Quotes About Composition

Nothing convinces an artist more of the arbitrariness of the means to which he resorts to attain a goal - however permanent it may be - than the creative process itself, the process of composition.

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.

The final question will be: is the soundscape of the world an indeterminate composition over which we have no control, or are we its composers and performers, responsible for giving it form and beauty?

Reality is the harmony which gives to the component parts of a thing the equilibrium of the whole.

Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph, is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.

The great photographers of life - like Diane Arbus and Walker Evans and Robert Frank - all must have had some special quality: a personality of nurturing and non-judgment that frees the subjects to reveal their most intimate reality. It really is what makes a great photographer, every bit as much as understanding composition and lighting.

'Spring One' probably has only four bars of Vivaldi in it, but it feels like it's all Vivaldi. It's odd. It's a bit like walking around a sculpture, you just sort of see it from a different angle.

I find I'm not one of these composers that are, you know, walking along a beach or walking on the mountainside in County Donegal that's, you know, 'Oh, a melody.' It's more a matter of eventually taking that moment with me to the studio, and it begins to evolve.

Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I don't understand why this happens in the movie industry.

There's one right place to put the camera. I'm a big believer in that. You'd think you could put it anywhere. Nope.

I always try to get back to the original source of the song. It's not always there in the sheet music, which is sometimes just a sketchy blueprint of what the song is about.

I just think it's good to have a big, living, breathing piece of music that's not just songs.

Even if you're specific about the character of the song, it's more exciting to place them, juxtapose them in such a way as to make an adventure out of the sequence of the songs.

I've always liked string sections. I'm a sucker for melody, so it's fun to have strings add more layer of melody in the arrangement.

The Italian word 'stanza' means 'a room', and a room is a good way to conceive of a stanza. A room, generally speaking, is sufficient for its own purposes, but it does not constitute a house. A stanza has the same sense of containment, without being complete or independent.

My own position is, that it is largely up to the work itself to suggest the nature of these referential points without dimensions in and through the processes by which the distance between them is maintained.

The only thing I don't write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.

Rakesh is very strict and he will never use suggestive words in a song. Yes, he wants modern melodies but he wants the lyrics to be clean.

When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't.

You are always trying to make something that is more than the sum of its parts.

Gershwin inspired me very much. The concept of 'That Lucky Old Sun' was inspired by 'Rhapsody in Blue' - not influenced, but inspired.

People who are new to photography always pull their subjects directly into the sun, which is the most unflattering light in the world.

As a musician, I have sung, composed, and played instruments, and a lesser-known fact is that I have composed 20-30 ad jingles as well.