Pat Mastelotto Quotes

So, you can set up an orchestra down this end of the railway station playing one particular area, and simultaneously at the other end something completely different going on. And in the middle they meet, or not, depending.

When you get up, the night and day is a contradiction. But you get up at 4 A.M. That first blush of blue is where the night and day are trying to find harmony with each other. Harmony is the notes that Mozart didn't give you, but somehow the contradiction of his notes suggest that. All contradictions of his notes suggest the harmony.

Interplay and interaction are the integral parts of music - they're as important as the notes.

Counterpoint is difficult. I have been doing it since the beginning of my career. But it is not just taking any opposite. It is finding the right opposite.

The piano and the singing are two equal things to me - maybe not inseparable but very connected. You can say they are like two equal voices.

Silences between movements are employed only in order to bring the opposing duo to the fore.

Yeah, improvising only really works 100% when you're with somebody.

Even though I have often recorded alone, I still feel the best music is made by musicians playing off each other.

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.

The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.

In 'Heart of Gold' at one point, there were 23 players on the stage with him. And part of what's magic about Neil is the way he interacts with the other musicians.

The music has a better feeling when you're responding to what's going on. Music is like playing handball, playing catch with someone, not playing golf. Everywhere the ball bounces is where you respond to it.

If you've got a verse with a lot of rhythm, you want to pair it with something that doesn't.

Once you start to play together, vibing off each other in the scene, it's not just the notes - it's the music. The script might be the notes playing, but we're making it music.

When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.

I saw it as a challenge to play with Pat and we put hours and hours into it, usually on the bus. The trick was to find something that we both wanted to play within our different styles which would add up to being greater than the sum of its parts.

I think the drummer should sit back there and play some drums, and never mind about the tunes. Just get up there and wail behind whoever is sitting up there playing the solo. And this is what is lacking, definitely lacking in music today.

I think maybe chance works better in a situation like music because music exists over a period of time, and you don't maintain constantly the you can't refer back from one area to another area.

The less people that are on the stage, there's more drama. You start living the music with each individual. When you see a band with ten people on stage, just a huge ensemble, you don't know who's doing what.

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression.

I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.

The game is if the orchestra can hear each other, they play better. If they play better and there's a tangible feeling between the orchestra and the audience, if they feel each other, the audience responds and the orchestra feels it.

I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony.

I like to be sort of grounded with Fish. But, at the same time, I think probably what's unique about us is the way other dynamics happen, where I'll play off Trey for awhile. When we start playing a jam, I don't usually know what's going to happen, I don't have a plan.

There is no blood in jazz drumming, and there are no bullies in jazz drumming.