Karlheinz Stockhausen Quotes

As a musician, I look for certain things that stimulate me. And what I look for is something that's an evolution on a particular genre that I never heard before.

Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

Any good music must be an innovation.

Music should always be an adventure.

People come in because they like 'Old Town Road.' They'll find out that I'm just not going to stick to that.

In music, I wanted to make sure I was innovating.

I hope to refine music, study it, try to find some area that I can unlock. I don't quite know how to explain it but it's there. These can't be the only notes in the world, there's got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys.

My first instrument was my voice. I was always singing and writing melodies when I was a little kid. I just sort of taught myself whatever was around. If there were instruments around, I'd play them. I always liked the idea of not being shown but coming up with my own energetic connection to the instrument.

My intentions have been, and are always, to just really get behind what my ideas are musically and to just ride this thing out, cause it feels good, and I think for the most part it's good music. Even when it's not, I'd like to still search for something that could be even like a little bit mind-blowing or shocking to me.

There's an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don't exist.

I think no matter what kind of music you play, there will be moments when you feel like it's all been done before.

I'm not really allowed to talk about the Dead though. I think when we are at our best, we definitely do things that the Dead or no other band could do. We explore things and take things to the extreme.

The drive to create music that is pure is my highest priority. Sometimes I'll get extremely technical, and other times I'll just kind of go with the gods of music.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.

All along, I did what I was comfortable doing, which was to play the music I enjoyed and try to stretch the parameters a bit. Country and bluegrass and folk were my foundation.

In the past, I tried to be more of a typical session guitarist. I wasn't so concerned with impressing anybody.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

In Atlanta, there's no limitation to where you can take your music. You can be as creative as you want to be.

I found the blues too limiting, and classical was too disciplined.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment. I also will use any gadget or device that I find that helps me achieve the sort of sound on the guitar that I want to get.

Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I'm stuck, you know, I change the tuning.

I try to get underneath the skin of all kinds of music, and I never know what's going to inspire me and what makes me crazy.

Creating any type of art is all about mood. I've been making extreme music in one fashion or another for decades. And truthfully, Down has a big enough fan base to where I could remain content to do only that, but music is a vast territory and I am an explorer. And I'm a lover of all things considered extreme in music.