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My favorite instrument is the snare drum. In Scotland, the snare drum is very prominent in Highland bands. The Scottish style of playing is in my blood. It's a very powerful instrument, but it can also be soothing, like velvet. It's a real challenge for composers.
Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully.
There's a higher place that I have no illusions about reaching. There's a sophistication and aesthetic about composers who only write only for the music's sake.
I grew up on Bach and Beethoven, and now I'm listening to more modern composers who I can't even name. But since I'm constantly doing music, it's difficult to have that quality time to listen to music and do classical stuff.
I find I'm not one of these composers that are, you know, walking along a beach or walking on the mountainside in County Donegal that's, you know, 'Oh, a melody.' It's more a matter of eventually taking that moment with me to the studio, and it begins to evolve.
Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.
The fact that the theatregoing public likes my music is no credit to me. There are many other composers who write better music that the public doesn't like.
I still the love classic period, but also the baroque period, and even 17th-Century music such as the music of Monteverdi. He's one of the greatest opera composers. He was the one who really started the opera.
I'm blessed to be working with wizards like Vishal Bhardwaj as well as many young composers.
Music is a continuum and the modern and avant-garde composers of today will be part of the standard repertoire 30 years from now.
