Quotes About Composition

As far as favorite 'overall package' record of all time, I'd have to say 'My Girl' by The Temptations. I like everything about it, not only the composition - but the arrangement, the production, the lead vocals, the background vocals, the horns, the strings. That one I listen to over and over again.

You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials - guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.

I remember when I would write a song as a kid, I would also write out on paper what the drums would do, what the bass would do, and what the vocals would be doing.

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.

My dad always told me that anyone's voice is just another instrument added to the music.

Once a composition is complete I sing the track and send it to the director. He sometimes suggests I record them in my voice, and I go ahead.

How much can you do with two voices? You can sing thirds or you can sing fifths or you can do a background harmony.

There's nothing I love more in the world than layering voices.

The thing that separates Sophie from the music I do for other people is that it's 100% written by me. In the past, I've written my songs and then asked friends if they could record the vocals. I didn't want to use my own voice, because other people have much better voices. I was hearing the music with a voice that I don't have.

Listen to the triple fugue in 'Magnificat' - the first subject is seven voices, the second one has 52 different voices, the third uses five; then I combine all together. Such textures you cannot call primitive.

If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void.

People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.

If I had a story idea that I felt would work best in three volumes I might write a trilogy eventually. I'd very likely write it all at once, though, so I could work on it as a whole and not broken into individual volumes. I don't always write in order, so composing multi-book stories could get complicated.

Nothing feels better than constructing a beautiful sentence.

I don't want to be someone whose shot takes you out of the dramatic sequence or takes you out of the emotional story that you're trying to tell or says, 'Hey, look at this cool shot I have here.' To me, that's not right.

I've worked with some of the great cinematographers. So I'm always watching what they do and I'm watching how the director composes his shots, just because I find it interesting as an actor; you're trying to help them out as well.

Try to place the camera somewhere where you get most of the information from there, so you don't need to have too many shots and be too explanatory and expositional about the scene.

It depends upon the make-up of the team where I'm going to bat.

With me and Timbaland, we would always be at the studio, but working separately. He would be doing his thing with the beats and I would be doing my thing writing and then we would both come together and say 'OK, you add this to it and I'll add that to it.'

I'm a big Beethoven fan, and you'll struggle to find a three-minute song on any of his stuff.

She pondered the arrangements of the paintings on a wall like a writer pondered commas.

Art is fire plus algebra.

Desvarío laborioso y empobrecedor el de componer vastos libros; el de explayar en quinientas páginas una idea cuya perfecta exposición oral cabe en pocos minutos. Mejor procedimiento es simular que esos libros ya existen y ofrecer un resumen, un comentario.

There are no moral or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once.