Harmonic Development Quotes

Eighty percent of my pieces gravitate towards an A, as a tonal thing, not at the beginning, but somewhere in it.

I deal in emotions. It's the harmonic side that's important. That's the side I expected to be much further along on than I am now. That just means to say that I've got to keep at it.

There is no piece of guitar music that has the formal beauty of a piano sonata by Mozart, or the richly worked out ideas and passion of a late Beethoven string quartet, or for that matter the beautiful mellifluous poetry of a Chopin Ballade.

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.

The basic idea is always constructed around piano or guitar and a voice, that's what we live and die by, because if you build up from that foundation, it's going to be strong.

Classical music's ability to translate emotional themes is fantastic.

It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.

We knew we wanted to put a lot of melody into it - a lot more than what we did on our first album.

Most of the time I sit down with my guitar or at the piano, and I play for awhile until I get a new riff or groove that I like a lot. Then I'll concentrate on building around that line of thought by adding words and textures. At first I'm only trying to please myself, and hopefully what I like will appeal to others.

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.

I love classical music; I love the way it's worked... all those chord sequences so I often use that sort of effect in my solos.

Every single note on this album is there for a reason.

I guess there are two things that make me like songs generally, of ours, and that is if they groove well, or if they have a jam that can go somewhere.

I write music that sounds complex but isn't. I frankly never think in terms of theory.

The English learned, in my view, how to use harmony much earlier than the French or the Italians, or the Germans.