Top 105 Composing Quotes

When topics are complex and meaty, don’t create a never-ending email thread. It’s amazing how much time people waste composing and reading carefully-worded essays, when a 5 minute in-person chat would resolve the whole thing.

Yes, sampling has changed not just my way of playing and composing.

I have come up with very creative ideas that really didn’t work with the song I was currently composing.

I had it calcified inside me that that was the ultimate state of composing. Being Brian Wilson. Being simultaneously a genius and sort of lost at sea – not really knowing what you’re doing but reaching for the stars.

I think I’ve done more recording in the past 10 years than most people, but it’s all been directed toward film composing and soundtracks. Just the same, it’s been great.

Composing is what drives me; it’s not the pursuit of fame. My songs are like pages in a diary.

I used to do most of my composing at a little table in a cafe. Composing for 52 instruments, I had to figure out how to accommodate myself to the small table.

There are so many factors that one needs to keep in mind while composing for a film. Every movie is different and demands a separate approach. Originality also plays an important role.

I began observing, making paintings of my surroundings, taking a vow of silence, listening, composing music, writing, and making time for formal education. Then I started telling stories.

As human beings, we are the only organisms that create for the sheer stupid pleasure of doing so. Whether it’s laying out a garden, composing a new tune on the piano, writing a bit of poetry, manipulating a digital photo, redecorating a room, or inventing a new chili recipe – we are happiest when we are creating.

Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things – like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale.

When I’m composing a scene for the first time, I try to imitate my character. The less critical distance the better – particularly when they’re acting badly.

Composing easy? I find it easy if – big if – the idea is right, if I have the right collaborator, and if my collaborator is in the room. I like my collaborator to be in the room.

If you see everything through the lens, you are constantly composing pictures. I think in pictures; I don’t think in text.

Since I started composing I have always worked with series of tempos, even superimposed the music of different groups of musicians, of singers, instrumentalists who play and sing in different tempos simultaneously and then meet every now and then in the same tempo.

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

When I was composing for ‘The Villain,’ I looked at it as a fan and came up with tunes accordingly.

I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can’t be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.

I’ve been composing and performing for as long as I can remember.

In a crazy way, writing is a lot like any kind of very complex game – like chess, where you have the knowledge as you’re composing all of the ramifications of each move, of each choice you make.

Composing demands a degree of isolation.

The most immediately gratifying thing about my work is conducting a large orchestra. But the long range payoff is composing because you’ve written something and it’s there forever.

All these years, I have never forgotten what my parents have given me, and that is why I take special pride in composing music based on ragas and used folk music in films like ‘Apne Paraye.’

While it is true that Frank had a great sense of humor, he was also very serious about composing music. In reality there are only a handful of skilled players who can play his most complex pieces. It takes a lot of patience to learn and requires a fantastic memory.

I love making music, I love composing on my computer, just making crazy ethnic slack orchestral tracks, that’s one of my fun things.

I suspect that authors who start their careers writing for an adult audience – and who eventually produce a young adult novel or two – are more common than authors who begin by writing for young adults and who then gravitate toward composing something for an adult audience.

I would like to do one of Ilaiyaraaja’s songs. After all, I did play drums for him and have watched him closely while composing, recording and performing. I would like to do an album of Mohammed Rafi’s Hindi songs, too.

Composing for movies is not an easy job – its a different art altogether, and moreover, I don’t want to get involved in too many things at one time and want to concentrate on my shows and albums.

While composing the music for ‘Romeo,’ I will be very versatile.

My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music.

While the concert is instant communication with the audience, composing is a creative process where a song comes up out of nowhere and then transmits happiness to many, translates into money, fame, or whatever.

Composing is sort of an intuitive act. You have to put yourself in the right frame of mind.

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.

When I am composing in a studio, I cannot gauge what the audience feels. Sometimes, good songs don’t get the recognition because the films fail. But when you are performing live, the reaction is immediate.

The most interesting aspect for me, composing exclusively with patterns, is that there is not one organizational procedure more advantageous than another, perhaps because no one pattern ever takes precedence over the others.

If I had a story idea that I felt would work best in three volumes I might write a trilogy eventually. I’d very likely write it all at once, though, so I could work on it as a whole and not broken into individual volumes. I don’t always write in order, so composing multi-book stories could get complicated.

Since I first fell in love with choral music when I was 18 and began composing at 21, I’ve been listening to these recordings of British choirs. I just fell in love with that sound – that pure, clean, pristine sound – and I think it’s probably been the biggest influence on my sound.

I focused primarily on being an instrumentalist and studying music and on my primary means of expression: composing and playing.

But synthesizer music has been accepted as emotional for long enough that it isn’t a huge reach, conceptually, to think of a fake voice as ’emotional’, especially since there’s a human composing it.

Being in the studio is okay but sitting in a room by yourself composing is a discipline that takes a certain type of mind set and Tommy has a great gift for that as did the previous guy.

With women composing nearly half the American workforce and increasingly serving as the primary breadwinner for families, we can’t afford to treat pregnant women differently than their counterparts, especially when slight job modifications could help them stay in the workforce at no risk to their health.

Composing gives me a chance to work in multiple dimensions and helps me pare down my melodies into what is essential. Learning new skills has always energized me and scoring has opened up a world of sonic possibilities.

I didn’t have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn’t ‘practice’ it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

Watching David write was inspiring to me. He was at his most content composing. Music floated from his mind and fingertips. He would strum the 11 strings on his 12-string Harptone guitar and wander to the piano and play a few bars, then off to forage for rice pudding in the kitchen.

I like composing music, but I love being with my family.

When I read something, I picture that scene in that detail. That becomes very similar to composing a photo in real life.

I don’t ascribe to the idea of the ivory tower composer who sits alone in a room composing his masterpieces and then comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets. It doesn’t work like that. The job of a composer is putting something down on a piece of paper that will inspire the person who’s playing.

I was writing notes, but not composing poems. The Hunter began to develop out of this fragmented process.

There will have to be times when I’m not conducting because I’m composing. I haven’t solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.

Composing music for ‘Mungaru Male 2’ is a big responsibility and challenge.

I’m trying to focus on my job. I don’t think that being famous is a job. My job is composing, singing, performing, but not being a star.