Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Composers - Page 18

The world is full of sounds. We just don't usually hear them as music.

I'm a self-confessed geek, and my whole concept of music at first was entirely electronic. In many ways, it turned out to be an advantage. I was so green, so utterly naive about the nature of classical music, that I did things that made me look totally, deliberately unorthodox.

The work comes into the world at an undetermined hour, from a still unknown, but it comes inevitably.

The sort of formality that goes into my artwork I would not expect from everybody in the world. I'm sort of pushing that point to its limit, in my mind, but I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with using a laptop so long as we have some understanding of how it works a little bit.

Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there's no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window.

It's not possible to build a piece that stands successfully without talking about its shape. But if you talk too much, you lead people away from the music itself.

I've always been interested in shaping music in odd ways, with odd riffs and that's been probably something that I've continued on with my studies with improvisation as I'm working with people.

Basically, I composed the musical structure in one pass. The rest was editing and small adjustments. And when the play was read by actors with the music, the sequence timed-out perfectly.

I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like, I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers.

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

When Sharan called me for 'Rambo,' we were acquainted, but had not worked together. Right from day one, though, there was an easygoing camaraderie between us, which was only amplified by his implicit trust in me and my ability to deliver for his film.

I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last.

The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of ruining poetry.

When I left Europe in 1987 I did so with the thought that my relevance as a composition teacher would benefit from a certain cool distance to certain tendencies I had been observing for several years with increasing disquiet.

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

I've always had a fascination for everything surrounding things that are unexplainable. Not surprising that my first movie was a horror film, even though, of course, at the time I had no experience writing horror music.

With streaming, everything is focused on singles. That means an artist's depth doesn't have the chance to shine through.

I wish to share and pass down some of my generation's traits, and encourage young people to create their own art, music, and literature.

Art is the most beautiful deception of all. And although people try to incorporate the everyday events of life in it, we must hope that it will remain a deception lest it become a utilitarian thing, sad as a factory.

The silence between two notes is as beautiful and meaningful as the notes themselves.

I have to put myself back in the audience's shoes and figure out what they would know and not know. But, there are also times when I do know what's coming up and I maybe need to hint at it, though not in a big way. It's a little bit of both. It's an interesting tightrope to walk.

I don't find myself lobbying for projects. Filmmakers almost always come to me.

Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice.

In Japanese culture, there is a belief that God is everywhere - in mountains, trees, rocks, even in our sympathy for robots or Hello Kitty toys.

To me, writing and composing are much more like painting, about colors and brushes; I don't use a computer when I write, and I don't use a piano. I'm at a desk writing, and it's very broad strokes and notes as colors on a palette.

I don't know what I'm doing and it's the not knowing that makes it interesting.

Yes, influences are enriching, and they can be found in every work of art, even the most original.

To me, a song like 'Demons' or the title 'Trouble Will Find Me' are acknowledgments that you can't really plan for life, and you can't plan for trouble.

For me, music is God and each song I make is an offering at the temple of music.

Robert Altman was a very jovial guy and obviously a famed improviser and perhaps less effective in post-production, which is like the crystallising process. So I found myself at sea often with him because we'd have conversations about what music is, and in the end, I don't know how interested he was?

The charms of seclusion are seldom combined with the conveniences of civilization.

Since music has never had a Rembrandt, we have remained nothing more than musicians.

Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.

Take a sound from whatever source, a note on a violin, a scream, a moan, a creaking door, and there is always this symmetry between the sound basis, which is complex and has numerous characteristics which emerge through a process of comparison within our perception.

The through line of the way I like to work, what makes me different, and what I like to do for every project - although they are completely different from each other - is I like to do a lot of research and create a unique landscape and unique soundscape for each movie.

The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.

You can make money or you can make excuses. Your choice.

Its easy to gauge the worth of a man, just ask them what they think of Yoko Ono.

Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.

While the accompanimental [sic] figures come from Prelude, the melody is wholly original to this theme. First stated on a lonely duduk, and then in octaves by the violins and violas, it is a melancholy and contemplative tune.

I wanted to play piano, and that slid quickly into writing - it wasn't enough to play other people's notes: I had to write notes too.

Always ask for advice but never take it.

Someone once said that the two most important things in developing taste were sensitivity and intelligence. I don't think this is so; I'd rather call them curiosity and courage. Curiosity to look for the new and the hidden; courage to develop your own tastes regardless of what others might say or think.

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.

Talent works, genius creates.

I'm approaching a period in my life though where I'd like to be totally absorbed into music, doing concerts, writing something. Basically, that IS what I am doing.

In that long sequence, when Lawrence enters in the desert to rescue a lost man, Lean listened the music I wrote and wanted to extend the scene to let my work stay completely.

We met with the poet Frank O'Hara, who was a link between Upper and Lower Bohemia, and who worked at the Museum of Modern Art, where we had hoped to do the readings.

The general disinclination of Spain to accept slaves from Islamicized regions of Africa during the formative years of Hispano-American society had enormous consequences for the development of music in the New World.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

After I write a sequence, I just open the script and then sit at the piano keyboard and "play" the script. (And because I also draw and paint, sometimes I sketch out the action as well.)

It can and will be a more powerful sound but the orchestra has far more potential for expressive power. When I hear a great rock band it can make me feel alive, but when I hear a great orchestra it can make me feel human.

My background was in performing originally.

Never play anything that don't sound right. You might not make any money, but at least you won't get hostile with yourself.

I see, in this life, the hardship many suffer. I see the joy that music can give. How we deal with all this is part of a preparation for the next life.

A lot of musicians don't learn the business. You just have to be well-rounded in both areas. You have to understand publishing. You have to understand how you make money, what's in demand, what helps you make the most out of your talent.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

I am sure my music has a taste of codfish in it.

if you take passionate interest in a subject, it is hard not to believe yourself specially equipped for it.