Henry Flynt Quotes

And after I compose my programs, but it is very easy because I look to the music in a very natural way without fuss, and so I look always music, in my home, like books and books and books, choose books and you read the pages, so I do this with music, and I make programs.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

When I composed, I heard my music played by the orchestra within days of completion of the score. No master at a conservatory, no matter how revered, can teach as much by verbal criticism as can a cold and analytical hearing of one's own music being played.

Drawing and visual pursuits were first. Music came and found me in a way. Really, what it's about is creative problem solving, and music is a lot more an expression of that than painting is for me.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

With music, it feels natural that, in my head, I can pull things apart and then put them back together very quickly.

It's the idea of a multi-sensory experience stemming from music that opened my interest into painting, to be honest.

Other people notice the same things but they don't think to put it to music.

When we make records, it's hard to pinpoint one thing that inspires a record. It's usually a number of different things that lead to inspiration or wanting to write something down and share it with someone.

Performing written music, even when I've written it, is not very interesting to me.

I'm quite arty. I didn't know whether to become an artist or musician but I realised I could paint with music. All my songs have colours.

For me, the music dictates the melody. Give me a riff to sing over, you know?

You can't help but have ideas when you're inspired musically.

Arthur Russell is very important to me on many levels, and when I read Tim Lawrence's biography on him, 'Hold on to Your Dreams,' one of the things I took away was: first thought, best thought. I live by that when I make my own music.

I feel like there are things that inspire the music, and then there's the music itself. I don't feel like I always need to force them together.

I am going to write my symphony; I'm just going to start tomorrow.

The song we’re composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it.

The composer makes plans, music laughs.

I couldn't have written things like 'Low' and 'Heroes,' those particular albums, if it hadn't have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.

I sort of enjoy being able to hear what other composers are doing and how they might score something differently than me. I enjoy that part.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.

We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.