Creativity Quote by Arthur Collins

A musician snapping this line across the stand isn’t just nitpicking tempo; he’s policing a whole value system. “Do it right as fast as you can” flips the usual conservatory bargain, where speed is treated like the proof of mastery and “clean enough” passes for correct. Collins draws a hard border: accuracy is the goal, velocity is the byproduct. The phrasing matters because it’s built like a trap. You hear the first clause and think, Sure, work efficiently. Then the second clause exposes the common self-deception: “fast as right as you can” is what players tell themselves when they’re chasing adrenaline, trying to outrun mistakes instead of eliminating them.

The subtext is rehearsal-room psychology. Musicians are social animals; they’d rather be impressive than precise, especially under scrutiny. Collins is calling out performative competence, the impulse to spray notes with confidence and hope style will substitute for substance. His instruction also protects the ensemble: one person’s sloppy “fast” forces everyone else into emergency steering, wrecking blend, intonation, and trust.

Contextually, coming from a late-19th/early-20th-century musician, it reads like a response to industrial-age acceleration: more concerts, more virtuoso culture, more pressure to deliver. The line insists on craft in an era that rewards spectacle. It’s not anti-speed; it’s anti-cheating. Speed earned through correctness is durable. Speed borrowed from panic collapses the moment the music gets difficult.