Ben Kingsley Quotes

And I've made it a choice on my records that sometimes I leave the breath or the trailing note that sometimes falls into a flat or a sharp.

In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed.

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer.

Do you know that my very first experience as a composer was a 'Concerto for Accordion?'

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.

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can't write a note.

I just can't read music.

I never learned to read music.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

It has never been necessary for me to learn how to read music.

I toyed with the idea of playing Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante defunte' but I couldn't remember if it's a tune or Latin prescription for piles.

I began like all composers, writing for small groups. Chamber groups.

I write music visually.

Reading music is like listening to flowers. I don't understand the concept.

When you think about musicians who are reading music, my contention has always been the energy that you're using deciphering what the symbol is is taking away from the maximum creative energy that you might have had if you understood that it's but a symbol.

A musical by its very nature doesn't allow for a lot of nuances.

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

The script is the musical score, and everyone has to play off that score. Even I have to interpret it. The producers are there to eliminate obstacles to that interpretation.

The text for me is the musical score. I'm the instrument. My voice is the instrument. My voice is articulating the sounds which are coming through the imaginings and visitations in my head, and I'm making these sounds but I've selected them from an ocean of sound.

The bar for being shocking doesn't even exist anymore. What am I going to do to shock people? Seriously, try to get The Fisting Musical off the ground? Its really at this point, there is no bar.

Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed.

Blues for me is having things not go your way - life, love, job, money, ... It is not about the oppression of my ancestors, who were trying to get back at the overseers. Blues is different for my generation.