Quotes from Henry Mancini

If you want to write for films or TV, you must go to Hollywood.

Getting married in 1947 and settling down in Hollywood was the real beginning of my career.

I've done entire scores for I don't know how many films and series. I never kept track; I suppose it's up in the hundreds.

The basic problem with young people entering show business is that they are in a hurry.

I just write when the bell rings. I don't have time to wait for inspiration.

The man who writes for hire has an obligation, if only to himself, to keep an open mind and to absorb new ideas.

I'm usually the last man on the totem pole. Except for the sound effects and the final sound mix, the score is the last element to be added to a picture.

My wife and I never squabbled in front of the children. We never touched each other except in love.

Bassoon is not an easy instrument to play and to pick it up and play it like a flute or a saxophone is quite an accomplishment.

People love to hear a guy who is really good on his instrument. They love to watch him go.

The most immediately gratifying thing about my work is conducting a large orchestra. But the long range payoff is composing because you've written something and it's there forever.

Broadway is intimidating. Don't think it's not.

Getting out and being able to present a concert is invigorating.

With the new technology that keeps entering the media, film composers are constantly being placed in new learning situations. Acknowledging this and realizing that one must keep up, I maintain, nonetheless, that the real creative power is in the mind and heart of the composer.

My kids will come to me and ask me to listen to a 'new sound' they think they've discovered. One time it was the Beatles' 'Yesterday,' and the new sound was four strings. All of a sudden the new generation discovers the string quartet!

Quite a few of The Rolling Stones records have had a great honesty about them. In fact, I would put them side-by-side with a 'Treasury of Folk Music' collection, containing all the prison songs, the farm and road-gang songs that were recorded on the spot in the Deep South.

Some scenes cry out for a certain kind of treatment. The kind we're conditioned by years of film-watching to expect.

Some of the prettiest music I've done was in films that really were not a smash. Your music fares as the film does.

Amplification of guitars revolutionized the popular music scene. Youngsters look for quick fame and big money with amplified guitars and working with rock groups.

I became a melodic writer after 'Gunn.'

Basically, I'm a melodic writer.

Writing for TV or films isn't great art. You have to have a common denominator. It's up to the composer to make that common denominator memorable.

Sometimes memorable music doesn't necessarily have to be a hit.

It takes different mindsets to do different things.