Melodic Exploration Quotes

Each acoustic guitar has its own character and personality. On a particular day, I might pick one up and start noodling around, looking for some emotional content in the chords.

To a musician or songwriter, your canvas is silence.

'Sol Invictus' works like your basic FNM record: the sequencing is an artful job, hustling you politely through all the gentle, harsh, weird surprises that follow - and then when it's over, you get back on the ride and start over, just like Space Mountain.

I'm not a real good musician, but I can write [a song] pretty well. I experiment once in a while to see what I can do. I find out the best I can do is stay with ballads.

If you wanna write a song, ask a guitar

All I know is when I start getting serious about songwriting... it's like a playground. All responsibilities slip away and you're with your essence. There can be delight there and self-discovery. You can dance there... I think of it as my serious playground.

I get to play around with different ideas and beautiful melodies. I don't have to yell in a rock voice. I think you can get an emotional depth in the types of rooms we're playing that you can't find in larger rooms.

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

You know that I immerse myself in music, so to speak- that I think about it all day long- that I like experimenting- studying- reflecting.

I was teaching myself notes from three and then by seven I'd figured out how to play some chords, and at school I used to love writing poems and poetry, so I guess I kind of put two and two together and that formed my songwriting from an early age.

I love exploring the hypnotic elements of music, and because of that there are very long tracks on 'Immunity.'

The Sadies have the ability to create soundscapes, and to put you in places.

I'd never even sung in the shower, I'm too mortified. But once I got over the initial fear it was kind of enjoyable. Sondheim's melodies and lyrics are a real pleasure to tromp around in, it's really beautiful stuff.

When I turned 14, I became very obsessed with writing songs, and it took over my existence.

Most of the time I sit down with my guitar or at the piano, and I play for awhile until I get a new riff or groove that I like a lot. Then I'll concentrate on building around that line of thought by adding words and textures. At first I'm only trying to please myself, and hopefully what I like will appeal to others.

He [Thelonious Monk] played each note as though astonished by the previous one, as though every touch of his fingers on the keyboard was correcting an error and this touch in turn became an error to be corrected and so the tune never quite ended up the way it was meant to.

My dad is Polish. My mom is Moroccan, and I grew up around all kinds of different languages, and I love playing with it, and I love picking up new melodies.

I always start with emotion. That's where I start all of my improvisations, on the piano. I always start with the mood or the feel of where I am in that moment.

Music and space collide for me, as I find them incredibly stimulating.

I do spend time trying to find good melodies, and I try to remember them when I do discover them. But also it's mostly intuitive; I noodle around with the line until it sounds and feels right.

He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places.

I'll sing over some chords, searching, what does [the music] conjure up, where's the melody taking you? I deliberate over the lyrics, I really do. I'll come up with one line in a day, and then it might be a couple of days before I come up with the rhyming line. It's never been easy for me.

A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.

I have always had problems with my voice, and the piano helped me believe the song could be bigger than my voice, and I could play with new melodies and things that I couldn't on guitar. It was easier to make the sound fuller and easier to get away with not being as good.