There is a sort of convergence starting to happen between the computer and musical instruments, but it’s still quite a long way off.
Whenever you listen to a piece of music, what you are actually doing is hearing the latest sentence in a very long story you’ve been listening to – all the pieces of music you’ve ever heard.
I’d love it if American kids were listening to Muslim music.
In art, you CAN crash your plane and walk away from it.
The problem with improvisation is, of course, that everyone just slips into their comfort zone and does sort of the easy thing to do, the most obvious thing to do with your instrument.
I’ve had quite a lot of luck with dreams. I’ve often awoken in the night with a phrase or even a whole song in my head.
American television really is pathetic.
The point about working is not to produce great stuff all the time, but to remain ready for when you can.
The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.
Composition is a way of living out your philosophy and calling it art.
My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to. I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist.
I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness, and a better sense of humor.
Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.
I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.
I describe things in terms of body movements. I dance a bit to describe what sort of movement it ought to make, and that’s a good way of talking to musicians. Particularly bass players.
When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.
When I’ve finally got the title, I think, “Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.”
Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you’re listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music.
The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.
Sometimes something intrigues me about particular sounds, how they work together, and I think “Okay, I’ve found something here; I’m going to take it somewhere.” And sometimes just to find a name for that sound, whatever it is, ends up becoming a title of the piece or becoming part of the title.