Film music, over the years, has taken from everybody.
Henry Mancini
Music has been taken over in this country by personalities and dominated by rock 'n' roll. There's been a synthesizer invasion and it's not going to go away.
Well, I thought the opening of 'Hatari!' was pretty good. And 'The Pink Panther' wasn't half bad either.
My father started me out on the flute and I began going to teachers.
I had no idea 'Moon River' would do so well. I was too busy working to think about it.
You know, directors are funny people. They live with these movies for a year or more. And when you go in to score the picture, you're fooling with their child. They want to know everything that happens to the score - and why.
My kids will come to me and ask me to listen to a 'new sound' they think they've discovered. One time it was the Beatles' 'Yesterday,' and the new sound was four strings. All of a sudden the new generation discovers the string quartet!
If a film is not doing well, a record company will not take a chance with the score.
I just write when the bell rings. I don't have time to wait for inspiration.
I find I work best as a reactor, trying to portray something on a screen musically. If I were a boxer, I'd be a counter-puncher.
I just think the time and where I was brought up had a great deal to do in giving me the ambition to kind of get out and do something and not go into the steel mill.
I score everything by hand on manuscript paper and then make copies.
The great thing about a record is it frees your imagination; it gives your eyes a rest and lets your mind wander. There's the special thing that each record can mean a different thing to every person listening to it.
I've done entire scores for I don't know how many films and series. I never kept track; I suppose it's up in the hundreds.
My wife and I never squabbled in front of the children. We never touched each other except in love.
I compose the music according to the nature of the show. 'Peter Gunn's' focus was violence so that was my key.
Success is not usually easy or fast.
In times of stress, I frequently remind myself that I'm doing what I want to do most and that's what really counts.
Writing for TV or films isn't great art. You have to have a common denominator. It's up to the composer to make that common denominator memorable.
Themes on some TV shows are overdone. That 'Playhouse 90' theme music was an example.
You know, my career hasn't exactly been the sort of thing that usually happens to film composers, but I sure am glad it happened to me.
I read magazines and reviews. If consensus says something is good, I'll get it and see what's going on.
Writing music is very, very clinical. You just sit down at a piano, map out a theme and when all the technicalities come together, out pours the music.
When I play 'Newhart' in concert, it always gets a hand, right from the very beginning. To me, 'Newhart' is a hit.
Music forced into the air you breathe is an invasion of privacy!
If you call making people smile with 'The Pink Panther,' then I made a contribution.
Most everything I've ever written has .been done to 'assignment.'
Quite a few of The Rolling Stones records have had a great honesty about them. In fact, I would put them side-by-side with a 'Treasury of Folk Music' collection, containing all the prison songs, the farm and road-gang songs that were recorded on the spot in the Deep South.
Stravinsky influenced film music in general - those stabbing chords and rhythms from 'The Rite of Spring.'
You've got to be an editor in order to be a good composer.
I wanted to be up there with all those names like Max Steiner.
I was never In a restaurant until after I left home. My mother came from Abruzzi and they're noted for their great cooking.
Basically, I'm a melodic writer.
It takes different mindsets to do different things.
Sometimes memorable music doesn't necessarily have to be a hit.
People love to hear a guy who is really good on his instrument. They love to watch him go.
You're molded by the period you were brought up in.
It's very difficult to be funny musically. I think I achieved It with 'The Pink Panther.'
I used to raise the devil when my father made me practice the flute and my mother made me take piano lessons.
I have an Otari with a Korg T2 Midi synthesizer, a drum machine and a few effects units.
Cancer... changed my whole work attitude.
The man who writes for hire has an obligation, if only to himself, to keep an open mind and to absorb new ideas.
I've always been a dreamer.
I used to be selected for the Pennsylvania all-state orchestra. It was a thrill to go from my home town of Aliquippa clear across the state to Lancaster for the concerts. No kid is immune to that kind of experience.
Hopefully the music of the future will not be all electronic. There is a place for it if it is used sparingly.
Blake Edwards has set up an extraordinary combination of moods in 'Peter Gunn.' When you stop to analyze it, you can't find the boundaries where the music stops and the show takes over.
Getting out and being able to present a concert is invigorating.
I don't want to get corny, but my career really has been the personification of the American dream.
The basic problem with young people entering show business is that they are in a hurry.
You know, I started in movies a long time ago, and once in awhile I'm taken aback. Sometimes one of my things will come on - they use my things as background music all the time, in somebody else's arrangements and It catches my ear.
