired of empty display. Sound can impress and still say nothing. You may be living through noise like that now. Do not fill your life with loud emptiness. If the core is false, it is only bawling and scraping.