Bryars Quotes & Sayings

I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels' understanding of digital technology. — Gavin Bryars

Similarly you can make a transition from one set of instruments to another imperceptibly. — Gavin Bryars

So many songs are just a wink to the audience, but people take them seriously. 'My Humps?' C'mon! — Fergie

I have got two reasons for success and I'm standing on both of them. — Betty Grable

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. — Gavin Bryars

The Palestinians need more help from the Arab countries. Since 1967, the world has learned that there is not going to be real progress in the region until Palestine gets something back that they had. — Bruce Dern

I work very fast, keeping the ideas flowing but making sure they come out the way I intended. — Gavin Bryars

Over the years I have tried to develop something which is technically assured. — Gavin Bryars

The virtuoso element in jazz playing, all those very fast runs in the upper extremes, simply doesn't appeal to me. That's why I don't want to make my concerto "virtuosic" in the sense of a technical show-off. I want a beautiful sound and a melodic and lyrical line. I am more interested in the way someone can play musically. — Gavin Bryars

They're only memories, Sam. They might comfort us on days of self-loathing, but that's all. We have to consciously move forward. — Brandon R. Chinn

I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder. — Gavin Bryars

Hanging softly over the black Singer sewing machine, it looked like magic, and when people saw me wearing it they were going to run up to me and say, "Marguerite, forgive us, please, we didn't know who you were," and I would answer generously, "No, you couldn't have known. Of course I forgive you. — Maya Angelou

It makes sense to invest in new work. It's almost like having a research department in a scientific laboratory. You have to try things out. You'll make some bad mistakes. Some things will fail but at least you'll energise the organisation. — Gavin Bryars

As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien. — Gavin Bryars

I am writing something which I find satisfying and which I am prepared to put my name to as a composer. — Gavin Bryars

The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He is one of the few composers who can put slapstick and primal emotion alongside each other. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle. With a third ear maybe. — Michael Ondaatje

Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one. — Gavin Bryars

People are seeing me as the guy who wants to get hurt, who wants to break a bone, get bruises. And that's how it was growing up with six brothers. I got beat up, and I beat up people. — Kellan Lutz

One thing I'm doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces. — Gavin Bryars

When Philip Glass asked me if I would be interested in doing a new recording of Jesus' Blood he assumed that I would do something similar to the first version and wanted to know what other pieces would be on the same CD. — Gavin Bryars

Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit. — Samuel Johnson

I grew up in an affluent suburban world and never worried about money until I'd grown up and found wonderfully original ways to screw up my life. — K.A. Applegate

Life is full of stories. Some are true, some aren't, but all of them are real. — D.H. Sayers

What was once underground is now coming to the surface. — Gavin Bryars

The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all. — Gavin Bryars

People like Arvo Part would not have been taken seriously 20 years ago. — Gavin Bryars

It's rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That's one way of making music. — Gavin Bryars

Like an apparently strict musical form it breaks the five minute whole into its structural parts - a descriptive preamble, the action of taking the cards, the development of the cards' manipulation and the revelation of what has been achieved. — Gavin Bryars

How am I coping? I miss George and the goddamn world is still full of zombies, that's how. Everything else ...
Everything else is just details. And those don't really matter to me anymore. — Mira Grant

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

There's another way of making music, by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people. — Gavin Bryars

Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century. — Gavin Bryars

Craft is part of the creative process. — Gavin Bryars

I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece. — Gavin Bryars

Music history has flowed under the bridges for many years. — Gavin Bryars

Still, American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time. — Gavin Bryars

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles. — Gavin Bryars

When we were working on 'Taxi to the Dark Side,' we would purposefully not show it to certain people in the cutting room, because we would include a lot of horrible material and would need a fresh pespective. They would look at us and say, 'Are you out of your minds? You can't include that!' — Alex Gibney