Brian Eno Quotes

Anything is food for starting a song. A song can start with a lyric idea or a melody or just a sound that inspires.

But Contra la Puerta was done mostly in the opposite way, starting with sounds and melodies.

I always start with writing vocal melodies before writing lyrics.

On the first two albums, I essentially began with lyrics and placed the music underneath or around the words.

Very often the music comes first.

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.

When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.

I find when I'm more awake, I tend to think more of the structure and movement of a tune, abrupt transitions, etc.; things becoming more composed.

When I write a tune - and it's been like this for many years - I always hear in the back of my head some sort of vague, orchestrated, fully fleshed-out big-band version of the song with other parts going on.

I never write from concept. The beat is the beginning, and then I fill in the rest of the song into what it should be.

Sometimes I will click on a random sequence of notes- not to actually use it in a song, but to see if I can find maybe a simple pattern that I can build off of.

We start a lot with melodies and instrumentation and trying to figure out good melodies for verses and choruses. We get to lyrics sometimes second, so we'll start humming a melody, finding something, and see where the music takes you as far as lyrics are and what you want to say and go from there.

The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.

Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.

I always begin to compose the melody first.

When I think of Morricone, more than his using a specific instrument or a specific sound, it's his way of approaching music that sticks out.

Sometimes I write them down in musical notation as a trigger to remind me about certain directions to go. Or I can be specific about a sound I'm looking for.

When I'm making music, I can hear all the parts, all the instruments. I can hear what it should be.

I just write... I follow the melodies that I can't forget/the ones that pop up in my brain the most.

To be honest, I don't have a particular recipe, but I normally start with the chord progression and then I build it from there. I listen to a lot of jazz, so the chords are really important to me.

On 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' I must insist that the sounds of the instrumentation are crucial to reflect what the movie should convey in terms of energy and emotion. It's not just the melody or the tune.

Sometimes I can sit at my computer and find a cool sound, or a new synth patch, and get super-inspired by that and make a track based on that sound. But the piano is where I find the inspiration and come up with the melody.

Sometimes the word dictated the melody.

[The lyrics and melody] usually come a little simultaneously, but I would say the lyrics are first; usually I have the idea for a story in my head, or few lines.