Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

The melody is generally what the piece is all about.

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

You may feel depressed, but it can't be so depressing that you can't move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!

You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.