Harrison Birtwistle Quotes

I tried to take heavy metal... and balled it up and chopped it in half and really tried to create a new form of energy. I really tried to re-shape extreme music as I see it through my eyes.

Music in general is looking for something new overall.

I'm trying to change the root of funk, trying to make it more progressive, more melodic and more lyrically structured.

I grew up listening to everything. I have such a love for music, but I don't want to make the same album over and over again.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

First, it doesn't surprise me that traditional music has experienced a kind of exhaustion in the 20th century - not forgetting that many musicians started to look outside the traditional structures of tonality.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

They have all different names for music. I think the music I'm going to change the style with is going to be really, really big-years and years after I'm gone.

I think that Yes' music is kind of on its own out there, and it goes through different chapters, and that involves different people. I don't think it's a case of 'any year is better than any other.' They can all co-exist quite comfortably.

To keep creating something with this type of music, you have to take it out of the box.

The music that I've made in the past has had strong contemporary country roots, but I think moving on in music, I will branch out from that a bit.

Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.

Any good music must be an innovation.

Webern was a kind of 'Kamchatka of music,' an unknown country of music. That's true; for me and people of my generation, he was a radical - you couldn't be more radical than he was.

Nothing I'm doing musically is revolutionary in any way, shape, or form.

Music is forever changing.

If you look at these bands like The Beatles, they did something that was new for that time, whether it was shocking or just a new direction that they were going.

Our music is constantly evolving and changing, and when this band put out an album we always try to offer something different.

Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand, a babbling which is more or less pleasant, the life that most composers live.

Since music is a reflection of our mindset and our culture, it is bound to change with time. I am glad that India is such a receiving country and is always open to all kinds of music. Our composers, singers and writers are open to experimenting.

It's a great honor when somebody takes your song and does something different with it. That's what music is all about: to constantly change what somebody else has done.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

I love all Yes music and love to play it live, but I'm most interested in making new music with Yes.

Music is changing. I'm just doing what I'm doing, and hopefully in the next 20, 30 years, some kids can take what I'm doing and change it again. If the music doesn't move, then it's dead.

We're not trying to change the world; just music.