Javed Ali Quotes

We knew that we wanted to play heavy music but I hadn't gotten into melody and things like that.

To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.

You know, when I hear music, I just hear the whole thing.

I don't really have a favorite genre. I could listen to a rock song, a metal song, jazz, pop music, whatever. For me, whatever style it is, it always depends on the chord progression, the lyrics, and the melody used.

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.

There's a song called 'Slip To The Void,' which is fairly long and has more of an epic approach. And I guess for lack of a better term some people might throw the progressive tag on it. I don't know if it necessarily falls into that - a few people have brought that up who have heard it.

Breaking Benjamin, talk about songwriting, I mean, some of the greatest songwriters of the modern era. And, obviously, it's a little heavier.

I just really want to make - to be cliche about it, I want to make pretty music. Like Roy Orbison or Elvis, man. Those guys made beautiful, tender music.

I privilege the music over the lyrics.

I like a lot of different kinds of music. I like strong projects, big music.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

Generally, I like Indian music because the melodies are usually not too complex, which is how I like music, and that's the way I write music.

On first listening, Joni Mitchell's 'Court And Spark,' the first truly great pop album of 1974, sounds surprisingly light; by the third or fourth listening, it reveals its underlying tensions.

Rilo Kiley was a rock band, so I wanted my solo records to feel different.

Music has a poetry of its own, and that poetry is called melody.

The point about melody and beat and lyric is that they exist to engage you in a very particular way. They want to occupy your attention.

Music is creation. In reggae the lyric, the music itself, arrangement, that vibe, such melody - everything within the music moves the people, understand?

When I hear the piano played in a compositional way, like in a songwriter's way in a compositional way, there's a certain arc to that that I love.

I don't think you ever get tired of the well-written, well-crafted songs.

The songs, if I write alone in a room, end up being a little more quiet, a little more subdued. If I play with other musicians or percussive instruments, it might end up being a little more upbeat.

In the early days, I had very little idea about arrangements, and I wrote songs a little flat, as it were, just on an acoustic guitar. They didn't really have quite enough nuance.

The 'Carousel' overture has always been one of my all-time favorite pieces of music.

I'm a composer, and therefore I know when I've written a good tune. When you've written a good song is when you know that the lyric is completely coalesced with the song.

Musical composition, about which I know little, is a complicated art, and some contemporary music may be the equivalent of a complex abstract painting.

I was always interested in trying to find how different genres would affect the lyrics that I'd written. Salsa is where most of my songs have been recorded, the genre of salsa. It's very frenetic, fast-paced. And I felt that the lyrics sometimes were being lost.