Latest Jonny Greenwood Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I'm always happiest trying new instruments - and honestly enjoy playing, say, the glockenspiel with Radiohead as much as I do the guitar. I think regular touring has forced me to play the guitar more than anything else, which is why I'm probably most confident playing that. And whist I'd be lost if I couldn't play it too, I dislike the totemic worship of the thing... magazines, collectors, and so on. I enjoy struggling with instruments I can't really play.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Struggle, Thinking, Trying

  Source: thequietus.com

• I think I'll always feel a little in awe whenever I see someone in their 20s or 30s carrying a cello or violin case - because I know, if they're doing it professionally, how many years of practice have gone into being able to make music with them. And the sounds they can make just hit me very hard, and feel full of limitless complexity.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Thinking, Limitless, Complexity

  Source: thequietus.com

• I trust microphones, speakers and recordings less and less, and no longer buy into the idea that I can recreate at home, or in my earphones, the experience of hearing live acoustic instruments. The orchestra is already a set of speakers that react differently to each player, each room and each concert - it's that high level of uncertainly and unrepeatability that I like. The music is just soaked into the walls of a room straight from the instruments - and it's a one-off deal. The alternative - left speaker, right speaker - is kind of a compromise.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Wall, Home, Player

  Source: thequietus.com

• Composers are influenced by all the important music in their lives - and I suppose that since radio started playing popular music, that's as likely to be The Beatles or Aphex Twin as it is to be Verdi or Ravel. They'd be strange teenagers if they didn't. But cross-pollinating happens too - Aphex Twin did more interesting things with electronic music than most trained composers, who seemed to approach samplers with undue caution and reverence in those early days.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Teenager, Interesting, Important

  Source: thequietus.com

• I sometimes wish taste wasn't ever an issue, and the sounds of instruments or synths could be judged solely on their colour and timbre. Judged by what it did to your ears, rather than what its historical use reminds you of.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Issues, Historical, Wish

  "Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Shye Ben Tzur Talk Junun Project". Interview with Jazz Monroe, pitchfork.com. December 3, 2015.

• As I kid, I was always jealous of the music that my favorite bands had written - but not really of how they played. So I'd daydream about having written songs, and this way above being able to perform them.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Song, Jealous, Kids

  "Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Shye Ben Tzur Talk Junun Project". Interview with Jazz Monroe, pitchfork.com. December 3, 2015.

• The strangest part of Indian music is its lack of chords: There's no such thing as major or minor, and it's unusual to hear more than two different pitches at the same time.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Two, Different, Unusual

  "Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Shye Ben Tzur Talk Junun Project". Interview with Jazz Monroe, pitchfork.com. December 3, 2015.

• Maybe I'm used to religious music being gentler in the classical world.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Religious, World, Used

  "Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Shye Ben Tzur Talk Junun Project". Interview with Jazz Monroe, pitchfork.com. December 3, 2015.

• Rock music is quite big in India - but it mostly just replaces all the intricacies of Indian rhythms and Indian melody with lumpen rock drumming and power chords.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Rocks, India, Drumming

  "Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Shye Ben Tzur Talk Junun Project". Interview with Jazz Monroe, pitchfork.com. December 3, 2015.

• As soon as you impose Western chords on an Indian scale, something great collapses.

  Jonny Greenwood

  Chords, Scales, Collapse

  "Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Shye Ben Tzur Talk Junun Project". Interview with Jazz Monroe, pitchfork.com. December 3, 2015.