Pianist Quotes - Page 3

• Allow some warm-up time each day to stimulate your creative flow. A pianist does keyboard exercises. A gymnast stretches. An artist needs to loosen up, too. It takes a few minutes to shift from the real world into a creative mode.

  Nita Leland

  Real, Exercise, Artist

  Nita Leland (2006). “The New Creative Artist”, p.14, North Light Books

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• It's a pity to shoot the pianist when the piano is out of tune.

  Rene Coty

  Piano, Tunes, Pity

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• I have a good friend, Rudolf Serkin, the pianist, a very sensitive man. I was talking to him one day backstage after a concert and I told him that I thought he had played particularly sensitively that day. I said, "You know, many pianists are brilliant, they strike the keys so well, but somehow you are different." "Ah," he said, "I don't think you should ever strike a key. You should pull the keys with your fingers."

  Andrew Wyeth

  Art, Good Friend, Men

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• I sat on the piano bench next to my mother in church. Something happened before I set foot on this planet. I was crawling around inside of her. She was a church pianist. My dad was a brilliant singer. I was hearing it.

  Al Jarreau

  Mother, Dad, Piano

  "Jazz vocalist Al Jarreau". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. November 5, 2013.

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• Some experience is helpful. "The Pianist" was a film that I could make with my eyes closed because I had lived it and everything was still alive in me.

  Roman Polanski

  Eye, Alive, Helpful

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• It's all very well having a great pianist playing but it's no good if you haven't got anyone to get the piano on the stage in the first place, otherwise the pianist would be standing there with no bloody piano to play.

  Ian Holloway

  Football, Play, Piano

  "'If I Fell in a Barrel of Boobs, I'd Come Out Sucking My Thumb!' - the Wisdom of Ian Holloway". www.standard.co.uk. May 24, 2010.

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• A young pianist & composer who has demonstrated an exceptional creativity, in both his playing & his writing, as well as showing us all, his very strong commitment & motivation to aim for high musical goals. Talent like his is rare.

  Steve Lacy

  Strong, Motivation, Writing

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• When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

  Robert Glasper

  Mean, Skills, Jazz

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The irrepressible spirit that made his playing seem like good conversation is the Rubinstein legacy for pianists, if they can pick up their heads from the keyboard long enough to claim it.

  Donal Henahan

  Art, Long, Legacy

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• Shook is the musical universe I created. I come from a classical and jazz background and my father is a jazz pianist, so my world bears largely the marks of this influence. As a sort of gateway, I started composing my own music on the computer at the age of 13. Before Shook, I had not yet discovered the kind of music I wanted to dedicate myself to, so I did a little of everything.

  Shook

  Father, Musical, Age

  Source: www.atickettosomewhere.com

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• My father was a very good amateur pianist, and he had a collection of books on technique. One of the things he had was a small volume of exercises by Rudolf Ganz, in which Ganz mentions the pedagogical work of the Swiss composer, Émile-Robert Blanchet, who wrote a ton of polyphonic exercises for one-hand. These exercises were a great help for finger independence, which I acquired early on. This might have given me somewhat of an edge, a facility to be able to knock any obstacle that was in my way.

  Marc-Andre Hamelin

  Father, Book, Exercise

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. November 8, 2013.

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• When you think of diversity, George Duke fits that bill better than a lot of people. He's played a lot of straight-ahead jazz with people like Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley; he's played a lot of fusion with his own groups, with Stanley Clarke; and, you know, he did the rock thing with Frank Zappa. He's written all kinds of big arrangements for people like Burt Bacharach. So, he's covered the board. He's still a great pianist.

  Christian McBride

  Thinking, Rocks, Diversity

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• Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music!

  Dave Brubeck

  Thinking, Names, Dukes

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• As all nocturnal creatures, I have a tendency to wander about during the night, embracing and relishing in its mysteriousness, unexplained sounds, and thick aura of darkness. As a pianist I was drawn to compositions with the titles of Nocturne and Notturno - from Maria Szymanowska's Nocturne in B-flat to John Field and Frederic Chopin's Nocturnes. The night offers a myriad array of emotions from solace to absolute horror. I tried to infuse some of these terrifying thoughts, as well as solace that only night can bring into Night Soundings.

  Barbara Harbach

  Night, Darkness, Emotion

  Source: www.barbaraharbach.com

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• I think I was drawn to the harpsichord because of the similarity of touch between the harpsichord and the tracker organ. When you press a key on the harpsichord, the pluck of the string gives a slight resistance similar to the feel of depressing a key on a tracker organ. Also, harpsichordists and organists use much less wrist and body motion than pianists, and we do not need the upper body muscles required by pianists.

  Barbara Harbach

  Depressing, Thinking, Giving

  Source: www.barbaraharbach.com

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• I got to perform the [Jaques] Ibert Concertino Da Camera with a brilliant pianist at school named Chunga. I got to perform the [Alexander] Glazunov Concerto in senior year with our school orchestra and the Jewish Grossman orchestra. I won a scholarship from the Goldman band to perform the [Paul] Creston Concerto. Which I never played with them, but they still gave me the money.

  Jon Gordon

  Senior, School, Years

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• Any pianist and singer/songwriter would say "Carnegie Hall." It's such a legendary place. I'd love to play at Carnegie Hall. That's definitely dream of mine.

  Angela Aki

  Dream, Play, Singers

  Source: www.ign.com

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• In fact although I have studied in a Conservatory the classical piano, I do not consider myself a classical pianist.

  Richard Clayderman

  Piano, Facts, Conservatory

  Source: performancereviewed.com

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• Today, Lan Lan is one of my favourite classical pianists.... Years ago I had a great admiration for Arthur Rubinstein but I have no doubt that Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin were also fantastic piano players - though there is no way to listen to them when they were performing.

  Richard Clayderman

  Player, Years, Piano

  Source: performancereviewed.com

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• Baton technique is to a conductor what fingers are to a pianist.

  Igor Markevitch

  Technique, Fingers, Conductor

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• I am rather what we usually call a Pop pianist with my own romantic style.

  Richard Clayderman

  Style, Pops, My Own

  Source: performancereviewed.com

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• [My interest in music] is from my mother and my grandmother, who were pianists, and they taught.

  Pauline Oliveros

  Mother, Taught, Music Is

  Source: artsmania.ca

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• Without the piano, I would never have attempted to rap, because I'm a poor rapper. I'm enthusiastic, but it takes me a long time to write eight bars of rap. I would battle any pianist, and yet I would forfeit happily before even getting into a rap battle with anyone.

  Chilly Gonzales

  Rap, Writing, Long

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• What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Mean, Rocks, Rock And Roll

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• I would also like to mention pianists like Michel Petrucciani or Chick Сorea for whom I have great admiration in the jazz field.

  Richard Clayderman

  Fields, Jazz, Admiration

  Source: performancereviewed.com

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