Vanessa Carlton Quotes

We knew we wanted to put a lot of melody into it - a lot more than what we did on our first album.

In my mind, my music feels so big, a true production.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

I had a really pleasant time composing music for 'Raaga.'

I think that the process of making music is a hard one to describe as well.

But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging.

When I walked into the studio, the chorus of 'Nobody Love' was already set. For me, the challenge was to make it have depth.

That's what I like to do, I like to make songs.

The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.

Writing songs is really about writing. It's not about necessarily focusing on one particular style or making it one particular thing.

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness - sonic goodies.

Doing the instrumental thing, you're really looking for the power of the melody to carry the record.

There's two facets to writing a song. There's you sitting in your room writing the sentiments of the song; the lyrics, the melody and the changes, and then there's the part where you go into the studio and you put clothing on it.

Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

Composing music is hard work.

When I'm making music, I can hear all the parts, all the instruments. I can hear what it should be.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

When I write the music for any of my songs, I write as a composer-lyricist in my head.

When you are making an album, it is about the purpose - you are creating both a concept and vibe, then you follow through with that.

It was important for the first piece of original music that I release to have a timeless feel because that's the type of music I want to make.

You work very hard on the lyrics. Getting them to fit the contours of improvised melodies.

Most of the time, I write songs with the arrangements all at once, in my head. There's the producer side of me that's always thinking sounds, like, 'Wouldn't this be a great sound if it existed to put in front of a song, to open it up, and then, when it did its thing, something else would happen?