James Fenton Quotes

I love Bill Finn's stuff. It's so rewarding for an actor. It's conversational but intricate. He writes some beautiful, simple songs and melodies, but he also writes this cacophony for people.

It is a real piece of art if you can make a waltz sound like it is the easiest piece of music to play, because it's really not.

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

Good music is very close to primitive language.

I've always been a writer who does simplistic, simple melodies. But I think it works.

Here's how I understand music. If you can play the same bunch of noise twice, it's music. To go beyond that is supercilious and pontificating.

It doesn't take much for anyone to pick up anything I play - it's quite simple. I go for a good song. And if you hear a good song, you don't dissect it - you just listen, and every bit seems right.

Music is so abstract; it is a combination of words and melody.

It was important for the first piece of original music that I release to have a timeless feel because that's the type of music I want to make.

Music's designed to be timeless.

My harmonies on 'Me & My Dog' are a little extra.

As a song-writer I have always written with one instrument - either guitar or piano - because I believe that if a song is strong enough to be performed completely stripped down then it is a good one to go on and record.

There's so many ways you can play one chord progression that the repetition isn't ever exactly the same.

Arriving at a simple piece of music is a very difficult balance because, in being simple, you could easily be banal, so maybe it's more difficult to write a simple piece of music than a 12-tone piece where no one understands exactly what it is about.

I came from a Conservatoire background where the idea of complexity was very much bound up with good music - good music was seen as complex and difficult to understand.

I feel so lucky that I feel the music is at the forefront of Audioslave, and the songs are the most important thing.

Songwriting has become such a big part of what I do that emotions and the melodies that accompany them blur into one.

I've found an extraordinary thing happens where I flash an entire finished song. I could be walking along, say over that bridge, and I see and hear the whole thing, words and music.

There's something special in music about the repetition of playing something where it becomes a home and a fortress and a space that you inhabit, like maybe we could move this little thing here, or rearrange the furniture. You're so acquainted with every part of it.

I always try, when I'm singing songs, to interpret them the way that I would've arranged them. I think about the melody first, and then I pull out my guitar and start singing it.

I write simple songs, and people like that. They're mature enough to appeal to people who aren't teenage girls. Most of my fans are older, and it's nice to think the songs can appeal to middle-aged men and women.

I don't like pre-written raps; I think it makes the song better if you listen to the beat first. In a sense, you have to make a marriage with the beat. I ride the beat, hear the flow of the drums, get the melody of my flow, and then from that point, it's a process of what I want to say.

You listen to something like 'Beast Mode,' and it's almost like looking at a pretty painting.

I'm definitely trying to make songs that people can sing along to and remember. If you can recognize a chorus and leave with it in your head, it's usually a good sign. But then with the verses, I can get a little more free form. I don't really like to copy and paste things.

Philosophically, I think riffs that start with E repeating itself are almost guaranteed to be great.