Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.
I love the music of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu and more recently the music of Laura Marling. All these women share a strength and a wisdom in their voices and music that really makes me want to make music and sing.
Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere.
In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice.
It is said that anyone who does commercial cinema is not acting, and anyone who does an art film is acting. I don't believe it. I feel whenever you are doing a film, you are acting. So you need to be applauded for that. I won't do art house cinemas. ...
Nowadays, a critic has to watch 700, 800 films a year, and I know through experience, being a juror in prestigious film festivals where supposedly the best films are arriving, from twenty films maybe you see two that are good, one that is so-so, and ...
I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would ho...
I like 'The Usual Suspects'. Great film. I also like 'Scarface', films like that. Lots of gangster films. I really like watching all kinds of films, dramas, romance. I'll watch comedies. I like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, Chris Rock...
I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you know, you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy. It's very hard to go down there and make a film like 'Sideways,' which I thought was a great film. They ...
I think as a filmmaker one should make all kinds of films. It is not that one should make only one kind of film. I love to see romantic films; I loved watching 'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge,' 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.' If I make such films, I will make it...
I didn't start out thinking that I could ever make films. I started out being a film lover, loving films, and wanting to have a job that put me close to them and close to filmmakers and close to film sets.
Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place - folk music, rock n' roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My broth...
Musicians do not have to be believed in. We do not have to be trusted. Our Music speaks for itself without the listener having to know anything about us. Music touches people's emotions in a way that nothing else can. When people find a musician they...
I would often sit in the corner of the room wearing Dad's massive headphones, carefully replaying the records time after time. It was something I did frequently throughout my childhood with music, comedy and film, inspiring my own creative imaginatio...
The best literature is always a take [in the musical sense]; there is an implicit risk in its execution, a margin of danger that is the pleasure of the flight, of the love, carrying with it a tangible loss but also a total engagement that, on another...
Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams... Motivation? The memory of the rush I get from a really good writin...
A stage adaptation of The Giver has been performed in cities and towns across the USA for years. More recently an opera has been composed and performed. And soon there will be a film. Does The Giver have the same effect when it is presented in a diff...
A while back, when Dick & Barry & I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you *are* like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for potential partners, a 2 or 3 page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/T...
Great music is great music. It doesn't matter what genre it belongs.
To me the bottom line is: good music is good music.
