John Otto Quotes

Music is about textures as well as melody.

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

In writing music, the structure of each piece is a very important factor.

Music is organized sound.

If you look at music, you see theme, variation, you see symmetry, asymmetry, you see structure, and these are related to skills in the real world.

I love working with an orchestra, but there are many ways to make music.

Normally when you write for an orchestra, you think about melody and harmony and countermelody.

Most things that I write are in very specific forms. A score will have a shape and profile, and then the more emotional and intimate moments will come.

Sound is more than just noise. Ordered sound is music. My life is music.

Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.

The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.

Music is about the performance.

I hate to say this, but I always listen to the music and the instrumentation first, and then grab on to the lyrics later.

I think you can have the greatest lyrics in the world and if it doesn't have the best tune in the world it will suck. I mean if the music wasn't important it would just be a poem.

Music has a poetry of its own, and that poetry is called melody.

I try to make my music have the quiet spaces of folk, the intimacy, and the energy of rock.

It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness - sonic goodies.

Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a minor form.

We knew we wanted to put a lot of melody into it - a lot more than what we did on our first album.

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.

Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune.

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.

Music is beautiful. Yes, music is great. My music's great.

I cannot conceive of music that expresses absolutely nothing.

Music is math; music is spiritual.