Aparna Sen Quotes

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

I always dreamed of writing in an orchestral context. But when you finish a piece, you want to hear it. So we played everything with Phish.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

All the conductor has to do is stand back and try not to get in the way. Mozart is doing all the work.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I write music visually.

I like to create the music I hear in my interior. As a conductor, you have the ability to squeeze the sounds and interpretation you asked for from 50 to 80 people.

My version of 'Fast Car' is in the same key as the original. To me that is where all the emotion lies.

Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.

The right notes mean more than 1,000 mph arpeggios.

I think John Williams, him and his team, have been incredible orchestrators. By that, I mean how he chooses which instrument plays which note.

I think I learned more about writing scores for Broadway by making mix tapes in the '90s than I did in college. You're learning about rise and fall and energy and tempo shifts. You're showing off your taste and your references. You're trying to be witty by - through placement of music you didn't write.

I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading.

You can go crazy and play solos in the right place, and that's great because it can intensify and bring an emotional lift. But the thing is you don't want to get in the way of the song.

The conductor must breathe life into the score. It is you and you alone who must expose it to the understanding, reveal the hidden jewel to the sun at the most flattering angles.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer.

Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?

I read and write classical piano and percussion, also guitar.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.

Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.