Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I can't get that live and I don't have the time to take the tape, after I've finished recording it, into a little studio somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion sound.
Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.
If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.
It is not futile to do what we do. We wake up with energy and we do something. And we make, of course, failures and we make mistakes, but we sometimes get glimpses of what we might do next.
I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son (W A Mozart)is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition.
The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us, all of you, are endowed with the powers of fantasy.
When the Domaine Musical started up, I wasn't part of it. They were the major players in contemporary music at that time, braodcasting old and new composers' work. And I wasn't one of them.
I believe that there are many interesting projects that are potentially possible for me other than game music, and therefore in my mind there are several things that are being contemplated.
I wanted contemporary music to be treated the same as the traditional repertoire - performed regularly by people who knew each other and the music. That is the way you convince an audience.
I have put my whole soul into this work [The Pathetique Symphony] . . . You cannot imagine what joy I feel at the thought that my days are not yet over and that I may still accomplish much.
I am the kind of person who does not like to carry baggage. In fact, I don't go back and listen to my own music. I believe in closing chapters and moving forward. That's what gives me peace.
It must have been an extraordinary time. I guess the worrying thing about musical theatre to me, is if you look at the London season this year, mine is actually the only one to have come in.
Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.
Been making love for hours and, baby, we're still going strong. Girl, this night is ours and I swear I feel it coming on. All I know is when we get through, I ain't going to be able to move.
Me, who's educated classically, I went toward rock music 'cause it was sort of a natural evolution from where I was playing with my brother. But I was always drawn back into classical music.
I can't just play in a rock band. The National is a great, exciting band to play in. We improvise a lot onstage, and it's very intense, but after a while, I crave other kinds of experiences.
There are some directors who actually fear the possible success of music. They fear that the audience or the critics will think the film has worked because there was a very good music score.
The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio.
A good theme - like the 'Pink Panther' or 'Baby Elephant Walk' - can work all the way through the picture, which is what I did with them. So, for me, a good melody is not just a pretty tune.
I have toured with Klemens Marktl, playing his original compositions and arrangements. He is a wonderful drummer, a writer possessing a high degree of creativity, and an assured band leader.
But being quiet and meditating on sound is something completely different and will be discovered very soon by a lot of people who feel that the visual world doesn't reach their soul anymore.
Now, what we are not talking about, what you're really coming to, is what compromises one makes so that the listener understands somewhat of what you're doing, what you're trying to express.
When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
The second album of Black Mages is currently in the process of recording and the basic tracks have already been completed. Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to have a concert.
Regarding gay and music, I don't actually think my music is particularly gay at all, because my music doesn't have sex with men. My music does not have a gender, I don't see it as being gay.
It is already a great thing if the main ideas and general outline of a work come without any racking of brains, as the result of that supernatural and inexplicable force we call inspiration.
We live in this world in order always to learn industriously and to enlighten each other by means of discussion and to strive vigorously to promote the progress of science and the fine arts.
As a freelance artist, you have to please somebody instead of just making music. But when the employer trusts and leans on you to determine what is right for a scene or feeling, that's ideal.
Nobody ever thinks that the work they're going to do could ever be bigger than the one they do before, especially if you're lucky enough like I had to have such a huge thing as 'Phantom' was.
There's not much in the way of written-down arrangements - just things that Gerry and I have worked out, from playing spontaneously together and hanging on to whatever seems to fall in right.
Everyone has to die. I'm not particularly scared about it. What really frightens me is that if I go before my wife, I will leave her alone, and vice versa. The ideal would be to die together.
Music is given to us specifically to make order of things, to move from an anarchic, individualistic state to a regulated, perfectly concious one, which alone insures vitality and durability.
I think that the quality of all bands is steadily improving and it is a pleasant thought to me that perhaps the efforts of Sousa's Band have quickened that interest and improved that quality.
Governmental aid is a drawback rather than an assistance, as, although it may facilitate in the routine of artistic production, it is an impediment to the development of true artistic genius.
There's different ways to approach music for sleeping. Things like white noise are functional, like a lullaby. This is more like an inquiry, a question about how music and sleep fit together.
If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in his tomorrow, I have not labored in vain.
It's like driving your car. If you drive too fast on the highway, you will topple, so you better maintain your speed. Life is similar to that, and that's the way you have to control your head.
I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.
I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.
I am not (yet) facing the problem of emigration. I want my music to be acknowledged here first of all, in this country: after that, we shall see - perhaps the question will then become urgent.
The next few years are going to be horrendous in the UK. The last thing we need is a Somali pirate-style raid on the few wealth creators who still dare to navigate Britain's gale-force waters.
I hope it isn't exclusively true, but I often find that collaboration is the best way... to reach my highest musical place. Because I get so inspired by another good musician; I feed off that.
I've got this diverse education, growing up in classical music and existing between that and music that is more visceral, so for sure, I've always been interested in music from other cultures.
For many people in the music conservatory world, the message was always, Focus! 'You can't do everything; you really need to specialize.' And especially at an early age, I ignored this advice.
When you are studying jazz, the best thing to do is listen to records or listen to live music. It isn't as though you go to a teacher. You just listen as much as you can and absorb everything.
He was the incomparable painter of mystery, silence, and the infinite, of the passing cloud, and the sunlit shimmer of the waves-subleties which none before him had been capable of suggesting.
The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.
This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.
There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last. There's only us, there's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way, no day but today.
One important thing, just being a film composer in general, is to have a great respect for the art that you're working on - a great respect for the film and a great respect for the filmmakers.