Paul Lansky Quotes

• I didn't want my music to be seen as examples of an electronic culture; I just wanted them to be thought of as pieces of music.

  Paul Lansky

  Pieces, Want, Example

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• With a piece of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, on first listening I'm referencing it with other pieces by them that I know. I think that most people do this - they listen to pieces through the filter of pieces they already know.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, People, Listening

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I noticed things in my computer music that were getting old, and I started to figure out that this has to do with the way the listener interacts with music.

  Paul Lansky

  Way, Computer, Figures

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I think you'll find a significant number of people who decide not to enter competitions because their music just won't fit in that world.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Numbers, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I've had a lot of fun writing percussion music. It feels quite similar to writing computer music. But I found myself in the role of choreographer in a way, worrying about physical movement and such.

  Paul Lansky

  Fun, Writing, Worry

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• I had been creating music on tape that was to be listened to as a recording, rather than through performance.

  Paul Lansky

  Creating, Tape, Performances

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• The experimentation that I do has a lot to do with tunes and pitches and ways that melodies are put together.

  Paul Lansky

  Together, Tunes, Way

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• With repeated listenings, a piece eventually becomes its own being. I very often say to students that this is like meeting a person for the first time. When you first meet someone, you reference that person with others who are similar; but, as you get to know that person better, you begin to understand his unique qualities.

  Paul Lansky

  Unique, Listening, Quality

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I was very fortunate to be at a wealthy institution. I do recognize the drawbacks and limitations of the academic world but it's basically the world I grew up in and there's no way in which I would have been able to survive in the so-called real world.

  Paul Lansky

  Real, World, Able

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• If the music has a logic of its own - as I think my music has - an open-minded listener will apprehend and understand.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Logic, Open Minded

  Source: therumpus.net

  6 Copy quote

• I can't say that there's a common practice that has to do with pitch language or with the way pieces are put together because today, anything is fair game. As far as I'm concerned, my own common practice is a piece that engages the attention of listeners from beginning to end, and doesn't rely on or expect the listener to zone out.

  Paul Lansky

  Practice, Games, Together

  Source: therumpus.net

  6 Copy quote

• My perspective on the academic world is very favorable. I did certain kinds of things that I could never have done otherwise.

  Paul Lansky

  Perspective, Done, World

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• When you have performers, there's the uniqueness of live performance and what performers do in concerts.

  Paul Lansky

  Concerts, Performers, Performances

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I wrote a lot of software to do various kinds of special things, and I loved the idea of composing pieces in an electronic studio.

  Paul Lansky

  Ideas, Special, Pieces

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I was hired for a really excellent academic job early in my life; I was twenty-five when I started at Princeton and I got tenure early on. I really didn't deserve this; I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

  Paul Lansky

  Jobs, Twenties, Academic

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I came to what I think of as the critical problem: the aging process of a piece of music. I noticed in the '70s that pieces I wrote would sound great the first time I listened to them and then on repeated hearings they sounded older and older until what seemed exciting and vibrant on first listening became stale.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Listening, Pieces

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I never thought that I would write orchestra music, but in fact I did write a group of orchestra pieces.

  Paul Lansky

  Writing, Pieces, Orchestra

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I found myself recycling ideas and I saw that I had to invent reasons to compose a piece rather than start from some exciting idea.

  Paul Lansky

  Ideas, Pieces, Saws

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I think of myself as experimenting with different ways of structuring pieces. A lot of it has to do with the computer, of course.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Different, Pieces

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Even today, I notice that some of my pieces are explicitly tonal; there are actually tonics and dominants. And then there are pieces that are not tonal. I tend to think that there's a dichotomy that has to do with the way pitches are structured.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Today, Way

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes I imagine that there's a binary division going on in contemporary practice that has to do with chromatic versus diatonic. I notice that I tend to listen in a diatonic sense, that I register a pitch as a member of a diatonic scale, even in a non-tonal context.

  Paul Lansky

  Practice, Division, Sometimes

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• There are, however, composers whose music can only be heard in a chromatic sense. George Perle, for example, wrote pieces that you might think of as leaning in a tonal direction but it's very hard to register a pitch as, say, the sixth degree of a scale, whereas in much of my music I think that's often relatively easy to do.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Example, Pieces

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• It's very interesting for me to listen to music with my wife. She's not a musician but she very often makes comments about pieces in ways that are similar to what I'm thinking.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking, Interesting, Wife

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Very often, when you're listening to a piece for the first time, you're listening through a model of other pieces that you know. At a certain point, a piece becomes idiosyncratic and you start to understand it on its own terms.

  Paul Lansky

  Listening, Pieces, Firsts

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think of my music as being about something.

  Paul Lansky

  Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

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