Thomas Newman Quotes

When I do a remix, I try to think about what I don't have in my bag and create something to fill that gap.

I worked on 'Cadillactica' with the mind to not sample as much and focus on creativity.

Really, I just sit down, mess around, and play with sounds.

Yes, sampling has changed not just my way of playing and composing.

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.

I tried several times to get the song right. The tune and the chords that I started with, there really wasn't anywhere else it could go. I stopped fighting it and let it take me away.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

I think, for me, a way to really come up with new ideas and come up with new ways of writing music is to create a unique sound palette or soundscape for all the films I'm working on.

I just keep recording. You never know what you'll come up with.

When you're sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice - you've gotta figure out how to make a song: 'I've gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.'

Every time somebody asks me, 'Oh, when you mix your own music, what are you going to make?' And I don't know.

I demo all of my songs on Garage Band, where I pretty much play everything - not very well, but I manage to hammer out a drum beat and a bass idea.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

When we started there was this element of these experiments we were doing where we weren't really sure how the music would play out because the music was all on different players.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

I've never been one to think it was cheating to sample this or to loop the drum part there - I've always done that. Even using four-track cassette recorders, I was always doing whatever I could to make it as good as I could.

It was spontaneously composed as I was playing it. And then I added a couple of other overdub textures on top of it after the fact. But it's one of those things where I wouldn't be able to sit down and specifically write that. That's just what came out.

Actually, with 'Truth of Touch' I wasn't even intending on making an album. I was just having fun. I had about a six-month period of down time, and I'm not very good at sitting around. So I kind of started going into the studio and having fun with new core mendin sounds.

You can get so many sounds out of one record. Every record can be used in some way.

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.

Writing in the electronic world, you imagine a sound, and then you have to go and find it. It's not like imagining a flute and then making that sound materialize. That's easy!

My father was my first inspiration. He had an incredible stereo and a turntable, and I was told not to touch it. But I'd go back and touch it anyway. I gained a respect for the turntables when I was a kid. When I was a teenager, I came up with a 'cueing system' to work the turntables because they didn't have it at that time.

I'm not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I'll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it's rare.

Weirdly enough, if I'm having trouble with a guitar part - not the playing of it but the writing - I'll mess around with echo and other effects, just turn everything up and make it as crazy as can be, and it winds up taking me somewhere. I've found so many guitar parts from echo. It's limitless.