A Quote by Nico Muhly

With chamber music you can get people who work on the music for months, rehearsing it every day for a couple of hours, and if they get it in a different way than you do, which is entirely possible, it's not as a result of anything other than their good musicianship.
When I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break.
We do this for the art, not the adulation. I'd rather our music get liked and we get ignored. I don't want to be adored for anything other than the music.
I get to focus on something I love to do 24-hours a day rather than trying to squeeze it in between midterms, or even during my normal workday. When I was at Google it was like you wake up at 7 and then you get home by 7 and you start your second job of music. So now I get to focus all my efforts on music, travel and play shows and do all of this stuff. That's the difference - That's all my life is, all day.
There are two kinds of music. One comes from the strings of a guitar, the other from the strings of the heart. One sound comes from a chamber orchestra, the other from the beating of the heart's chamber. One comes from an instrument of graphite and wood, the other from an organ of flesh and blood. This loftier music I speak of tonight is more pleasing than the notes of the most gifted composers, more moving than a marching band, more harmonious than a thousand voices joined in hymn and more powerful than all the world's percussion instruments combined. That sweet sound of love.
Every work is completely different. Sometimes the music is first, sometimes it's parallel, and sometimes the music is after. There's no rule. Music goes differently to your emotions. With music you can create different spaces and feelings easier than you can with the visual - maybe not easier, but in a way, it's more seductive.
When I'm in the studio, I write the music, I play the different instruments, I produce it, I arrange it, and it's a self-indulgent exercise. It's the way I make my music. And when I'm acting, I get to leave myself behind, which is a relief. I get to collaborate with a director; I respect the director's medium and all the actors and actresses. So at the end of the day, it's about a character and it's about a director's vision. It's a really good balance for being so intense and alone in my personal process of making music.
Words and music equally important. But the way to get what I'm looking for is different in each case. I have something specific I'm hoping for with the words and the music, and the way to get the words the way I like them is to take a long time, and the way to get the music I like it is to not let me or anyone else get in the way of it.
The work ethic at art school is completely different than the work ethic amongst people who get into music. People who paint, it's an honorable thing to spend all day and all night in front of your canvas - that is the romantic vision of the painter.
Every single job I do. It sounds goofy but I did a music video for Fergie. I was in full on tattoos, ponytail, but it's like even things like that they help other people to see you in a different light. They give me opportunities. I try and change the image with every job that I can, it's just hard when you work on a TV show and you work so many months and trying to get away from that.
It doesn't stop. It really doesn't stop. It's the way I live every single day. I don't do anything else. I have no other interest other than music. At all.
For example, if it's a sad scene, I need to feel that way, at least to a slight degree and for a short while, to get it right. Which is why I sometimes listen to music when I'm revising. Music creates moods for me quicker than any other medium.
I think the thing about acting and making music is that it's easy to do both. I'll shoot a movie for three months, and then I won't have to work for however long I want to. So, I can do a movie for a couple of months and then come and do music for a couple. But whatever's hot at the moment is what I'll gravitate toward.
The relationship that people have with music is entirely different now. People spend much less time experiencing music on a one on one level than they could have if they were a part of a different generation. I find this ironic since we have so many tools at our finger tips to be engaged by media in all forms.
The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated. Thousands of theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that (1) adults can learn languages much faster than children when constant 9-5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months.
I don't get a rush from anything. I did music as hard as I could. Acting for me at least, is a far more restrained performance than music. It requires a lot of skill and discipline. I'm not any good at it but I enjoy trying to be good at it.
My mentality is like a samurai they used to train every day, work on their technique to make themselves better, almost perfect, perfection is impossible but every day you get closer and that's what I want . Every day I want to get better than I was the day before. I want to use every second of my life, every time I have in my life to make me a better fighter. It's more than a job it's a way of living.
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