5 Paul Simon Quotes on Creativity

Paul Simon quotes on creativity

2. I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. 'Mother and Child Reunion' for example, is not a song that you would have normally thought that Simon and Garfunkel would have done. It's possible that they might have. But it wouldn't have been the same, and I don't know if I would have been so inclined in that direction. So for me it was a chance to break out and gamble a little bit ... The breakup had to do with a natural drifting apart as we got older and the separate lives that were more individual. We weren't so consumed with recording and performing. We had other activities ... there was no great pressure to stay together other than money, which exerted very little influence upon us. ... We didn't need the money.

5. I didn't want to repeat the same notes in the second verse that I used in the first, so I wrote out all the notes of the song and all the notes that were missing in the scale, given that there are twelve notes from octave to octave. All those notes that weren't in the scale were the ones I wanted in for the next verse. The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before.

7. I have gone through different phases in my music writing. There was a time when I used a little exercise - incorporating all of the twelve notes in the chromatic scale - to get me going. I used this technique for a while, but I don't any longer because I am going back to simpler melodies. Originally I moved away from the simple songs because I thought they were too simple.

8. I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains - the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes.

46. Locked in a struggle for the right combination - of words in a melody line, I took a walk along the riverbank of my imagination. Golden clouds were shuffling the sunshine.