In this interview, Vangelis talks about his philosophy of creating music, and the importance of immediacy and improvisation in his music. He also talks about his approach to Blade Runner and the new expanded version of the Blade Runner soundtrack.
In this interview, Vangelis talks about his philosophy of creating music, and the importance of immediacy and improvisation in his music. He also talks about his approach to Blade Runner and the new expanded version of the Blade Runner soundtrack.
He’s an absolute musical genius.
This man is a legend. Some interesting notes:
“The way [music] technology has been designed today, it takes you away from the spontaneity and from the human touch, because you have to follow the machines, and program. I’m not doing that. Everything I do is not preprogrammed, it is done on the spot. One take. Everything is done live, never programmed.”
“Comparing the technology I have today with what I had when I did Chariots Of Fire, there is nothing. I have a wider choice of sound, and the sound quality is better. But the system I use is exactly the same, I never change the approach, it is always live. All I’ve changed is the source of sound, that’s all.”
“The playability [with modern synthesizers] is a big problem, you have to use computers, you have to program, you have to choose, and these kinds of things … I can’t do it that way, so I use my own system to access the sounds, to bypass this difficulty, so that it is instant, immediate.”
“As you create colours [sound textures and qualities], so you create the composition.”
“I started music when I was three or four … I never agreed with music schools, until this day I can’t write or reade music.”
This is a must-listen interview, not for just Vangelis fans, but for all electronic musicians.
Very cool – makes you realize that there’s a philosophy behind his approach to music that accounts for some of its immediacy….