Leon Redbone Quotes

What I learned about music is that it can have nothing to do with words, instrumentation, image, message, or meaning. The meaning is the melody, the notes, the rhythm - music for the sake of its own beauty, with nothing more required to express itself.

It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better?

I'm not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don't want to do that.

Music deals with time and timing. It's so magical, but when you get into it, every little sound and every little space between the sounds, it's critical, so critical. And if it's not there, it not only feels wrong, but it ruins things.

I aim my arrangements at what will fit and colorfully frame the song in the best way possible.

We knew we wanted to put a lot of melody into it - a lot more than what we did on our first album.

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

If you're writing a piece for the Boston Pops, the balance is towards one end. If you're writing a piece for a chamber music society, then it's towards another point. I won't make a final answer on that. I think it changes with every piece.

Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.

I don't like to overcook songs.

As a musician, I hear the harmonic value of everything - I just enjoy music.

Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves.

I like to focus on making the music sound simple and true, and very lush and full. I think music should take you to somewhere else where you have the space to contemplate or exercise your imagination. All the while you should be feeling real good, like when you have a delicious and decadent meal, macaroni and cheese or foie gras.

Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.

Music runs through everything I do - I even think musically; even when I was acting, but, especially, when I am directing. Directing is very musical.

We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.

In writing music, the structure of each piece is a very important factor.

The only type of music I don't like is Dixieland jazz. It's just a little too happy and noisy for me. I like intervals and spaces in my music. There's just something about Dixieland.

I liken movies to playing a piano: Sometimes you're playing the chords and different notes with unresolved cadences and playing all major chords that are all over the place, and you're enjoying yourself with a great, simple melody.

I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece.

Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.

Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.

Music would lose its charm were not dissonance interspersed at frequent intervals. The closer a composer can come to discord without actually entering it in the score, the more pleasing will be his composition when given life through musical instruments.

I want the score to have a really big voice.

The best way to express rhythm is music.