John Zorn Quotes

I feel like there are things that inspire the music, and then there's the music itself. I don't feel like I always need to force them together.

You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.

The songs come along at their own pace when they are ready.

The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does.

When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

I would find myself, not necessarily always assigning these little bits of music for here or there, but all of a sudden something would fall into place and it would be exactly that.

I let the song come to me. Then that thing comes to you, and you just know what that thing is. Music isn't like a 9-to-5 job. You never know. It's just the most unpredictable thing.

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

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.

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

When you're in the middle of writing a song, you can come up with this whole web of stuff only you know how to get through. That's very entertaining for me to do that.

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.

When I'm writing a song, I'm just making stuff up as I go along.

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

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.

Ultimately, I'm a fan of music. I describe writing music sometimes as hieroglyphics, like, you know, excavating, gently brushing off these artifacts and discovering the song underneath it all. It seems as if it is already written in it.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

I don't know, my music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I'm at during a particular moment in time.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I'm definitely using different parts of myself, but I think when it comes down to words and melodies, I can't really force anything too much.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

Melody is pure intuition. I don't use any thinking brain when I do that. That's totally in the zone.

Music is chaos. When I write songs, I'm opening the door to madness.