Pianist Quotes - Page 4

• If I had my life to live over, I wish I could be a great pianist or something.

  Woody Allen

  Wish, Ifs

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• From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.

  Athol Fugard

  Father, Avid, Two

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• Classical pianist Awadagin Pratt. I first heard this eccentric and introverted performer when I was living in the Midwest. He was playing Brahms ballades - haunting.

  Daniel Breaker

  Midwest, Haunting, Eccentric

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• I decided during my teens that I wasn't going to have the life of a concert pianist, much to the chagrin of a lot of people who had put a lot of money into me!

  Cy Coleman

  People, Teens, Concerts

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• Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today.

  Herbie Hancock

  Oscars, Today, Jazz

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• I come from a wonderful family. My mother was a pianist and my father was a salesman. They were very middle-class, very middle-Western.

  Charles Kimbrough

  Mother, Father, Class

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• Ewan McGregor is a very genial and entertaining man, and Pierce Brosnan is possibly the nicest man in the world. Actually, it was quite a genial set The Ghost Writer, but the weather and the colors and the actual surroundings were oppressive. But it was a created atmosphere. What was so striking is that Roman Polanski had his crew from The Pianist, and we were shooting in Berlin, so there were German and Polish and French people, and I was just sort of enjoying being in this mix of people, all kind of rubbing along together. That felt good.

  Olivia Williams

  Men, People, Atmosphere

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• Artur Rubinstein, the famous pianist, was once asked the secret of his success-was it dedication, ability, discipline, hard work? Mr. Rubinstein smiled as he remarked, "It's hard to say, but one thing I do know: if you love life, life will love you back!" What a wonderful insight! That philosophy explains how a man in his eighties can continue to be so creative. For life is simply filled with exciting blessings for everybody. They're ours if we give enough of ourselves to life!

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Life, Philosophy, Love You

  Norman Vincent Peale (1977). “The joy of living: inspiring and practical writings ...”, Hallmark Cards

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• I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist.

  Donald Fagen

  Kids, Years, Play

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• Opinion in all parts of the world would agree that Rachmaninoff is the most complete of living masters of the instrument; his technique is comprehensive, and he is, of course, musical to his bone's marrow. Most important of all, he is a composer, and for this reason he is able to approach a work as none of his pianist contemporaries can approach one - that is, from the inside, as an organic and felt creative process.

  Sergei Rachmaninoff

  Creative, Musical, Important

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• In order to even begin to learn how to play his instrument, it takes the guitarist weeks to build calluses on his fingertips; it takes the saxophonist months to strengthen his lip so that he might play his instrument for only a five-minute stretch; it can take the pianist years to develop dual hand and multiple finger coordination. Why do writers assume they can just “write” with no training whatsoever-and then expect, on their first attempt, to be published internationally? What makes them think they're so much inherently greater, need so much less training than any other artists?

  Noah Lukeman

  Writing, Artist, Thinking

  Noah Lukeman (2010). “The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile”, p.72, Oxford University Press, USA

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• If you want to become a concert pianist, do it every day. You want to be a writer, do it every day. You want to become depressed, think depressing thoughts every day. You want to become an optimist, think a cheerful thought every day. Do it every day.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Depressing, Thinking, Cheerful

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• I wanted to be a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall; that is what I wanted to do from really early on. I actually was the accompanist for a couple of the musicals I was in growing up.

  Kirsten Nelson

  Growing Up, Couple, Carnegie

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• What is scurrilously called ragtime is an invention that is here to stay. That is now conceded by all classes of musicians... All publication s masquerading under the name of ragtime are not the genuine article... That real ragtime of the higher class is rather difficult to play is a painful truth which most pianists have discovered. Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music... Joplin ragtime is destroyed by careless or imperfect rendering, and very often players lost the effect entirely by playing too fast.

  Scott Joplin

  Real, Player, Light

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• Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.

  Nat Wolff

  Father, Age, Jazz

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I've been nominated four times, never won. And the whole world is going, `Why hasn't Winslet won one?' That's why I'm doing it. "Schindler's Bloody List," "The Pianist," Oscars coming out of their ass.

  Ricky Gervais

  World, Four, Oscars

  "'The Office' Star Ricky Gervais Back with 'Extras'". "Day to Day" with Noah Adams, www.npr.org. September 22, 2005.

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• Miss Petrowska,an excellent pianist, held the audience transfixed with Chou Wen-chung’s work. Miss Petrowska was coolness itself in getting the hardware into the piano and out again…in Messiaen, a feeling for the music’s reverent sobriety combined to produce an absorbing performance.

  Donal Henahan

  Piano, Sobriety, Missing

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• I applied, and I got in as a pianist. Their idea in the music department was that pianists, if they were good enough to get in, they were good enough to learn a new instrument. They felt sorry for pianists being alone in the practice room all the time, and they really wanted to socialize us pianists.

  Zeena Parkins

  Sorry, Practice, Ideas

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• I recorded with Hank (Jones) a number of times, usually on dates where Milt was unavailable, and I thought he was the perfect pianist. He had a beautiful touch, knew all the best ways around the chord changes, and swung mightily. And he brought an air of cheerful competence to every date, making us all feel that it would be possible to make some very good music that day.

  Bill Crow

  Beautiful, Piano, Numbers

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• Music informs my work so intensely. The better actor I become, the better pianist I become, and vice versa.

  Janina Gavankar

  Actors, Vices, Vice Versa

  Source: collider.com

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• It was quite unusual to use the recorder as a concert instrument. But my mother, a pianist, actually helped me a lot by assuming that anything done on the piano can easily be done on the recorder! She helped me with technique and was just as critical about my playing as she was with her own. I think that has been one of my fortunes.

  Michala Petri

  Mother, Thinking, Piano

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• My father is a violinist and my mother is a pianist, so I've been hearing music all my life. I started playing at three and had my first music teacher at five.

  Michala Petri

  Mother, Teacher, Father

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• I began ear training when I was about six months old. My mother was a concert pianist, and she started all of her children with music before they were a year old. Then she began to see that I had a musical gift...

  Twyla Tharp

  Mother, Children, Years

  "The High Priestess of Creative Movement". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 25, 1993.

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• They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Hands, Left Hand, Concerts

  "Maestro of Broadway". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. July 5, 2005.

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• As a young child, I thought that all pianists played everything. I mean, I thought anything on piano - any piano music, all pianists played it.

  Allen Toussaint

  Children, Mean, Piano Music

  "'Fresh Air' Remembers Hit Songwriter, Pianist And Producer Allen Toussaint". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. November 13, 2015.

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