James Newton Howard Quotes

I make music because I like making music.

One of the things you're doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

And there's a feeling you get from making music that is unlike anything else in the world.

Magic to me is you make a movie and it's all great and it clicks, and at the end of the day you feel like you're having an experience that is positive and that you're learning from.

There's usually a rhythm and a melody in my head, and that creates an emotional state.

I write music visually.

Well, I have to have some type of visual in my head to finish a song. I can't finish a song if I can't see anything.

Every movie I do, regardless of how they fare at the box office, excites me.

Very often the music comes first.

Whenever I write a song I see the whole song anyway.

It is always the same with me; only when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing do I experience! After all, a musician's nature can hardly be expressed in words.

Making music is mostly spontaneously following sounds you find compelling that you chase and see where they're leading you.

I'm writing for the sake of writing music. Whether it gets heard or not isn't an issue for me. It keeps my own juices going and my mind active.

I think there’s no greater joy than completing a song out of thin air. It’s like inventing something, but it’s invisible, you know? It’s weird. It amazes me. You can send it out in the world, and that’s the joy. It’s like giving birth to all these songs and letting them go like they’re your kids.

I like the process of writing songs. It makes me feel good.

If you don't have to write songs, why write them? I've got enough where I don't really feel the urge to write anything additional.

I've always loved playing solo. I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music. My favorite thing is usually whatever I'm doing right there and then.

Any true musician, true artist, knows that when they're in that point of total artistic creation, whether on stage or in the studio or writing or whatever, that's the closest moment [to creation]. And that's what keeps all these people addicted to getting back to that moment again.

I guess the most emotional part is when I have that moment when I end up writing something that I really, really love. So not only is there the emotional connection with the music that's being created, but there's also the magic of the fact that you're essentially creating something from nothing.

A lot of time when I'm creating songs, they're in real time. When I'm writing the song, I feel what I'm feeling for its full potential. As soon as the song is over, I'm like, I created art.

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.

I'm blessed, because I enjoy every part of my life. I enjoy writing songs. I've been trying to write songs since I was five years old.

I love making music. I never stop. I want to keep it moving forward. I like to go into the studio and make hits. It makes me feel good.

I could compose and write music and get to share it with the masses and the people around the world and to have them to receive it so beautifully - I love that.

I know when I watch certain actors or if I watch Thom Yorke sing on stage, I'm affected by it emotionally. I guess that's what we are all striving for in art but that's such a beautiful thing that happens between two people that may never even meet. So when you do get to meet someone who was affected in that way, it's awesome.