Quotes About Composition

The way 'Lux' was made is that there are 12 sections in here, though two of them are joined together. So there are really 11 sections, in a sense, and each one uses five notes out of a palette of seven notes, and my palette is all the white notes on the piano. That was the original palette.

I never presumed that a technique of composition or an idea was so special that just using it would guarantee the quality of the music.

Ultimately, what interests me is using exotic sounds in my songs.

I always admired very much the virtuosity in Strauss because, really, he's a master of using the orchestra. And I like virtuosity, I must say, even if the taste of the music is not always mine.

Over the years, I've trained myself to speak using the same language I would use if I were typing: meaning using full sentences in the way that paragraphs and scenes are arranged.

It is still true that it is easier to compose a poem in the form of a manual for adjusting a VCR than it is to write a piece using just tuning as a symphony.

I was 7 years old when I began composing. I began composing, improvising at the piano, the usual story.

I think there's something really painful about your identity being entirely composed of ghosts. For me, I didn't want to be this kid whose Dominicanness was something caught utterly in the past, is an abstraction, the thing that I write about. Instead I wanted it to be, first and foremost, a thing that I lived.

I think it's a false distinction to say that conversation and composition are separate. Because even as we speak, I'm seeing. Every interview is different, and I'm finding new ways to talk about ancient preoccupations. And I sometimes come on something that's immensely helpful and valuable. Plus I like the sensation of conversation.

The photographer frames the shot, writers frame their world.

The epic poet collaborates with the spirit of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse to work with his time.

Many fiction writers eventually want to feel that their work forms a single, unified entity.

My work on hyper instruments started with simple instruments, like the piano.

If the guy behind the camera is not good, the pictures are bad. It's still you, and it's the same lines and everything, but it doesn't work.

Art has definitely influenced how I think of design, both as individual items and as a body of work.

The work really isn't about the specific content to me. As I'm putting things together, it's more about consistencies in form.

I like the work hanging free in the frame. I don't like too much frame around it but I like a little breathing space around the piece.

I do the work with friends who are musicians as well. I'm working on a piece of music and I have an idea of who I want on the vocals, but I don't really have a list.

I am a big fan of photography, more of being behind the camera - so when I get the opportunity to work with such great photographers, I always try and learn from their technique.

La dernie' re chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage, est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la premie' re. The last thing one discovers in composing a work iswhat to put first.

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

My goal is to create a book where the entire book-text, pictures, shape of book-work together to create the theme. The placement of images and text on the page is crucial for me.

The Quartets have been a major part of my work.

When you have a single composer writing his work, it shouldn't be doled out in singles based on the length of a piece.