David Del Tredici Quotes

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer.

I'm a composer like every maestro on this earth.

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 consider myself a composer.

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

A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.

I just can't read music.

Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.

I never learned to read music.

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

It has never been necessary for me to learn how to read music.

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.

I write music visually.

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

My whole life, I've been watching conductors. I was 7 the first time I played with a conductor. Seeing the ones that do it well, it's an amazing thing.

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

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

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

I love doing concert music.

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

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

Reading music is something that's inherently hateful to me. It makes music like mathematics.

The orchestral or symphonic music never interested me.

I love classical music and often listen to symphonies or opera in the morning.

I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can't write a note.