Robert Schumann Quotes

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

When I see things that are inspiring, I must write a song about it. Some people make a t-shirt or slap something on a wall with paint, but I must make music and freestyle rap.

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.

I can almost always write music; at any hour of the twenty-four, if I put pencil to paper, music comes.

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.

Part of Michael's uniqueness, I think, comes from the fact that he worked with music. He had a tape which he gave me with many different compositions, really eclectic. These pieces of music were sources of inspiration.

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with their plagiarism.

If I don't feel anything, I don't write music.

It's easy for me to write songs but hard for me to write an album; that's been my experience.

As songwriters, we can go in and write for other artists in a time where you aren't necessarily feeling inspired for yourself.

So that's the challenge for me and that has always been the challenge - finding that melody, that riff, that thing that just lights me up and makes me feel like it's Christmas.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

I'd hear a tune in my head and the words would come. And then, very suddenly it just stopped. It seemed too stilted to try and learn how to write a song, to go to round robins and to learn things from other people on how to write a song. So I just stopped and did other things.

Music comes first from my heart, and then goes upstairs to my head where I check it out.

Basically my influences have been American influences. It's been blues, gospel, swing era music, bebop music, Broadway show music, classical music. It's like making a stew. You put all these various ingredients in it. You season it with this. You put that in it. You put the other in it. You mix it all up and it comes out something neat, something that you created.

Well, it grow together. It's like, first time I try to write a song is the first time I try to play the guitar. And so I can write a song without the guitar. But it really grow together. I really like stay with my guitar. But it just happen, is the inspiration come through man. Because, I personally, it look like, could I write a whole heap a tune, it look like. But I pick special tune to write. Cause a man can think of plenty things. Yuh know wah ah mean.

My hope is to continue to make new music and go with the flow. I think I'll always be creative. I want to keep making good music, put myself into positions where I need to rise to the occasion of playing in front of an audience, and continually get better at what I'm doing.

I don't know that I make a big distinction between the big pieces and the little pieces, because I don't experience them in that way. I mean, by the same token, you're out touring with a band and then you're writing string quartets, and in a funny way, isn't it all the same, in a way? It's all just music.

Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.

Sometimes I start with a great title or idea, sometimes a great melody will run through my mind; but the higher percentage of the time, the words and music pretty much come at the same time.

What I do as a songwriter is a constant force in my life, that I'm grateful to have.

He's writing what I'm singing, and I'm writing what he's playing.

I have so much music inside me I'm just trying to stay afloat.

That’s why I hate to take credit for the songs I’ve written. I feel that somewhere, someplace, it’s been done and I’m just a courier bringing it into the world.