Bryce Dessner Quotes
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When we learned to play in bands, what we were covering was equal part the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead. That would defy the logic that somehow these things don't fit in the same musical well.
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We always say that National songs have to have a heart, that we don't make cold songs.
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When I'm writing instrumental music, I try to find musical and non-musical inspirations.
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I came from a classical background, and I was teaching and earning a living out of music at a certain level, so it's funny to make it as a rock star when we're 40 or whatever.
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For a composer of concert music, 40 is actually very young. But for a rock musician, 40 is almost past due, where you think of rock music as really part of more youth-oriented culture.
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There are all kind of corners of the musical world that are deeply influenced by the Dead that one wouldn't expect. Lee Ranaldo is a crazy Deadhead.
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We all contribute to The National, and it's like a familiar family. Matt is dad, Brian's like the dark horse uncle, Scott's the long-suffering mum, and Aaron and I are the bratty twins.
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My grandmother was born in Russia, and she came through Poland on her way to America in the early 20s. She moved to Brooklyn.
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As a band gets more successful, there's a danger of falling in love with your own shadow.
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I've got this diverse education, growing up in classical music and existing between that and music that is more visceral, so for sure, I've always been interested in music from other cultures.
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My main professional experience is touring in a rock band.
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For many people in the music conservatory world, the message was always, Focus! 'You can't do everything; you really need to specialize.' And especially at an early age, I ignored this advice.
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In terms of identity, I'm the same person no matter what I'm doing.
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I can imagine myself as an old man writing music for choir or orchestra. I don't know that I'll be touring six months out of the year in a rock band when I'm 60.
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I think that becoming a successful rock band is a little like becoming a professional athlete. Nobody plans on it.
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Me, who's educated classically, I went toward rock music 'cause it was sort of a natural evolution from where I was playing with my brother. But I was always drawn back into classical music.
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I can't just play in a rock band. The National is a great, exciting band to play in. We improvise a lot onstage, and it's very intense, but after a while, I crave other kinds of experiences.
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It doesn't necessarily take four years to write a good piece of music. It might take four hours. It just depends on when your inspiration comes.
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When working with classical musicians, it is important to be clear as possible in the score about what my intentions are. Because there isn't a lot of rehearsal time, especially at the ballet, it's best if everything is written in the score.
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My background in music is classical - I did graduate school in music. At that time, I was studying composition, but I was studying classical guitar very seriously.
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I studied classical guitar in school, and that type of stuff has led to writing for Kronos.
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A lot of people ask how I ended up doing classical music given that I'm in a rock band. The truth is that it's the other way around. I was trained as a classical musician and then started playing in a rock band later.
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There is a reactionary conservative side of classical music, which is not the most exciting side of it. The side that draws me in, there's a real encouragement of risk-taking, going back to masters of that tradition like Beethoven and Bartok and Stravinsky.
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Being a classical musician, you can go to school for it; you can go get a degree. Even as a composer, there is a certain career path you can follow, but becoming a rock musician is a much more elusive career. How do you learn that or do that?