Quotes About Composition

My taking pictures means I'm taking a series of pictures which become an essay and then get extended into a book. That's what's exciting, to take an idea and work it through to completion.

There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it's not just a collection of notes.

Often a purple patch or two is tacked on to a serious work of high promise, to give an effect of colour.

I think there are some things in music that work and don't work. That's learned from counterpoint and rhythm and theory, and they don't work if you don't want them to work.

Composition gives proper meaning to the natural streams of sound that penetrate the world.

Stress on fast growing companies comes from a lot of different places. The one that is often the largest, and creates the most second-order issues, is the composition of the leadership team. More specifically, it's specific people on the leadership who don't have the scale experience their role requires at a particular moment in time.

I think Beethoven means dissonances to be more stressed than consonances - it's the shock tactician in him.

'Auto Music' isn't a pop record by any stretch.

I love playing in Fantomas, which is very strict in terms of composition.

In the studio, we adhere to a strict colour code. Developed over decades, the colour code consists of a finite and precise colour palate... The whole world as we experience it comes to us through the mystic realm of colour.

Whether it's string writing or whatever, I try to write for what each instrumentalist can do best.

Producing isn't just making beats on a beat machine. It's bringing together these string players with this flute player and this singer, and telling them to all work in the key of C major... You bring these people together and let them all cook.

You know, I never went to music school, and it's always seen as this very proper, serious thing to compose a string arrangement.

'Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta' is a kind of expansion of chamber music.

Strings have been a part of my career and my albums since the very first day. 'Snowbird' had beautiful strings.

It's amazing how well real strings blend with metal, like that whole sound.

As a song-writer I have always written with one instrument - either guitar or piano - because I believe that if a song is strong enough to be performed completely stripped down then it is a good one to go on and record.

I do always the music before the lyrics. The story or an idea for the lyrics appears during the composing process normally, but some other times I already have a strong idea of the story I would like to sing before any music comes to my mind.

I believe very strongly in having melodic hooks, whether they're short or intricate, that you really remember in a movie.

A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.

I know what the structure of the language is.

I'm not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

I do try to structure everything in a way that's very much like a pop song. I try to keep the arrangements really simple, just to make everything essential.

You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.