Sound Exploration Quotes

Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting.

I hate when I get pinned down to a genre. I have a sound, a lane I want to go down, but I never want to be stuck in my song choices.

Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it's a loop or a drum, it's about what suits the song. It's using what's within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don't know if I always get it right, because I don't know every sound yet.

To me it's all about textures, and that's the side of music that I'm finding really exciting. I feel like it's one of the only parts of music that mankind hasn't fully discovered yet.

When I listen to music from different eras, I sense different things. The 1940s music, there's so much optimism and romance, maybe because they just solved the biggest problem on Earth at that time - World War II. In the 1960s, there was so much creativity and innovation in sound.

I think the indie-rock world is very creative. They're always looking for something new, and I think of all the instruments we have in the world, the ones that are the most creative and interesting are the electronic ones. There are so many sounds and plug-ins you can use.

We have the freedom to either play a tempo or not to play a tempo; to play a note or not to play a note; or to play what some people would say is a sound.

I am a sound freak. I could play around with sound forever.

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.

I guess the cool thing about the '80s is the kind of like adventure in terms of, you know, people were very willing to use sounds that were completely ridiculous or whatever. There was a lot of stuff happening in the '80s and it's all over the place. I guess that's probably the coolest thing for me and that's what I like about it. Just kind of that like, 'Oh, what's this sound? Oh that's wacky. Let's use it anyways.'

There's always this sound out there that's just a little beyond my reach & that just sort of keeps me going.

'The Human Condition' is me exploring some ideas and thoughts that I have that don't fit one sound. I'm giving emotions a sound - it's a fusion of genres. There are four EPs in 'The Human Condition'; each title is a different emotion.

When you use some of the more modern recording devices and Pro Tools, when you get into the technology, you are aching to get into some territory.

Making music is mostly spontaneously following sounds you find compelling that you chase and see where they're leading you.

Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears.

Grab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That's all there is to art for me.

Metal, I love metal sounds. If I have a stick with me, I just drag it across a fence. And all fences make different sounds, just like people when they laugh.

Growing up, I always liked so many different sounds from so many different genres - the different aspects they could bring.

When I started writing music on the guitar, it started off very folky because of my limited ability to play. It was slow, soft melodies. But then, as I got better on the guitar, I started exploring different sounds.

I was always fascinated particularly with synths: how they looked and stuff that when you're a kid you're like this is the most incredible thing in the world just to play.

I've always been fascinated with sound, since I was a little kid when my mother Dorothy Dean took me to my first piano lesson. Later on, my guitar, bass guitar, and synthesizer were my secret weapons.

There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound...We're musical primitives.

I'm interested in a lot of different sounds and types of music.

When I went to record my first album, which should have been a punk album, there was a synthesiser in the control room. I'd never seen one before but they let me have a go on it and I loved it to bits.