Harrison Birtwistle Quotes

For example, after developing a sound similar to an elephant trumpeting, I wrote the song Elephant Talk which gave my elephant sound an appropriate place to live.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song.

I try to imagine what the greatest song I could ever write would sound like, and then try to do it.

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.

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 think that once you start writing songs, you start developing a library of ideas that you can go and take from, so it gets easier as you go.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

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.

I write when I have to; I write when the song is done and I deal with the idea and I just go with it and I'll become what that song is all about until I have finished it. And when you do that, it makes the song more visual, it makes it more personal.

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

I've always tended to write songs prolifically.

I sit down and create atmospheres, start playing guitar or piano and just sing whatever comes out of my mouth.

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

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.

I'm always writing; my phone is full of ideas - melodies and lyrics and stuff.

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with their plagiarism.

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.

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.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

The songs sort of come out spontaneously and it'll take me awhile to figure out what exactly is happening lyrically, what kind of story I'm telling. Then I start building little bridges - word bridges - to make everything go from one point to the next point to the next point until it reaches the end.

Being a good songwriter means paying attention and sticking your hand out the window to catch the song on the way to someone else's house!

The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.