Jean Philippe Rameau Quotes

Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.

Second edition of Earthworks I have the more traditional compositional approach, namely I write a piece from the piano.

A lot of things come together to make up a song. It's just images.

One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, 'This end is more important than the other.' After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink.

We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

In his day, the audience was well aware of the music, of the classical beat.

You don't necessarily have to be in misery to be talented.

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

I'm an interpreter of music.

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.

My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.

I can almost always write music; at any hour of the twenty-four, if I put pencil to paper, music comes.

Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature.

Whenever I meet someone who's talented, I always want to write something for them!

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony.

Gesualdo was very important to me, I wanted to do something which corresponded to him.

Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition.

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.

The very best thing you can do is to try to write a song that has some sort of impact.

Composing music is hard work.

There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it.