I feel today, with all the possibilities we have in our hands, all the new technology at our disposal, everything is becoming obvious. Nothing is surprising. You can see beautiful things on Instagram, but there is something that doesn't touch you deeply. Everything is normal, while there's nothing that grabs you and turns you upside down.
Ludovico Einaudi
You don't have to compose a masterpiece every time, but I think the challenge of art is always searching for something different, searching for a new sensitivity, a new perspective, a new vision.
There should be no boundaries in your relationship with sound. Often it's not about the music itself but the context in which you hear the music. For instance, listening to a piece of classical music in a film you love often changes your perception of it entirely.
The spirituality of the music is something that I always search for in what I do, because I think that music has to have everything inside: a strong architecture, a support, the emotion.
You can learn and enrich yourself through the process of knowing a different musical culture.
You can put the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the same category, but the types of music, the colors each band evokes, are completely different. It's the same with Mozart and Beethoven - they express two very different aspects of music.
Music is an intrinsic part of life; therefore, it is important to transport different forms of artistic expression, science, and mathematics into compositions.
A great melodic line is like a person's soul, and coming up with an original melody, it can be like you are illustrating the soul.
I like to keep changing because discovery is always interesting.
In rock music, you have a big success before you turn 30, then there is sort of a decay. Then there is the reunion, and everyone is waiting to hear what you were doing when you were 20, and nobody cares what you are doing at 50 or 60. But the more I continue, the more I produce, the more I play every year in bigger places.
People always talk about the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, but I like his melodies. They are very defined and original.
Now anybody can make music at home, and you can hear music on any computer without having to buy it. Everything is apparently better with all the machines we have now, but at the same time, the quality of life is not improving.
In a soundtrack, you are in a way always relating with... a combination of different languages. It has to have the same path and same rhythm. Sometimes it's a polyphony of languages that have to work together in some way. With musical projects alone, you can be more free.
Doing the Five Tibetan Rites exercises every day - it makes me feel at home wherever I am.
Every time I start a new work, I try to be different and to start with a new perspective, so I search for a new idea, something which gives me a new way to access my creativity.
I never say no or yes. I just listen to how I feel and follow my emotions.
I wanted to be a rocker and photographer and tour the world!
It is a boring life if you stick to all the rules.
Arriving at a simple piece of music is a very difficult balance because, in being simple, you could easily be banal, so maybe it's more difficult to write a simple piece of music than a 12-tone piece where no one understands exactly what it is about.
I have always loved composers who have been connected with folk traditions of popular music.
'Uptown Funk' has all the ingredients of the funk that I love.
I think it's normal that for a part of your life you have a lot of questions, and you're interested in all possible theories.
The Beatles, 'Revolver.' It's pop. It's classic. It's experimental. It's revolutionary.
I went to Mali for the first time in 2000, and I met Toumani Diabate and Ballake Sissoko - two of the greatest kora players of our time.
The great art of the past became great because it started to go out of the perimeters that defined art and defined new territories.
The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.
With every musical project, I ended up feeling more enriched by the experience.
I feel a vocabulary in my music that is coming from popular music. Popular music is like the mother of all languages.
I express myself using my classical skills to write more complex forms of popular music.
My mother played piano at home; she came from a musical family. Her father, who I never met, was a conductor and composer.
In Mali, you hear music everywhere. What is fantastic in Mali is the music tradition is handed down from father to son orally. It is not written. You learn from your father and add something, because you are living now and telling a story to others. This results in many different interpretations of the same song.
My music comes from my personal background.
On every new project, I try to write in a different way and see if there's a new side of myself I haven't explored.
In '68 I was 13 years old, so I was a child, but I felt a lot of excitement in listening to things, looking at the pop art coming over from America. My father was an art collector, and he was coming home with these strange pieces of art that weren't exposed in museums. At the time, it was quite revolutionary, very adventurous.
I am very happy to be able to cross borders to go to China, to Mexico, to America, everywhere, and there is an instant understanding of what I do. This is incredibly beautiful because you've suddenly communicated with everyone without speaking the same language. The language of music is able to go anywhere.
The London Olympic Opening Ceremony was excellent. The mixture of old and new, of classic and contemporary was a beautiful reflection of Great Britain. Danny Boyle is a genius.
After years of doing composition, the risk is always that you might start to repeat and be cliche. Every time, I try find a way to be reborn again as an artist. Its not easy to reinvent yourself every time, as it takes a lot of creative energy, but I am happy to do it.
All my life, my heart has felt closer to rock n' roll.
I don't crave acceptance in the classical world.
I was completely anxious when I was young.
I don't like the idea of 'classical crossover,' even if sometimes I see this category given to what I'm doing.
I prefer to play in smaller venues because I like the intimacy, the connection with the audience.
I think what really stays with me is the idea that you can write music about the texture of a wall, and everything is in some way connected.
I couldn't find a way to write music with numbers and rules and schedules. So I tried to forget the academic idea of music and started to see if it was possible to do creative work, taking in all the influences I wanted to keep.
I grew up partially with classical music but listened to a lot of rock when I was young - I like acoustic, and folk from Mali and Armenia and Turkey.
I love to go to the bar close by for a good espresso and have a chat with the bartender.
Sometimes you cannot produce a specific sound you want with, say, a guitar or piano, and you simply need to use electronic elements.
I love to explore melody.
I was a teenager, and I started to go to high school, and it was a disaster!
It's very interesting to see how the music is used, as sometimes you have composed something with a very different intention, and then suddenly you see it connected to something different. For example, it was incredibly strong and beautiful the first time I saw 'This Is England' by Shane Meadows.
