Bryce Dessner Quotes

I've always been a composer dependent on texts.

I went to study some orchestration stuff because I got so inspired working with all the orchestras.

I'm not a great guitarist, but I do bits and bobs. I'm mainly a songwriter and a composer. I've done a lot of scoring and some stuff for British pop music that did pretty well, but I've mainly been working on my own stuff with Duncan Sheik.

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

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.

It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness - sonic goodies.

I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece.

I write arrangements. I'm sort of a wannabe composer.

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.

I don't really call myself a composer.

Composing music is hard work.

When I write the music for any of my songs, I write as a composer-lyricist in my head.

I had a really pleasant time composing music for 'Raaga.'

If you see a credit with just my name on it, that means I write absolutely everything: rhythm guitar parts, guitar melodies, vocal melodies... absolutely everything, really.

A strong concept is the most important thing in creating a record. When you can listen to it and see a whole movie in your head, that's what separates an instrumental album from a beat tape.

I want to be creative in as many different environments as possible, whether it's doing film scores, writing for TV ads or video games - all sorts of stuff, as long as it requires writing music.

I express myself using my classical skills to write more complex forms of popular music.

I can't say I'd like to concentrate on one particular composer. I'm looking forward to doing a variety.

As a screen composer or film-music writer, I need something that I can work with in the body of the score. Like 'Charade,' 'Moon River,' 'Wine and Roses,' 'Dear Heart' - they were all just themes that grew out of the picture.

Sometimes it takes us a long time to build up songs, and we really work the structures over and over and build in lots of noisy parts.

I started writing music as a composer in school, in the classical tradition.

I spend time editing and massaging each note. Then I start layering with different instruments, adding harmonies, counterpoint, and whatever the song calls for. Then I arrange it into a whole piece, and decide where I need to add live musicians. It takes a lot of time, but it is very satisfying once it is complete.

I used to do most of my composing at a little table in a cafe. Composing for 52 instruments, I had to figure out how to accommodate myself to the small table.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

By the time I get through writing a score, I know the book better than the book writer does, because I've examined every word, and questioned the book writer on every word.