HENRY MANCINI

I was always trying to be a quote, unquote, film composer.

I've done entire scores for I don't know how many films and series. I never kept track; I suppose it's up in the hundreds.

Sometimes people can see a movie of mine and not know until the credits roll that I wrote the score. That makes me feel good, that I can get out of that box every once in a while.

If you want to write for films or TV, you must go to Hollywood.

My father started me out on the flute and I began going to teachers.

Blake Edwards has set up an extraordinary combination of moods in 'Peter Gunn.' When you stop to analyze it, you can't find the boundaries where the music stops and the show takes over.

It's very difficult to be funny musically. I think I achieved It with 'The Pink Panther.'

Most everything I've ever written has .been done to 'assignment.'

Some people say 'flutist.' Others say 'flautist.' I just say 'flute player.' That's what I was.

You know, directors are funny people. They live with these movies for a year or more. And when you go in to score the picture, you're fooling with their child. They want to know everything that happens to the score - and why.

Music forced into the air you breathe is an invasion of privacy!

I find I work best as a reactor, trying to portray something on a screen musically. If I were a boxer, I'd be a counter-puncher.

I try to change my concert program every couple of years - hopefully to keep my listeners interested.

Technique is superficial. The method used in applying technique is what gives music its character.

Sometimes memorable music doesn't necessarily have to be a hit.

I have an Otari with a Korg T2 Midi synthesizer, a drum machine and a few effects units.

You can make or break a picture in the dubbing room.

I just think the time and where I was brought up had a great deal to do in giving me the ambition to kind of get out and do something and not go into the steel mill.

Stravinsky influenced film music in general - those stabbing chords and rhythms from 'The Rite of Spring.'

When I first began to work in pictures I tried to attract the attention of film critics, but I don't make movies to please them or myself anymore. I look for material that will entertain.

Most people are oriented to words. When the public hears a melody, unless you put words to It, it takes longer to penetrate. It's always been like that, but I don't know why.

Getting out and being able to present a concert is invigorating.

Writing for TV or films isn't great art. You have to have a common denominator. It's up to the composer to make that common denominator memorable.

Cancer... changed my whole work attitude.

Too many schools across the country have cut back heavily on their music curricula.