Richard Rodney Bennett Quotes

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.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before. I'm still very excited by an amazingly written song, so that's really the thing that I work on when I make records with people.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

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.

The songs come along at their own pace when they are ready.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

I don't get my inspiration from a specific source. It's more like if you listen to a good tune, it gives me inspiration to write a better tune.

Composing is my life blood.

I write music visually.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

Some songs just fall out of you. And some you have to wrestle out like an abscess.

When I'm at home creating music, I usually wind up laughing. It's always, like, funny - like, what the hell did I just write?

What's cool about making music is when you create a record, it comes from somewhere.

It's not that I'm trying to write another '7 Years' or a new version of 'Mama Said.' Songs just kind of come out of nowhere, and you need to catch them when they do.

It doesn't necessarily take four years to write a good piece of music. It might take four hours. It just depends on when your inspiration comes.

When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making.

The composer makes plans, music laughs.

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

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

I write my music.

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.

Writing music is not so much inspiration as hard work.

I love working and writing new songs. But sometimes you need to wait, to have something in your mind, and then you can let yourself play music.

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.