Carter Burwell Quotes

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.

There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things.

I usually write my music on a piano, and I really enjoy performing that way, because that actually shows how the music was in my mind before it actually became an electronic song.

It's very demanding to make up your own music.

I write music visually.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

I always have a guitar or ukulele in the trailer, and I write songs. That keeps me in an artistic mind-set.

The basis of everything I do is down to the song. If I don't have the song I don't sing, and if I don't sing I don't perform.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

I wish I could play music. I think I get as closeas possible with the editing of the films. Over the years musichas been an even more important influence than-or as important as-film.There's no doubt about it. Painting, movement, dance, sculpture-it'sall in cinema.

The composer makes plans, music laughs.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

And I like to interpret music. So I think it's all interpretive.

I think that the process of making music is a hard one to describe as well.

I write the music, produce it and the band plays within the parameters that I set.

I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.

I write my music.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I never presumed that a technique of composition or an idea was so special that just using it would guarantee the quality of the music.

I'm not a natural songwriter.

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.

Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.

I began composing works which were imitative of the music I was being told about. I was also very interested in translating the music into visual terms.

Writing music and lyrics, you tend to become a control freak - sitting alone in your room with a bare light bulb over your head, writing communist manifestos.