Andrew Sega Quotes

A lot of [my] songs have various strange oddities in them - usually this is the result of late-night dementia.

I think we'll soon see a new breed of musicians who have both a modern chordal sense (jazz) and a high comfort level with synthesizers and new breeds of sounds (from the electronica/techno/dj scene).

I'm not a big fan of asynchronicity just for its own sake - a lot of people push rhythmic variation so far that the basic pulse of the music gets lost (and the listener is confused).

Well, when music "moves" someone, it doesn't necessarily have to be in a positive direction. Some people certainly get moved by darker music, and there are all sorts of emotions which music can create that are interesting -- aggression, foreboding, anger, fear. Not everyone wants to feel happy all the time :)

Music is nothing but ratios and harmonic math, anyways.

I try to avoid categorizing music as much as I can, though. Everyone steals so much from everyone else these days, the lines between genres are very washed-out.

There may not be a high-level purpose for humanity, but that doesn't mean we can't find inspiration in the world. I think there is a combination of psychological and environmental factors that combine to create various urges in humanity -- most importantly the urge to create, to contribute something to the world, to express your personal worldview and see how the world responds. Art doesn't happen in a vacuum, and if it were only for personal gain then nobody would ever release music to the public. The process changes you, and also changes the world itself, creating ripples of inspiration which flow between the artist and the listener.

One of the most common failings [when writing a drum track] is repetition. Nobody wants to hear that same stupid 16-line bass-snare pattern throughout the WHOLE song. Didn't your mother ever teach you that variety is the spice of life?

I think [Britney Spears] is a perfect example of an artificial construct -- someone with a decent voice and a very marketable image, that producers and business people turned into a pop star. Unfortunately, I think it took a toll on her, mentally, and I feel bad for the trouble that success has brought onto her. However, her music is pretty disposable, and she doesn't have the intelligence and cultural impact of someone like, say, Madonna.

I love philosophy. It's fascinating to try to discover how perception, or experience, or memory works. I've always been a diehard relativist at heart, and I find it very interesting to read other people's philosophical ideas and how they see the world through their particular lens.

The usual problem with progressive rock is that the band can get so wrapped up in their own fantasy land that their music becomes completely inaccessible. "Wanky", if you will.

One of the issues these days is the sheer amount of music out there to be listened to. There are more bands than one could ever hope to explore.

Some people are like "Oh, I hate guitars." How can you hate a guitar? It makes no sense. It's just an instrument.

Religion is a simplistic answer that society has created in order to make people feel better, but there is little evidence as to its validity. There are thousands of religions in the world, each with their own "correct" answers, and each contradicting each other. For now the most sensible explanation to me is that we are the result of a lucky combination of cosmic factors, we're the "mold" that has grown on this particular planet and in a universe as vast as ours, it's expected that somewhere this would happen.

Once you have a basic grasp of the theories underlying music, you can pretty much pick up any instrument you want.