A Quote by Tarja Turunen
Every time I sit down in front of my piano, I like to improvise with the instrument. It depends on my mood of that day what kind of melodies and rhythms I am playing around. Sometimes, even before starting to play I already have a quite clear picture of a song I would like to compose, or at least the sound of it.
Related Quotes
I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.
Frequently, I go straight into the studio and see what's around. I might hire a couple of instruments that I've never used - maybe a particular type of electronic organ or an echo unit. Then I just dabble with sounds until something starts to happen that suggests a texture. The texture suggests some kind of mood, and the mood suggests some kind of lyric. That's like working in reverse, often quite the other way around, from sound to song. Although often they stop before they get to the song stage.
I'm trying to be expressive on my instrument and conduct as I'm improvising. So I'm conducting with the melodies and the rhythms that I play. And so it's a very organic way. It's a lot like Charles Mingus played, cuing people in from what you play and how you play it rather than standing in front of a band, conducting and pointing.
Most of the time, I'll be conducting the orchestra, but there will be some pieces that I'll be playing an instrument as well, just because I love playing. There's pieces where I want to grab an instrument and play with the rest of the group, like 'The Light of the Seven,' for example; I would love to play the piano for that.
I'm starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.
The interesting thing is that, well, here's what I think about songwriters and songs. Sometimes people sit down and say, "I gotta write a song today, I have a title" and all of that, and sometimes inspiration just happens, almost like "Sugar, Sugar" and a couple of the other songs. But basically, I just started playing the piano, and I'm not a great piano player.
I feel connected to every song on this record [ 'Modern Vampires Of The City' ], but yeah I think there's something special about 'Young Lion'. It's pretty different from any song that we've had before because the vocals are kind of between two different very simple instrumental piano melodies and it's almost like something that we call a vignette, it's sort of like a miniature.
For the piano and me it is always a blind date! I meet different pianos every single day. I can't take my piano with me like a bassist can take his instrument. So whenever I arrive I am a bit nervous to see what kind of piano is waiting for me.
I sometimes write songs on the piano, even though I don't actually play the piano. I always hire someone to play for me whenever I decide to sing a song I have written on the piano. My song 'Rosa' is one.
My mom tells this story that even when I was in the womb, my father played the piano and she sang. So, before I officially got here, I was already surrounded by music. I also like the way my father explains it. When I was about 3-years old, in order to keep me quiet, my father would put me in the bassinet and either put on some music or play the piano. When he started playing, I got quiet and eventually went to sleep. He said by the time I turned 3, I just climbed up on the piano and started playing it with the attitude of I'm gonna play dis here piano.
Every so often, if I'm in a melancholy mood, I'll sing 'Desperado' in my shows. I'll sit alone at the piano and play it as a solo. The song feels like an old friend - except now it's saying, 'You were a desperado once, but you worked your way out of it.'
I look sad because I don't have the courage to escape from you. And I think I don't want to understand the truth: for you, I am nothing but a dream. You like to play with life, you're not afraid of anything, not even of me. But I want you to know that I am not an object or a doll: I don't change faces on command, I like to sit down every day in the same place, on my own chair, and I know that you, you like to leave, to go to a new place every day.
It's never like, 'Now I'm going to sit down and write this or that kind of song.' The melodies may show up in the car, in the shower.
When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff.
I kind of write in a very classic way. I sit in the piano, working on some catchy, cool melodies and coming up with song concepts for those melodies. I kind of write in a very traditional way '- how people have written since the early '40s.
I am a firm believer in playing the type of music that compliments the song the best. If it's a folk song make it sound like one. If it's a rock song make it sound like one, if it's a rap song take it off the record.
Related Authors
Bob Marley Quotes
Jamaican
Singer
Britney Spears Quotes
American
Singer
Dolly Parton Quotes
American
Singer
Elvis Presley Quotes
American
Singer
Frank Zappa Quotes
American
Singer
Johnny Cash Quotes
American
Singer
Kurt Cobain Quotes
American
Singer
Lady Gaga Quotes
American
Singer
Marilyn Manson Quotes
American
Singer
Michael Jackson Quotes
American
Singer
Miley Cyrus Quotes
American
Singer
Neil Young Quotes
Canadian
Singer
Paul McCartney Quotes
English
Singer
Steven Morrissey Quotes
English
Singer
Taylor Swift Quotes
American
Singer
Ted Nugent Quotes
American
Singer