Glenn Branca Quotes

• I really feel instrumental music can speak - can contain tremendous amounts of information - but it's speaking to your subconscious.

  Glenn Branca

  Information, Speak, Instrumental Music

  Source: pitchfork.com

  9 Copy quote

• Music is about imagination. It's about thought. It's about creating something from nothing.

  Glenn Branca

  Creating, Imagination, Creating Something

  Source: pitchfork.com

  7 Copy quote

• It can and will be a more powerful sound but the orchestra has far more potential for expressive power. When I hear a great rock band it can make me feel alive, but when I hear a great orchestra it can make me feel human.

  Glenn Branca

  Powerful, Rocks, Band

  8 Copy quote

• Occasionally I hear a band that blows me away. For instance, there's a musician in Oakland named Weasel Walter who has a band called the Flying Luttenbachers. Go see the Flying Luttenbachers when they're in your town. He's one of the greatest rock composers who ever lived, and he's struggling and living like a poverty-stricken hermit.

  Glenn Branca

  Struggle, Blow, Rocks

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  8 Copy quote

• One hundred guitarists making lots of noise would not be something you'd want to listen to.

  Glenn Branca

  Want, Noise, Hundred

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• I want the music to be ambiguous. Its tone gives you a context in which to start visualizing what you're feeling with the music.

  Glenn Branca

  Giving, Feelings, Want

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

• I could create music that sounded as strange as any electronic music, because you see, my opinion about electronic music is that the real composer is the guy who invented the instrument. Pressing buttons is not composing. Composing is about creating something.

  Glenn Branca

  Real, Creating, Guy

  Source: pitchfork.com

  9 Copy quote

• Whatever works for the piece I'm thinking about is the way I write.

  Glenn Branca

  Writing, Thinking, Pieces

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• I'm never happy with anything.

  Glenn Branca

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• It scares me that people are going to stop writing music. I don't mean music that has to be physically written down, but they'll stop using their brain which is without a doubt the most powerful tool that you could have in any art.

  Glenn Branca

  Art, Powerful, Writing

  Source: pitchfork.com

  8 Copy quote

• It's a mysterious thing that a whole generation of young people can come up and see and understand things that previous generations weren't able to see or understand.

  Glenn Branca

  Mysterious Things, People, Generations

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

• It's crucial that people are on the right measure at the right time.

  Glenn Branca

  People, Right Time, Crucial

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• I think of myself of a primitivist. I have never had any of these electronic instruments and I have never had the slightest interest in using them. I use the computer as a tool, simply because it makes composing a lot faster. But I don't go on stage with a computer and make a lot of goofy sounds.

  Glenn Branca

  Thinking, Sound, Tools

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• I like to read. I've become obsessed with fiction. And it's too bad: I'm a musician many people love and I myself am not part of the music scene.

  Glenn Branca

  People, Musician, Fiction

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm just not arbitrarily choosing to have five guitars play one type of thing. In that way there's a definite similarity between a symphony orchestra and the 100 guitar symphony.

  Glenn Branca

  Guitar, Play, Symphony

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• I liked rock music going back to the '60s, but I never ever had any desire to be a rock musician and when I started doing a band it was experimental music.

  Glenn Branca

  Rocks, Desire, Musician

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• There were a lot of people doing new and interesting things with rock. But I wanted to take it farther than that. My real influence was punk. I must have listened to the first Patti Smith album 300 times.

  Glenn Branca

  Real, Rocks, People

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• I'm constantly revising and updating a piece until it's finally recorded. Once it's recorded, then it's over.

  Glenn Branca

  Pieces, Revising

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

• I started out in theatre and I definitely have wanted to add extra musical elements to my music with both imagery and text.

  Glenn Branca

  Musical, Theatre, Add

  Interview with Simon Dasher, pitchfork.com. April 30, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Thurston Moore

Lydia Lunch

La Monte Young

John Zorn

Peter Greenaway

Steve Reich

Michael Gira

Ned Sublette