Miguel Zenon Quotes

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

Some people would say my paintings show a future world and maybe they do, but I paint from reality. I put several things and ideas together, and perhaps, when I have finished, it could show the future.

These rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes saps the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off.

Maybe some people, when they sit down to write their great novel or make their great record or paint their great painting, they have it all planned out in their head. But for me, it's never worked that way.

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

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland.

Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.

Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

I tried several times to get the song right. The tune and the chords that I started with, there really wasn't anywhere else it could go. I stopped fighting it and let it take me away.

I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.

I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.

I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.

You don't take a photograph, you make it.

Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.

Everything I do, whether it's producing or signing an artist, always starts with the songs. When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset.

So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.

That's the buzz for me, the creative process. An idea is never as good as when it's in your head. And then it's just how little you ruin it.

Making music and writing kind of come from the same creative place.

You're not gonna write a hundred songs and have a hundred entirely different ideas. It's a matter of finding the ones that are the freshest and most unique.

To me, being in the studio is one of the most exciting parts about being an artist.