Ryuichi Sakamoto Quotes

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

If I get an idea for a song, I have a melody for it. I'm a musician first. I'm not limited by the fretboard.

In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed.

I've never really been schooled in music theory. I'm a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it's more unique that some other people.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

For musical compositions to reach a high level and to derive from spontaneity, of course, one has to do the necessary steps to learn the rules and regulations of composing high quality music.

My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.

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

I'm an interpreter of music.

Do you know that my very first experience as a composer was a 'Concerto for Accordion?'

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

I'd much rather talk about guitar playing. I hate it when people ask me about my lyrics. I always feel like telling them to just go and read them.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

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

After all my years of doing instrumental music I still like just a simple instrumental song with a nice catchy melody and an opportunity to play a solo over a harmonic structure.

Boulez seemed to me to be a guy who wrote laws. Like a company lawyer.

I actually write my own music whenever I have a chance. I play guitar and sing.

From a very early period of my life I have derived the highest enjoyment from listening to music, especially to melody, which is to me the most pleasing form of composition.

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

I do love using keyboards and I love writing keyboard parts, but I am not a player in the true sense of the word.

I can play songs that I hear from a movie and just play it a few times on the keyboard. I will hit all the notes on the keyboard until I find the right key, and then I will play the rest of the song.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.

I am so happy that I didn't go to school and I didn't have anyone to tell me how to position my fingers on the piano correctly. And what you do with music and what is the correct way to write it and what is not the correct way to write it.