English Composer Quotations

I don't know whether I like it, but it is what I meant.

No, it's a Bb. It looks wrong and it sounds wrong, but it's right.

These two are not two Love has made them one Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery Each is no less but more.

We went through this business of me writing out all the parts for these old songs from Gravity and Speechless and we'd been performing that, but we don't do that any more.

The music we made then was so amateurish, compared to the rest of mainstream pop or rock and roll. But what differentiated us from what everybody else was doing in the business was the fact that you could tell that these people came from different reference areas.

Chris Cutler was kind enough to offer his company as an umbrella, so now I can have all my back catalogue under one roof as it were, and it has the same feeling as with Daniel; this is a matter between friends rather than businessmen.

Movie music is noise... even more painful than my sciatica.

These were all middle-class kids from literary backgrounds, joining this sort of train going by, this pop train, jumping on. Whereas the rest of the rock scene, you'll find that there's mostly working-class people.

A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.

Some things don't wind up sounding like you'd expect, which is just as well.

We had literary references, so we knew what we were talking about. We could quote things, talk about books we'd read; you can say something, you don't have to explain it.

And so many of the kinds of labels you get stuck with don't really tell the story; Progressive, Art Rock, Noise Music, Downtown - it ends up being a struggle to stay out of debates that other people are having around you.

The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio.

Not necessarily in one concert, but they're all there to be used if you want to use them.

I've heard though that there is a younger generation of tonal French composers who are reacting with vigour.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed doing was taking raw sound from locations during the film, like the candy machine, and writing pieces of music to go with them, which is totally unnecessary within the context of the film, because they have their own logic.

We played some gigs in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I really felt the group was really a band in the sense of something I could write for.

This is something special. You can attempt to have a kind of non-living music.

Thrilled to be honoured by the ISM and to be joining such an eminent list of members who have received the Distinguished Musician Award.

The plan was that I was going to retire and take a job with the American Federation, but Nottingham Forest offered me a contract and there was interest from West Ham and another Premiership club.

Philips did stipulate that Julian and I had to iron out our relationship. I had to could come up with something we would both be happy with.

I would also like the soloist to feel happy to put it in front of the public, because in the end he's on the firing line, not me.

I did that as a personal journey when I was a philosophy student and working as a jazz musician, so I moved from philosphy to music.

I have always maintained a high level of fitness, and that is why I am still able to handle the demands of playing in the Premiership. People have always commented on my fitness, and it's something I pride myself on.

We train in the mornings, and then I go home and rest or sleep, and usually I go for a meal with Abel of a night, as we're the two with no family here, so we tend to hang around together.

I think the hardest to replace has been Johnny Collins. He was great to play with. You could always rely on him to be available for a short pass, allowing you time to clear a ball. He would never give the ball away.

I was a bit worried coming back to the Premiership from America, but I have been pleased with my form, and the interest I have received has been good for my ego. I have no worries about my fitness, and I am really looking forward to the season starting now.

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.

My thinking in this was as follows: in all the versions I had made everything that is played serves to accompany and support the old man's voice.

My Mother is Swedish and my Father is Scottish, he played for Charlton in the 1960's and was in the Army, he captained the British forces team. We then moved to S.A. because a lot of players did that at the time.

The contract I signed was just for a year, with an option for another year. If the club don't want me, or if I don't want to carry on, that's it.

When I was a young player, I would look at players and think, he does this well, and try and pick up good points from them, or he conducts himself well, I'll pick up on that.

Film scores are often based on short themes, and it helps if you've got some way of developing these themes and making them sometimes last 4 minutes and sometimes last 40 seconds. One ends up doing it subconsciously.

There is a lot of things to weigh up when a transfer happens, and money is a big factor.

The transition from one form of percussion to another and the ways in which it's possible to blur those distinctions is quite interesting.

I've applied to the humor commission for a license to have humor in the book. I haven't been given permission so far. I'm awaiting their verdict.

A friend of mine asked me to open a sports bar in London, and the media were there. This fella started interviewing me, thinking I was Sean Bean.

As much as mixing instruments, I'm also mixing acoustic space so the music will travel through some different sorts of environments.

It struck me as not very interesting just to take what was exactly in the film and stick it on a C.D. and put it out as a soundtrack.

I've got an opinion on everything, so I should go into management.

The USA have recently done well in the Olympics and the Youth World Cup. So I think there will be some good young players available in the future, and not too expensive which is important to the club.

The restaurant is like a theatre: we do two shows a day and when you are doing Shakespeare you don't want to throw in something out of Walt Disney.

The fans know their football, you can't kid them.

I'm usually pretty careful about that kind of thing, but sometimes the music just pushes me into a direction that I can't really avoid following.

I had 10 years at Rangers and I think I'm a loyal person. I don't think I would go to another premiership club other than Everton.

I prefer to see a rough cut of the film rather than read a script. I find it difficult to get the feeling of the atmosphere of a film from a script.

I played as a 17-year-old with Walter Smith, who must have been about 32. So I've known Walter for 21 years.

I can cope with a smack in the face, or at least I should be able to after the number I have had. This one was just run-of-the-mill for me.

The ideal, of course, is to have the respect of professionals and the admiration of amateurs. I suppose this was the case in the past.

The greatest thing you can have when you compose a film score is a bit of time to think before you have to charge straight in and do it.

All the time signatures we used on Gravity were taken from folk music cultures, where those kinds of time signatures are quite normal.