Justin Peck Quotes

I have always studied my parts with the orchestral score and not with the piano reduction.

It took us three months to finish the arrangement of 'Thunderstruck.'

The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music.

Learning operatic roles is ongoing, and I find that I can learn on the train or subway, during a manicure, getting my hair done, and even while driving if I only look at the score at red lights.

Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.

I really want to get better at conducting.

I am proud to say I'm a director's composer. People do method acting, I do method composing. I like to get into the skin of the character and go deep into the director's vision.

Western classical music is participative. Look at the number of people who are involved in a symphony.

I have written symphonic poems and chamber music. It is my way of personal expression.

Part of what I enjoy about writing classical music is communicating through the score and collaborating with such amazing musicians.

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

Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves.

The thing about covers is that the first thing you're going to notice is the vocals, because it's not the same person.

If a song feels good to me, it's not very difficult to make it my own.

I approach horror music differently than anything else. The very first time I watch an episode, I want to be playing an instrument to it so I can get that shock into the show.

I don't like most world music because you need to know what the words are to really understand it.

I think John Williams, him and his team, have been incredible orchestrators. By that, I mean how he chooses which instrument plays which note.

I love learning how people hear my music because everyone has different references.

It's really been enlightening for me to work with composers because I used to think that everything in the music was exactly what the composer meant. Well, it's what the composer meant in that moment when they wrote it.

I've always covered some Dylan songs. I do one or two. And I do them because they're great songs. You know some people cover songs they wish they could have written, not me. I like to cover songs I know I could not have ever written.

You know, I really feel a responsibility to the music, and I teach workshops in music sometimes. And folks do come to me and they go, 'How do I make this blues song my own? How do I feel like I'm not an impostor doing this?' And I'm like, 'That's an excellent question.' That's where you should start, where you go, 'How does this speak to me?'

I never wanted to write on a staff. I wanted to perform my work.

If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it.

It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music?

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.