Henry Mancini Quotes

You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.

Success and the art of making music are two different things for me.

I actually was a musician in college, a composer and singer, and really intended to be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein when I got out.

I'm continuing to learn more about music - it's an ocean, and you can never really say that you know everything. I'm grateful that I'm still living and making music among the greats.

I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.

I have tried, in all the ways I can, to make timeless music.

What makes a Beethoven symphony spectacular, what makes a Brahms rhapsody spectacular is that the patterns are wondrous.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments.

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.

I'm like any other composer. If you give me five years to write a symphony, I'm still going to be asking for more time two days before it's due.

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

The experience awakened 'my tremendous musical ambition, which has never subsided to this day.

I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.

I want to be the most melodic artist. 'His music ability, the way he write, his creativity is undeniable.' I want people to say that about me.

Anything with music, you got to have inspiration. You got to have inspiration to do good music.

I wanted to be the best guitar player in the world. And then my dad got me a portable recorder, so I started writing my own music.

I'll never forget the first time I heard Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Partita in E Major' for violin. It was in a late-1980s television commercial, of all things. As a young violinist at the time, it enchanted me - it was so pure, precise, and unadorned.

I can't take credit for the success of my songs.

There would be no Static-X if I didn't write all the songs.

I don't feel like we have that Paul McCartney gene, and I think the cool thing about us is that we know it.

I was writing tons of music in my spare time. I might be on location somewhere, and I'd go home and I'd have my guitar and my little keyboard or something and write music. Or if I was at home, on my piano. I've always been a late bloomer with a lot of things, just in general, so I think this was something that needed to come to fruition in this particular way.

For me, the music is always like the small rowboat I get into at the very beginning of my process.

There's a song", I say. "There's always a song", he says.