Musical Constraints Quotes

When I started to write music that was completely divorced from any sort of idea of commercial success, the real me started to come out. Normally, a musician in a session for a pop record would have to discard a lot of ideas because they won't fit, because they're not commercial.

It might be argued that genuine spontaneity is not really possible or desirable so long as printed scores of great works exist. All modern musicians are, for better or worse, prisoners of Gutenberg.

I don't think anyone has exhausted the range of sound possible in a conventional rock band, but people do become slaves to their own easiest techniques.

This genre of music seems to want to push people into a certain time slot, which is unfortunate.

You only have 12 notes. Do what you want with them.

I've learned that there's a signature Metallica sound, and if we stray too far from that, our fans get impatient, or they just don't understand, or they miss the point. And I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing; it's just something we have to contend with.

The way 'Lux' was made is that there are 12 sections in here, though two of them are joined together. So there are really 11 sections, in a sense, and each one uses five notes out of a palette of seven notes, and my palette is all the white notes on the piano. That was the original palette.

People don't realize the limitations of 200 words, and the way they get chiselled down into a song that has to be sung.

With a computer, there are too many choices, and I always liked working within limits. You know, if you look at Mozart, who had this strict classical framework - an allegro, an andante, a scherzo and a finale - you see that within that formula, he got results he might never have gotten if he had all the options in the world.

I'm more creative the more rules I have - note values, tempos, dynamic markings. Somehow, I find that really inspiring.

But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know.

My general take on American music since 1969 is that it's just getting stiffer and people are getting more uptight - audience, performance, and palace guard.

It's a blessing and a curse at the same time, the idea of genre.

There are only so many chords and notes in the world.

Branding music as 'for the youth' is only an escapist tendency. Preference in music is only about restrictions of the mind.

I play weird. I'm always just behind. We [drummers] only have so much room. We're not guitarists.

Many MIDI files contain entire musical compositions. Because MIDI supports only 16 channels, however, no more than 16 different instruments can play at any time, and one of those is the key-based percussion instrument.

I enjoy having some boundaries to work within. That's why I generally don't like alternate tunings and stuff like that. I like the boundaries of regular tunings.