Ilaiyaraaja Quotes

The great songs just come out. If it comes quick, just leave it that way.

Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.

I don't write anything down - it comes from my head and my soul and my heart and my pain. That allows me to make the best music I can make.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

For me, how I feel about what I wrote down turns into a song.

So the actual riffing came out of us just sitting there and doing it the way I think some people think we really did it, which is all spontaneously, and it really was.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.

I write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

When I'm writing a song, I'm just making stuff up as I go along.

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

I hardly ever go into the studio with a work complete in my head. It emerges from communal activity.

Improvised music involves a lot of intuition and I like developing intuition.

Ultimately, I'm a fan of music. I describe writing music sometimes as hieroglyphics, like, you know, excavating, gently brushing off these artifacts and discovering the song underneath it all. It seems as if it is already written in it.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

I freestyle, but I'd rather sit down and write down my music to map out what I'm doing. But if I'm out with my friends, I will freestyle, you know?

Whatever I hear in my head is what I play.

I wrote 'Channel Orange' in two weeks. The end product wasn't always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.

I love music. I love creating, so I just get inspired with whatever mood I'm in. Whatever the story dictates, that's where my mind goes.

The feeling that you want the listener to get, you should get yourself when you first hit that chord, and that melody comes to mind.

When you're making music, you're creeping up on your heart and pouring it out into something.

There are times where I'm just open to receive songs. I sit down, and a jam will just come out, all at once. It's like, 'Song. Done.' I can't really explain it. This isn't the best way of putting it, but sometimes I feel like I'm a magnifying glass for vibes.

I'm suspicious of the idea of categories in music and this idea of things being in boxes. To me, that seems unnatural. I write the music that somebody with my biography would write, and the thing that's always driven me is an enthusiasm for the material. I sort of follow the notes to where they want to go.

I still maintain the fact that when I write songs, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't think about it pragmatically. I say what's in my brain, and sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's terrible.