Latest A. R. Rahman Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• My first experience of that was with my first movie which I did in India. And it was so different from other people. I find that "Oh my God." Every time the music is slow I feel that people are going to get up and go out. You get this nervousness. But, to my surprise, people starting singing the song even before it came in. They started singing along a week later, after release, which was very cool.

  A. R. Rahman

  Song, People, Singing

  Source: collider.com

• I've never watched Trainspotting. I just know it's a very critically acclaimed film. In fact, I've never watched any of Danny's movies [means before he met him]. I just worked with him and felt the energy of what he is about initially before I do something. In a way, I think that's why we have discovered each other rather than replicate something else.

  A. R. Rahman

  Mean, Thinking, Trainspotting

  Source: collider.com

• I think I would like to discover a new root where people don't get bored with people singing boring lines but something exciting. That'd be interesting.

  A. R. Rahman

  Thinking, Roots, Bored

  Source: collider.com

• My list would be Russia, Morocco, Turkey, and South Africa I'm doing which is somewhere I've wanted to go, Australia, Japan maybe, and China, if I have the energy to go and play at all those places.

  A. R. Rahman

  Play, Australia, Russia

  Source: collider.com

• I grew up on Bach and Beethoven and now I'm listening to more modern composers who I can't even name. But since I'm constantly doing music, it's difficult to have that quality time to listen to music and do classical stuff. That's the only reason I'm thinking of going on.

  A. R. Rahman

  Thinking, Names, Listening

  Source: collider.com

• I've been doing music for many years and after a point what is the motivation that drives you to compose and to do stuff? I did this song for the U.N., a fighting for poverty anthem. That's when I realized that I could do a foundation. And when I started the foundation, it was basically to fight poverty and to help - that kind of stuff.

  A. R. Rahman

  Song, Motivation, Fighting

  Source: collider.com

• The best way would be education and kids and all that stuff and then education and working education comes through. Then I started a music school and the music school now teaches kids to play the violin and the viola.

  A. R. Rahman

  School, Kids, Play

  Source: collider.com

• What is good is what it's going to lead to, like the song "Jai Ho." If good numbers are going to come in the future, it bodes well for a lot of things. But then, who's going to maintain that. That's the question. So far they could never lead to an Indian song, like a normal film song in this that they can relate to.

  A. R. Rahman

  Song, Numbers, Normal

  Source: collider.com

• Because when you work with a different team, the expectations are different and then you deliver in a very different way. You look back at it and you're proud of yourself. And when the same people come in and you do the same thing, it's boring. You could re-envision it again and again but when the new chemistry of ideas comes in, something happens as a team.

  A. R. Rahman

  Team, Ideas, People

  Source: collider.com

• I listen to everything. As I told you, sometimes I just want to shut off from music and be silent. Then I play a song and it's refreshing. It's almost like initializing yourself. Recently I was in South Africa doing a press day for my tour. I listened to this band called "Freshly Ground." They were doing a live gig there so that's the last thing I've heard.

  A. R. Rahman

  Song, Play, Band

  Source: collider.com

• I didn't see it coming at all. I just wanted to have this new experience with this team of Danny Boyle, Christian (Colson) and Simon (Beaufoy). It was like an excursion for me from my normal routine and the Indian movies I do and that helped.

  A. R. Rahman

  Christian, Team, New Experiences

  Source: collider.com

• I don't even know where mine [Oscar award] is. My mother has hidden it because everybody who comes in wants to take a photograph of it. So what she's done is she put it inside a suitcase somewhere.

  A. R. Rahman

  Mother, Awards, Done

  Source: collider.com

• I played a couple of ideas and then had this unusual texture underneath which was like this little granulated kind of pipe organ almost like a scratchy record which he started [inaudible] brilliantly. "Oh I love that song." And when things go fine, it's good. So he started loving that song and that song was used quite a lot in the movie which is very granulated stuff on the guitar.

  A. R. Rahman

  Song, Couple, Guitar

  Source: collider.com

• It had a language. It's a very emotional language that only exists in India, that part of [inaudible] so we wanted to use that. I had two versions - one with my voice and one with the girl's voice. But he preferred the girl's voice and he preferred my voice with an [inaudible].

  A. R. Rahman

  Girl, Emotional, Two

  Source: collider.com

• There were basically three themes. One was the sun theme which is the guitar when he'd get sun on his leg and it comes again in the end. And there's of course the lullaby which Dido sang, "If I Rise." And then there's this driving guitar which is the motivation theme.

  A. R. Rahman

  Motivation, Guitar, Three

  Source: collider.com

• When I initially read the script, it goes inside and comes out different things even without commenting on any stuff. And then, those pieces are taken out and then spread out through the movie.

  A. R. Rahman

  Taken, Different, Pieces

  Source: collider.com

• It's a very simple process. He [Danny Boyl] comes in the tube (subway) and then he sits with me for 3 hours every evening and then I work on something. Then later, if he likes something, I put it even more perfectly. I tweak stuff. So this happened for 3 or 4 weeks and the music was done.

  A. R. Rahman

  Simple, Done, Stuff

  Source: collider.com

• I went to London to do the stuff. I was like "What am I going to do? What's going to happen?" But then once you start working, you forget all that and you start enjoying what you're doing. Once you enjoy the process, you know that people are going to do the same thing. If you don't enjoy it and just do it like a job, then it's going to be feel that way. That's my theory of doing a movie.

  A. R. Rahman

  Jobs, People, London

  Source: collider.com

• Sometimes I intentionally cut it off. I just want to be in silence, especially when I'm traveling. I watch movies without sound.

  A. R. Rahman

  Cutting, Silence, Sound

  Source: collider.com

• That's the sound design. I watched it sixty times because we were constantly tweaking. The same thing comes twice, right? Once it comes in the beginning when he's about to discover that he needs to come out and one is the dream where he's flattered (??) and then he comes out. The last one, instead of going bigger, we made it smaller. We removed elements and thinned it out. So it doesn't drive him. He drives the music rather than the other way around.

  A. R. Rahman

  Dream, Design, Sound

  Source: collider.com

• That's a sound design thing but then we wanted to do music that would not disturb it and at the same time drive it.

  A. R. Rahman

  Design, Sound, Sound Design

  Source: collider.com

• That was a very different emotion and I felt Dido's words would be good and I had a template with my voice in it. Then, when he heard it, he wanted both our voices together in it and that's the scene when he sees the boy and then he gets charged to go on that final cutting effort.

  A. R. Rahman

  Cutting, Boys, Voice

  Source: collider.com

• We didn't want to do that. It would have been a beautiful moment in the movie but it would have brought the movie down. So Danny's vision was perfect I think when he wanted it to be driven at the same time having this new emotion about this boy coming as a hallucination or like a déjà vu and as the future kid.

  A. R. Rahman

  Beautiful, Kids, Boys

  Source: collider.com

• How we approached this was I wanted this to be personal in a way. It's not a big, epic Hollywood score but really personal and intimate, and we thought guitar would be the perfect instrument for him because he's young and he has an undying spirit and all that stuff and we went on that feeling totally.

  A. R. Rahman

  Epic, Guitar, Perfect

  Source: collider.com

• Certain things are done intentionally opposite - like there's no sound at the end or synthesizers or all that stuff. Anything that drowns the movie, no. Anything that makes you sit up and watch it, yes. So, some are expecting a very sad theme going on.

  A. R. Rahman

  Opposites, Sound, Watches

  Source: collider.com