Quotes from Ilaiyaraaja

Music is the only medium by which everyone is connected in the world.

You may go to the temple for mental peace. But you may be distracted there and forget the purpose of your visit. But this does not happen when you hear good music.

Music reigns supreme. It does not need a visual prop. While listening to a number, do you enjoy the tune, or do you enjoy it because you imagine someone singing it? In fact, quite a few hits of mine are from films that no one has heard about. The songs still rule, though.

Your understanding of music depends on your capacity to perceive it.

My perception is that there is no distinction in music as many people perceive. The difference lies in the way you hear the music.

Do you know it took me 27 years to understand the C major chord on the piano?

The Gen X thinks history is a waste of time. This is instant world where only readymade things are valued.

I consider all women as mother. I compose poems for any female considering her as mother.

I think of the Tamil poet Subrahmanya Bharati every day, and he is an inspiration in my musical creations.

Anyone who holds a pen these days thinks he or she is a poet.

Any form of classical music is made for youth.

Composing is an emotional thing.

Isn't composing music akin to film direction?

The challenge for a good musician is to bring out compositions that seem fresh to the listener, even if the listener has heard the song or the composition before.

I don't believe in making two songs similar. Every composition must have its own unique character.

One could work on a lot of albums such as 'Thiruvasagam in Symphony,' but with issues such as illegal downloading from the Internet and piracy, it is difficult.

Western classical music is participative. Look at the number of people who are involved in a symphony.

Taking legal action against pirates is a headache for artists like me.

A mother cooking exclusively for her child might be preparing just rice and buttermilk, but it will be immensely tasty. Fast food, on the other hand, may be very tasty, but it has not been prepared exclusively for you, you see.

Everyone's music is made of their own life experiences.

The dictionary contains thousands of words on Tamil music. I am not familiar with most of the words, but it shows the rich past of Tamil music.

Ideally, the music composed these days should sound much better because of the technology, right? But that's not the fact. The sounds that you hear out of technological recording are programmed sounds coming out of a computer.

A good mind should tell the difference between noise and music.

Questioning the origin of music is like asking why the breeze is soothing, why you shiver in exhilaration when the spray from the waterfall hits you.