Jonny Greenwood Quotes

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

I'm proud that with 'Bright Eyes' we've always experimented and tried to make a different record every time out.

Music is a continuum and the modern and avant-garde composers of today will be part of the standard repertoire 30 years from now.

I love traditional music. But in any culture around the world, there is the historic and cultural music and everything that's been passed down and passed down, and hopefully you take that, and then you take it, you know, the next distance, and then somebody else takes it the next distance.

Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg imply a type of pianist who is intellectual. That's not always associated with female soloists.

When I was young, Tchaikovsky was ruined for me by conductors who made it slick and treacly. Hearing Valery Gergiev conduct Tchaikovsky has been a revelation - he brings out all its raw passion. And Gergiev with the super-virtuoso LSO - well, it's just the perfect combination.

On the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue sits the most famous concert hall in the world. No less a figure than when Tchaikovsky led the first performances in 1891. Virtually every major artist has performed there. There is simply no place like it. The first time I stepped foot in Carnegie Hall was in 1964.

There's a lot of music at my fingertips that I can be influenced by. And just because I play a horn, I don't need to sound, or try to capture, what was happening before me. I can just respect it and learn from it.

You're not going to hear me do a rap song, you're not going to hear me do a jazz song. We have to be true to our roots, do what we do, and try to do it a little better each time.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

I made records in the past that are as traditional as any other country records that have been made, but at the same time the records have a contemporary slant on it too.

I'm going to keep thinking about topping myself every time. I can say very confidently that Alice In Chains have done that on every record. It surprises me. I don't go in there expecting that, but I do go in there hoping for it.

People who play conventional music are threatened by electronica and don't consider it to be as valuable as what they do.

In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice.

Although my music is electronic, it has a lot of influences from my past, which is all sorts of genres; I've been in a rock-metal band for a long time, and I still feel like, personally, I have a lot of influence from that. My classical influence, you can find spots here and there.

In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form.

If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries.

I'm very much a traditionalist, but I think it's important to know about tradition so that you can evolve the music you are deciding to make.

All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago.

A song isn't finished until it's played live, and then it moves on.

Everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd loves different styles of music, and our minds are very open when it comes to writing our songs and making the band true to what the band is, but also stepping out and doing something current.

Presenting the American songbook as a living, breathing entity that's expanding all the time is very important.

I want to speak in the tradition of rhythm and blues and soul music, but also push how it's dressed and how it's delivered to the audience. And hopefully that gets embraced by as many people as possible, but the goal isn't necessarily to speak to everyone. The goal is to get it out as exact as it is in my head.

Time will change and with it music will too. Our speed has changed, clothes have changed, food habits have changed, so why should music remain the same?

There are artists who delight listeners with their wild and daring individuality; there are others who uncover the written score with reverence. There are few who can do both.