Bryce Dessner Quotes

So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

I think a melody is a melody. And the way I usually start is I start writing my themes without even writing to picture to just try to find the tone for the movie or the TV show.

Composing music for 'Mungaru Male 2' is a big responsibility and challenge.

The first thing that inspires any song is a chord progression. When I have one I really like, I get into the lyrics even more.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

If you're going to start with melody you'll need some tympani, I think.

Classical - perhaps I should say 'orchestral' - music is so digital, so cut up, rhythmically, pitchwise and in terms of the roles of the musicians. It's all in little boxes. The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities.

There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.

I love classical music and often listen to symphonies or opera in the morning.

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.

A lot of music is mathematics. It's balance.

The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.

I still do not know where the notes will come from when I accept a commission for a new work.

You know, when I hear music, I just hear the whole thing.

Musical composition, about which I know little, is a complicated art, and some contemporary music may be the equivalent of a complex abstract painting.

The melody will tell me what the song should be about, the tone of the song. That's when the intellect comes in. Because I have a list of possible titles and concepts, and I expand on that.

There is a basic language of music that I think is important for communicating with other musicians - just the kind of terminology that might make it easier to describe your ideas to the other guys in your band.

I love getting time to write a piece of music that can settle in and set the tone of the show.

I'm a composer like every maestro on this earth.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

I'm usually pretty good at remembering the melodies that I wrote.

I started writing music as a composer in school, in the classical tradition.

It is the responsibility of music composers to add some classical music elements into their songs to make the music genre popular.

Composing is to think. It is to have your mind trying to find what is the best sound that the movie is going for: the best melody, the best texture, the best structure and dramaturgic arc for the film. Then you discuss that with the director. He's the leader. He's the one showing you the path to follow to find the soul of the film.