Ian Axel Quotes

Some writers are curiously unmusical. I don't get it. I don't get them. For me, music is essential. I always have music on when I'm doing well. Writing and music are two different mediums, but musical phrases can give you sentences that you didn't think you ever had.

When I have a creative block, I take walks. I like to see what shapes stick out - so many legs rushing by at once, it can seem abstract. I don't need to see great art to get stirred up. Music does that for me more easily.

I'm like a little kid when it comes to music. I mean, the music is always blasting wherever I am that people always knock on my door and say, 'It's too loud!' But I think music gives so much inspiration.

Music actually inspires me a lot. I listen to a lot of music, and often I find that if I can associate mentally a song or a piece of music with a particular character or scene, it helps me get back into the head of that character.

You know, even I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify. And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds, but, in fact, might actually keep us sane?

I hope it isn't exclusively true, but I often find that collaboration is the best way... to reach my highest musical place. Because I get so inspired by another good musician; I feed off that.

Writing more and more to the sound of music, writing more and more like music. Sitting in my studio tonight, playing record after record, writing, music a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine.

Talking with other artists is an incredible process. You engage with the work very differently...a nd different relationships between different works start to emerge. To tap into that energy-to tap into that moment-is great for me as an exercise.

I always have music playing in my studio when I design. It really gets me in the mood and allows me to focus.

Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.

Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.

I do believe that music has an intense power to connect us together, to inspire us to become ourselves.

To paint well, I need to be enraptured by my subjects.

People often ask writers where they get their inspiration, and for me, the short answer is that I haven't a clue; I'm just grateful that I get them.

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

I'm not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

When I was in school, I really thought about soul a lot. I was listening a lot to Bjork and to the Commodores. I really wanted to know how they felt. And especially with Bjork, the music there told me wow, that's really her soul there.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

Music infuses your spirit with a certain energy that I try to convey in my work.

A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls.

Music has to be written while people are still excited about a particular melodic or rhythmic sequence. The idea doesn't come out the same if we're not really excited about it.

Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I'm stuck, you know, I change the tuning.

What inspires me is not so much the music as the opportunity to interact with composers. I think that has driven everything I've done.

I've only been to Ireland once, and I felt I would wake up with voices in my head, almost like music, and that if I were a songwriter, I would be very inspired.