Page 173Joni Mitchell
[On altered tunings] You're twiddling and you find the tuning. Now the left hand has to learn where the chords are,
because it's a whole new ballpark, right? So you're groping around, looking for where the chords are, using very
simple shapes. Put it in a tuning and you've got four chords immediately: open, barre five, barre seven, and your
higher octave, like half fingering on the 12th. Then you've got to find where your minors are and where the
interesting colours are – that's the exciting part.
Jack Bruce (Cream)
I had this idea that you could have very heavy, wild, instrumental stuff but a lyrical, gentle vocal. Something like 'I
Feel Free' – very rhythmic backing, very smooth voices on top. It would've been easy to scream something, but then
it's one dimensional. (1993)
Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses)
It's immature to think you're smarter than the music. For me, the only time I can write is when I see really clearly –
and I'm so unselfconscious for that reason, I can hear what the songs are saying, and I let them say whatever they
want regardless of how much it has to do with my situation. Not that you should make things up – it should resonate
with you. You shouldn't pretend. (1995)
Toni Iommi (Black Sabbath)
I'd pick up the guitar, come up with a riff and go, "That sounds a bit evil." The words had to fit the mood. (1995)
Elvis Costello
Recently, I've started changing the keys. Steve [Naive] and I have been doing a version of 'Veronica' that brings back
the feeling that was somewhat submerged by the brightness of the pop arrangement, by shifting the key. The verse is
higher in register, in Eb, but then drops instead of ascending at the chorus, which closes the song into a more
emotional feeling. (1996)
Kate Bush
How I wrote at least the last two albums was to go into the studio and write ideas onto tape – dump stuff onto tape,
as it were, forget about it and then move onto the next area. But when I first started, I always used to write on the
piano, and just the last couple of months I've felt at home again writing on the piano. It's such a different process, I
find it quite shocking. It's like suddenly you've become the memory banks; instead of dumping it onto tape, it's
staying in you. And each time you play the song, it changes. The sense of transformation is very subtle; each time
you play it, something will change.
Richard Fairbrass (Right Said Fred)
We took a tea break, and the computer was playing this loop round and round, and right out of the blue – I can't tell
you where it came from – I started singing "I'm too sexy for my shirt" and we all fell about laughing.
John Barry (film score writer)
It's quite an art to write a good bridge, 'cause it lifts you into another area. It's got to be a variant on what you've
done before, but you have to come up with some surprise, so that when you get back to that last familiar strain it's
almost like falling into something.