James Horner Quotes

#1. My tastes went all over the place, from Strauss to Mahler. I was never a big Wagner or Tchaikovsky fan. Benjamin Britten, Tallis, all the early English Medieval music, Prokofiev, some Russian composers, mostly the people that were the colorists, the French.

James Horner

#2. To me, writing and composing are much more like painting, about colors and brushes; I don't use a computer when I write, and I don't use a piano. I'm at a desk writing, and it's very broad strokes and notes as colors on a palette.

James Horner

#3. The music's job is to get the audience so involved that they forget how the movie turns out.

James Horner

#4. I tend to write it and then let go emotionally.

James Horner

#5. I think people hire me for the slightly weird angle that I bring. Part of the trick is keeping it sort of simple; you have to give the impression of not that much music playing when there's really a lot.

James Horner

#6. I'm sure that I was influenced by Goldsmith's large orchestral scores when I started out, and that was because the people who employed me wanted that kind of sound. I wasn't in a position to say, 'Go to Hell!'

James Horner

#7. I don't use a computer in writing at all. I'm sort of old-fashioned about it.

James Horner

#8. I am a musicologist, a doctor of music. Therefore I listened to, studied and analysed a lot of music. I also enjoy metaphors, the art of quoting and of cycles.

James Horner

#9. I think very abstractly when I'm writing. Then, as the project moves on, it becomes more like sculpting.

James Horner

#10. I'm a fanatic about Irish music. I love its moody, modal and timeless quality. I'm different from some other composers, because I don't look at this as just a job. I think of music as art.

James Horner

#11. I'm used to working with the director and producer, and that's my relationship. It's very simple.

James Horner

#12. The sound world that I created for 'Avatar' had to be very different, really, than anything I ever created before. There is also three hours of music.

James Horner

#13. You have to make an audience experience with the ears as well as their eyes.

James Horner