Alan Menken Quotes

Alan Menken is an American composer and songwriter, known for his work in musical theater and film. He has composed music for numerous Disney animated films, including "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin." Menken's melodies and compositions have become iconic in the world of musical entertainment.

I work in a dramatic context, meaning we write with a lot of character specifics, a lot of story specifics. There's a lot of architecture in our songs.

I have lots of personal feelings of my own, but at this stage in my life and career, I'm very much driven by assignment.

I'm a very style-driven composer, and I like to gi... -Alan Menken

I'm a very style-driven composer, and I like to give every project its own unique stamp.

Of my Disney material, 'Tangled' is my most pop-or... -Alan Menken

Of my Disney material, 'Tangled' is my most pop-oriented.

Collaboration is being open to each other's ideas and benefiting from each other's perspectives in an open way.

The Disney tradition - number one, it's a great American classic tradition - and it's something where you don't want to go over certain lines. You want to poke fun, but you don't want to poke fun in a way that's hurtful.

Most things that I write are in very specific forms. A score will have a shape and profile, and then the more emotional and intimate moments will come.

I love 'The Gospel Truth,' the song that opened up 'Hercules.' I thought that song was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed producing that and writing that.

A villain number is a very valuable thing to have, but if you look at most musicals, one way or another there's an antagonist number.

I've always juggled a lot of projects because at least half the projects you do get shelved. So you have to do a lot of things in order for things to move forward.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

As a kid, I loved classical music. Composers like Beethoven were like rock stars to me. Then there were the real rock stars: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan.

There's plenty of examples of films where they're greenlit to move forward, and they want to get X actor. And they don't get X actor, so they go with Y, and it doesn't turn out to be as good of a movie as it should have been.

I think the thing that strikes you when you come back to 'The Little Mermaid' after all of these years is the simplicity and innocence. That's in the look of it, and that's in the sound of it.

I was always proud of the score to 'Newsies.' The ... -Alan Menken

I was always proud of the score to 'Newsies.' The movie is good, but it was under-budgeted.

Collaboration is all about rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and helping each other to constantly improve a piece. And, it's also about spurring each other on to doing really great, hard work - it's easier to do it in a collaboration than on your own.

Truth be told, of course, what I enjoy most is reinventing myself and doing new projects where I work in new genres, or I get to find what the voice of a particular musical is.

The job, when you write film underscore, is to be ignored. That comes with the gig, no question about it.

Composing easy? I find it easy if - big if - the idea is right, if I have the right collaborator, and if my collaborator is in the room. I like my collaborator to be in the room.

Often my best work comes from somebody trying to stretch me in a direction that I wouldn't normally want to go in. It's not something I fight at all.

For a brief period, I had a gentleman's farm in Pennsylvania, but even then, I kept a place in New York.

You're creating a score that has to have an emotional and story logic to it. You want a dramatic arc. You want all the songs to push story forward. That's the same whether it's for stage or film or television or whatever.

I always wanted to have a villain song for Hades in 'Hercules,' but I couldn't figure out how we would have Hades sing.

A lot of the projects I've been involved with have been my babies, and I'm not going to give my baby to anyone else.

I always wanted to be a composer, and I sort of went in to NYU as pre-med because I just thought, 'Well... who actually becomes a composer?'

The act of writing a song involves a degree of letting go of yourself, and that's very much being a child.

Movies, there are moments when you're writing a song or demoing, a moment in the recording studio. Musicals much more just eat up your life for a certain period of time.

When I first started working at Disney animation, I can't tell you how many people said to me, 'Oh, man, take a powder.' Nobody takes animated musicals seriously. I swear.

I have the ability to clear the decks and focus on what's happening in the moment. And I get to spend my life doing what I love to do.

In animation, the directors are part of a huge team of animators who all have opinions, too. It's a much more democratic process. Also, the animation executives oversee things more.

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