Steven Stucky Quotes

I never have used any other artist as a model for a sound or a song. It always has to come from an emotion, and capturing the essence of that emotion in a song.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

My music comes from my emotion, always.

It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.

I can't write music unless I'm deeply connected to it and that connection almost always comes from some experience that I have had or am having.

'Hedwig' isn't particularly based on me, but I think that it is autobiographical in terms of emotion.

Sometimes I write music, sometimes I don't. I think I'm just writing more what's close to my heart, and musical stuff is close to my heart, and it's fun to write, and when something's fun to write you don't think about what statement you're trying to make or what genre you're trying to hone in on.

it is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come. ... Pour out the dull things on paper too-you can tear them up afterward-for only then do the bright ones come. If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively.

As a musician myself, I wouldn't be confident if I received some other composers' song, because I choose to express myself through the music that I make.

A film reflects who you are as a building reflects the soul of its architect. I think what you feel and what you think and what you are is what the film is. It's not for me to talk about.

When I write songs, I write from a lot of perspectives.

My father was not just a man, but a spirit dancer. You have to come with that vibration, and it is not something you can act.

When a theme is beautiful, it's a pleasure to rearrange it or to interweave it with your own music.

I want to bring art into everything.

As a musician, it's only natural that my music mirrors my life.

In Germany, people feel like they own classical music, that it is somehow theirs. Over there, everyone still learns to play, and the great composers don't seem alien.

Even the greatest musicians, they only represent themselves. You represent who you are and what your experiences are and what you have in your heart, and it's the same for me. I represent who I am and what I've been through and what I'm bringing to the music.

When it comes to a specific sound, I don't feel like there's something I need to worry about. I'd much rather do something creative and credible. Like, 'Who am I? What am I trying to say? What do I stand for?' I stand for all of it, because I feel all of it, like everybody.

Music has influenced everything from my tattooing to how I talk to how I walk, I guess. I was classically trained in piano since I was 6. Then in my teens, my older sister introduced me to Metallica. It was all over. I had a mohawk soon after that.

I don't want to tell fans what to think or what to believe or whatever, but at the same time, some things just hit you very personally.

I come from a classical background.

I just make music from my soul and let it be.

I simply find that as a songwriter, my goal is to try to move people. And I feel that before I can move other people, I have to genuinely be able to move myself.

As an artist, you have the job of working out whatever is given you to work out.

School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to be at least paint as I wanted to and say what I wanted to when I painted as that seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn't concern anybody but myself. I found that I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way things that I had no words for.