Isaac Hayes Quotes

Writing music is not so much inspiration as hard work.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

Writing music is very, very clinical. You just sit down at a piano, map out a theme and when all the technicalities come together, out pours the music.

Each song is a small universe to me. Each song has a story of its own. Each has a full life to express in order to be complete, so it often happens that the building to a big crescendo feels right in the recording or writing process.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

You just pick up a chord, go twang, and you're got music.

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.

Music is all about training in harmony, training to understand and use musical energy for our greater pleasure by attuning to the natural laws of the universe.

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

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of.

I write music visually.

I hold all of the songs that I have had the pleasure of recording and performing in high regard.

Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.

I was drawn to love songs, but I was just drawn to great music - no matter if it's hip-hop, pop, R&B or whether it's rock n' roll or country. It could be a Garth Brooks song, and if it's a smash, then I'll love the different wordplay and different melodies. That's what I'm a fan of - great music.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.

My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

Music assists him in the use of harmonic and mathematical proportion.

Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.

A melody is not merely something you can hum.