Adam Schlesinger Quotes

For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the back-story.

The real challenge of writing songs isn't just writing a bunch of parts - like a verse, chorus, verse - but making something that flows together, that brings you back.

I find that albums generally tell a story. Because it's music, it doesn't have to be in chronological order.

You're just playing, playing, playing, and then an image or something will come into your mind, and basically you're just narrating it with music, letting it move along.

I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.

I've always wanted to make music like people write plays, so I was inspired by writers as much as musicians.

I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

Through the music I hope to give it an arc that gives it a greater sense of a journey through the set rather than a bunch of songs.

Some of their best songs don't have bridges and choruses. So that made me think I should trust my instincts. My songs were okay, I figured. I didn't need to change anything.

Every note is a lifetime for itself.

Conceptually, I've always gravitated towards arrangements that weren't just presenting one idea. I like to look at my songs as having a main part, an interlude, and almost like another song at the end.

I will say this: I've always sort of had maybe an inflated sense of my ability to sequence songs in a narrative flow.

Every single song I write has to feel like it has a beginning, middle, and end, like a movie or a short story.

The music should speak for itself, and hopefully it will.

Music has a lot in com­mon with math­e­mat­ics. But in music, two and two need not make four: they add up to what­ever you wish.

As a musician, you write and make music as you go. It's definitely in a great sequence. When you release songs, you think, "Let me make sure this goes with this so it's like a story."

I don't know how it is for people who write fiction or literature, but for me, when I'm writing music, especially with this album, I felt compelled to hold up my end of the conversation. I want people to connect deeper with it.

Kenny Loggins pours his heart and soul into the music he makes. He'll take you with him through everything he's going through, which is not easy.

Your solos should be as interesting as any other part of the song.

I think that soul, to me, is the theme of music that I connect with.

When sequencing an album, you kind of have to look at it like you're making a movie with different acts, and you have ebb and flow, peaks and valleys. You want it to feel like a journey or a good movie or book where you can actually feel very satisfied at the ride at the end of it.

You kind of have to celebrate the moment that you get to create something that you love that falls into the parameters of a 3-minute-and-20-second song, to try to be creative inside of those parameters.

I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.

In my opinion, that's one of the hardest things to do in songwriting: crafting a song that speaks to you but, at its core, is a simple concept.