Tom Jenkinson Quotes

I think there is great interest amongst the younger people in this music. I think that there is a lot of them that are looking for interesting situations and music that is stimulating.

I listen to music all the time, and I just choose things I like, or things that I've not used before. Sometimes I work with music that's very difficult - that I don't even particularly like, per se, but that is really complex or interesting.

There's an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don't exist.

I think no matter what kind of music you play, there will be moments when you feel like it's all been done before.

Music has to keep moving. But I was lucky. For me there was always something around the corner.

Pop music has been exhausted. The innocence has been exhausted. I think we've lost the ability to be blown away by music.

Play a jungle record from 1993 to someone in 1989 and it would have sounded like something so new that it would have challenged them to rethink what music was, or could be.

It's never too late to do anything new when it comes to music.

I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.

I aspire to make a record that sounds better 10 listens in than it does after two, and still, at 50 listens, you're picking out things that add a depth and a thoughtfulness to it; there's enough in there that you can still be extracting pieces out of it.

The music that I make is built on layers upon layers of musical ideas. I want to keep it fun and fresh to where listeners won't get everything from just one listen. They can go back to it months, weeks, or even years later and hear something that they didn't ever hear before. That's what it's all about.

King Crimson is never easy; it's challenging. That's why I like it.

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

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 think music needs danger; it needs risk.

I think that prog rock is the science fiction of music. Science fiction speculates on what the future might be and look like and how we'll get there, and yet there's always a central theme of humanity, or there should be. Progressive rock has the same concept of exploration into the parts of the music world that hasn't been explored.

Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I'm stuck, you know, I change the tuning.

Once we're inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

It starts with a single sound. If there's something in that sound, then it's worth continuing.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.

Music in general is looking for something new overall.

If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.

I spent two years figuring out how I could turn it into something that would satisfy me as a musician but also make some kind of cross-cultural link. I feel that I kind of at least touched on the possibilities of cross-cultural music, but it is a lifetime's work, and I don't profess to be anything other than a novice at it.