Ryuichi Sakamoto Quotes

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Profession : Composer

Birth : January 17, 1952

As soon as I choose the timbre of an instrument, that dominates how I compose.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I think there's a genuine difference between the real and the virtual in music.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I want to capture the mood I have now, post-cancer, in my music.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

You're changing every day, right? Your curiosities and ambitions change, your ear changes, the music you like changes - and the music you want to make, too.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I have a lot of sketches and ideas, but when you don't use them, they get stale.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

When I lived in Japan, I only noticed the bad aspects of the country. I didn't really like Japan then, but when I moved overseas, I was able to appreciate the good side more.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

My interests are moving toward both 'sound and music,' not just 'music.' I have been doing lots of field recordings and also collecting lots of strange sounds.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

People don't buy CDs so much anymore because it's easy to download everything. So, while the record industry is declining, the music is heard a lot more than before.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Music has become something different from the past, when it was one hundred per cent live. Throughout the twentieth century, it was recorded, and the medium adjusted.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I'm not the ambassador of Japan or Japanese culture.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I loved the freedom of improvised music.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I was born and grew up in Tokyo, so I didn't know about nature.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

The piano is the closest instrument to me in my life, so it's just natural to play my pieces on the piano.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

All the kids at the kindergarten had to play, or at least touch, the piano. It was a good start. Then, after kindergarten, all my friends took piano lessons, so I joined them.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

To show my everyday life to the world was not my intention.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Just recently, I thought about how maybe I should have kept using the synthesisers more after 'Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence'; then, I would have been a more unique soundtrack composer than I am now. It could have been my signature. But then, probably, Bertolucci would not have offered me to compose for his films.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

You can use existing music in a film, but creating a soundtrack is very different. One note can be enough.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I'm really bad writing the chase scenes or fighting scenes. I'm much better for writing, like, a more melancholic or tragic music.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I used to work, like, for 16 hours a day, or sometimes 24 hours.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

That's the meaning of 'The Revenant': It's a return from death.

Ryuichi Sakamoto