Terry Riley Quotes

I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

Making music and writing kind of come from the same creative place.

I don't know any jazz stuff. I don't know how to jam in that way. So jamming, for me, is writing a tune.

In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.

I don't find the songs; they find me. I just strum my guitar and wait for a lyric to come.

Writing songs always trumps whatever else was on the schedule, it really is the most important and can be so fickle, you have to grab it when it's there.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I shift between mediums very frequently. Instead of taking a break from writing, I just write in a different medium or in a different way or for a different purpose, so that I don't actually stop writing - I just go to something else. Like going from a big symphony to a piano piece is great and very refreshing, I find. And then going from that to a big concerto, and then having to go out and play.

At a young age, I really wanted to make music and make my own sort of thing. I'm sure if it wasn't music, it would have been writing, or it would have been maybe painting. I just always had the drive to try and make something with my hands and to just pull something out of myself and shape it and see it in front of me, if that makes any sense.

There is something wonderful about singing and writing music, I think there is something special about creativity and the ability humans have in that area.

Songwriters can’t explain. You get an idea and you don’t know where it’s come from. And if you’re lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.

I focus on the words and then I have fun putting together the music after.

When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.

When I'm recording, which is synonymous with writing, I'll play things over and over again until it sounds like I've got the right guitar part. Whereas I think, as the much younger player I tended to do things much more consciously. I didn't wait for the moment where inspiration might strike. That's what I do now. I wait for it to naturally start to replay itself in my mind. As I say, I don't force it. So I like to think of myself as a receiver. I'm a telephone line to who knows where, but until I hear it through that receiver, I don't usually do it. It's got to start writing itself somehow.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.

I've been playing piano my whole life, but I'd never tried to understand how compositions are made, really. Try to imagine if you'd loved paintings your whole life but had never painted one. My aspiration now is just to understand.

I write a lot of rhymes, but I don't really end up using them a lot of times, and I end up just freestyling. I like to write music, though, more than I like to freestyle, to be honest.

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

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

From the time I could play the piano, I remember trying to write tunes. They were in my head, and I would just sit down and start noodling. Next thing I knew, I had written a melody.