Quotes from Henry Mancini

I don't think I've ever spent more than an hour on any one song, but that doesn't count the thinking that goes on beforehand.

If I'm writing songs for a country-Western picture, I have to know about country music.

When I first began to work in pictures I tried to attract the attention of film critics, but I don't make movies to please them or myself anymore. I look for material that will entertain.

If a film is not doing well, a record company will not take a chance with the score.

Well, I thought the opening of 'Hatari!' was pretty good. And 'The Pink Panther' wasn't half bad either.

Music is constantly developing and changing.

When someone asks me to do a score, I look at the picture two or three times. I never watch the rushes to pick up the mood as quickly as I can. If it's something I want to do, just watching the film will start the wheels turning.

Music forced into the air you breathe is an invasion of privacy!

Some producers hang-on to that old cliche that if the audience hears the music, it is no good. I say this is so much talk. Music gives the film another dimension, if it's done with the story in mind.

My profession has never demanded that I be mobbed by fans.

Technique is superficial. The method used in applying technique is what gives music its character.

Sometimes people can see a movie of mine and not know until the credits roll that I wrote the score. That makes me feel good, that I can get out of that box every once in a while.

Film music, over the years, has taken from everybody.

I equate composing with orchestrating. I think my music in terms of an orchestra.

My father started me out on the flute and I began going to teachers.

Some people say 'flutist.' Others say 'flautist.' I just say 'flute player.' That's what I was.

As a screen composer or film-music writer, I need something that I can work with in the body of the score. Like 'Charade,' 'Moon River,' 'Wine and Roses,' 'Dear Heart' - they were all just themes that grew out of the picture.

Writing music is very, very clinical. You just sit down at a piano, map out a theme and when all the technicalities come together, out pours the music.

I was always trying to be a quote, unquote, film composer.

You know, directors are funny people. They live with these movies for a year or more. And when you go in to score the picture, you're fooling with their child. They want to know everything that happens to the score - and why.

Erroll Garner is one of the few musicians I believe has a sense of humor in his music.

You know, my career hasn't exactly been the sort of thing that usually happens to film composers, but I sure am glad it happened to me.

I'm no songwriter because all of my popular songs have just been outgrowths of themes for the various pictures.

I hate to do anything halfway so I leave the guitar alone.