James Murphy Quotes

I don't know if it's a sign of all the chaos that is happening out there or not, but I've lately craved the structure and order of classical music, the balance and symmetry.

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.

Beethoven's music tends to move from chaos to order, as if order were an imperative of human existence.

I am the rest between two notes which are somehow always in discord.

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

When you get up, the night and day is a contradiction. But you get up at 4 A.M. That first blush of blue is where the night and day are trying to find harmony with each other. Harmony is the notes that Mozart didn't give you, but somehow the contradiction of his notes suggest that. All contradictions of his notes suggest the harmony.

You always have to wrestle with chaos.

Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition overweighted.

My course is about really working on a sheet of music. You work out the chords, which note complements the other, and how they will make the feeling of tension, the feeling of resolution. It's all about harmonization. That's more of the theory of notation and everything rather than practical. I don't play any instrument.

Disorder brings about order.

Jealousies and rivalries have been my themes, and checks and balances as their antidotes, till I am ashamed to repeat the words.

Many things complicated by nature are restored by reason.

In music, what is very important is temporality of space and length, based on the breathing space the director gives the music within the film, by separating the music from various elements of reality, like noises, dialogues... That's how you treat music properly, but it doesn't always happen this way. Music is often blamed, but it's not its fault.

Everyone always says that conflict is drama, and I agree, but I also don't think you need drama everywhere. Or conflict everywhere.

Silence can be very effective, and it gives the music space to breathe.

In anything you write - in a short story, a poem - there has to be a counter-motion; it can't go all in one direction.

I want music to move me, and I don't think it can do that without at least a link to tonality. It's the tug between atonal and tonal which makes music poignant.

If too much harmony dominates, then aggression can get lost.

I like conflict in songs.

The music of Bach is so timeless, so fulfilling. You don't feel like you have to be in front of it. The music has everything, and you are there to find the balance when you conduct. You don't have to give too much of your individuality. It's Bach, so it's dangerous to get in the way.

I find the world with its inequities and injustices to be messy, unfair, and complicated. The cosmos, on the other hand, is orderly and beautiful - this I find terribly alluring and captivating.

In Britten or Berg, there's a tension between the sweet and the sour, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the tonal and the atonal, the happy and the sad. That, to me, is what all western art is about - that tension. It's why we want to say anything at all.

Conflict, when mismanaged, destroys.

Especially in repetitive music, to make a long piece of music you have to be extremely skilled in your sleight of hand. Just to make long form music it's very difficult and you really have to consider what you're putting someone through.