I kept hearing all these rules: 'You can't say that in country music.' 'You can't use that kind of beat.' I became so frustrated. It may have slingshotted me, in a rebellious way, toward doing something different.
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
With musical theatre, although there are rules, they're so different to the ones I feel like I have accidentally been ingrained with writing pop music. The main point is to tell the story. You just have to make sure the character's voice is strong and the storytelling is strong.
We must have recourse to the rules of music when our genius and our ear seem to deny what we are seeking.
When I was a student, if you accidentally wrote a triad in a piece of yours, it was just sort of like you were breaking the law! You just couldn't do it. And that just meant you were a bad composer.
Once you free your mind about the concept of harmony and of music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do.
It was important for me to remind people that there's no formula... there's no boundary to R&B music.
[Scottish songs] are, I own, frequently wild, & unreduceable to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.
The radio has so many rules, and songs don't. You don't necessarily write to a rule book unless you're, like, just doing it professionally, which has never been my thing.
If you think of music as a language, the space part is where you throw out all the syntax.
I didn't follow the standard rules of bass playing, and many musicians on many different instruments who became noteworthy for their unique or particular style did a very similar thing.
There's just a lot of people that hold on to what country means to them. I love fiddle, I love steel, but I don't think it should be a rule that it has to be used in every song. I think that's not what defines or makes country music.
As a DJ, people expect a certain sound and a certain danceability for the music. As a producer, I really like to let go of any rules that may exist.
I'm an untrained musician. Untrained musicians don't really have any music theory, they don't have a lot of rules. We break the rules, but it's mostly because we don't know what the rules are. It's easy for us to go to certain places, so I'm not surprised that a lot of people were amused by my songwriting style.
For musical compositions to reach a high level and to derive from spontaneity, of course, one has to do the necessary steps to learn the rules and regulations of composing high quality music.
There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it.
You're brainwashed in the West with equal temperament, so it's quite hard for people who like following rules to get outside of that and see what you can do. But for me it's easy because I don't work like that. I work intuitively.
Teddy Wilson, I think, said a little while ago that it's much easier to come in and play whatever comes into your mind, without obeying any of the laws of bass line and harmony and so on.
I enjoy having some boundaries to work within. That's why I generally don't like alternate tunings and stuff like that. I like the boundaries of regular tunings.
