Morton Feldman Quotes

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.

I don't like to go into the studio with all the songs worked out and planned before hand ... you've got to give the band something to use its imagination on as well. That can make a very ordinary song come alive into something totally different ... the X-factor - so important in rock and roll - which is the feel.

I shall always respect the composer. If I embellish, it is his idea I am embellishing.

Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.

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

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

With music, it feels natural that, in my head, I can pull things apart and then put them back together very quickly.

The songs come along at their own pace when they are ready.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

Music is funny. I shouldn't even ever talk about music, because you can have all the ideas in your head, and it never goes exactly the way that you think it's gonna go.

I usually think in terms of music.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

I can't play an instrument to save my life. But when I'm creating, and when I'm making music, I feel like I'm the head of the orchestra, and I'm just waving my wand, and something is created.

You can't help but have ideas when you're inspired musically.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

Music is all about creativity.

The model of a composer.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

I let the song come to me. Then that thing comes to you, and you just know what that thing is. Music isn't like a 9-to-5 job. You never know. It's just the most unpredictable thing.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

You don't know what inspires you. You like to think you know what inspires you, but in the final analysis I don't think you really do. It's great to look at a blank sheet of paper, you know, and walk up to an instrument and not know what's gonna happen. It's the most challenging thing I do.

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.