I don't know the names of any pop musicians. Pop music is standardised; it's made to please the largest audience possible. I also compose to please a large audience, but when you listen to my music, you understand that I have studied and applied the whole history of composition.

Ennio Morricone

Categorized in : You Understand History Music

Music is an experience, not a science.

Ennio Morricone

music-is

Popularity doesn't bother me. It attests to the affection and comprehension of the public. The important thing is to retain the pioneer spirit. I profoundly love the profession, and I work on each film as if it were the first - and the last. Giving the best of myself. Many of the 'greats' ask their arranger to write their scores for them. Me, I write all alone, from the first note to the last. All.

Ennio Morricone

important writing giving

I also used these realistic sounds in a psychological way. With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I used animal sounds - as you say, the coyote sound - so the sound of the animal became the main theme of the movie.

Ennio Morricone

coyotes sound animal

Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I dont understand why this happens in the movie industry.

Ennio Morricone

score used writing

There was a theft! But, of course, if it was up to me, every two years I would win an Oscar.

Ennio Morricone

winning two years

I come from a background of experimental music which mingled real sounds together with musical sounds.

Ennio Morricone

musical real together

You can see my decision as either a distinctive factor or as a limitation. I don't feel it is a limitation.

Ennio Morricone

distinctive decision feels

We live in a modern world, and in contemporary music the central fact is contamination. Not the contamination of disease but the contamination of musical styles. If you find this in me, that is good.

Ennio Morricone

style musical world

I was offered a free villa in Hollywood, but I said no thank you, I prefer to live in Italy.

Ennio Morricone

villa hollywood thank-you

When Tarantino called me about a score for the film at first I said 'no' and changed my mind when he came to my house. but I told him I wanted a total break with the style of Western films I wrote 50 years. I was worried even after I finished because I didn't know if he would like it because it is more like a symphony in four movements.

Ennio Morricone

entertainment

Music needs room to breathe.

Ennio Morricone

room breathe music needs

I was born in 1928, so in 1943, 1944, we had the war in Rome. There were a lot of hardships, a lack of food, many shortages. So when I worked with the Americans, the English, and the Canadians soon after the war, when I played with them, they paid me with food. That will give you an idea how widespread poverty was at that time.

Ennio Morricone

me time food war

I have to see a definitive cut of the film before I even start thinking about the music, I tell the director what my feelings are and what I would like to do. He accepts what I say or discusses it or destroys it. Eventually, we have to find a compromise.

Ennio Morricone

start music feelings thinking

They're all my children... every score I've done.

Ennio Morricone

every score done children

It had a very good arrangement by Herbie Hancock, but it used existing pieces.

Ennio Morricone

very good pieces used

I dislike cats. I like horses, some monkeys, and sweet dogs that aren't too aggressive. I used to have a wonderful, big cat, and one day I came into the kitchen and it was on the table, ruining all the food we were about to eat. I was so annoyed that I took it to a friend's house in the country.

Ennio Morricone

cats day food sweet

My favourite type of pizza is a Napoletana: tomatoes, mozzarella, and very few anchovies. It must have a thin base.

Ennio Morricone

thin must very pizza

Everyone has to die. I'm not particularly scared about it. What really frightens me is that if I go before my wife, I will leave her alone, and vice versa. The ideal would be to die together.

Ennio Morricone

alone me wife together

It could have been extremely boring to write musical scores for only westerns of horror films. It was really exciting for me to work in all these various genres.

Ennio Morricone

me horror boring work

In my youth, cinemas showed two films in one day. I used to watch both of them. It may sound strange, but 'West Side Story' was the only musical I liked. I didn't like musicals, or films with songs, at all. I always thought they were not real, that the songs sounded a little bit false. But in the case of 'West Side Story,' things were different.

Ennio Morricone

story day thought youth