Pianist Quotes - Page 8

• My family was musical on both sides. My father’s family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple’s double — she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s in the kitchen for my grandmother.

  Gloria Estefan

  Mother, Song, Father

  "Gloria Estefan: 'Like Coming Home, But Not to the Old Cuba'". Interview with Jesse Kornbluth, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 6, 2007.

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• Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

  Roberta Flack

  Real, Book, Color

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• There used to be a club in new york called Bradley's - I've never been there, it closed in the 80's - but I used to study with Junior Mance, and he would tell me about Bradley's. It was a very important place for a generation of jazz musicians in New York. It was really all about pianists there.

  Jose James

  New York, Important, Musician

  Source: revive-music.com

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• My whole family is in the arts some way or the other. My father was a cellist in a symphony outside Chicago that was a side-job, he was a scientist. My mother was a dancer in New York. She was next-door neighbors with Dorothy Loudon and they moved to New York together. Mom was a dancer in New York for several years before she got married. My sister was a classical pianist. And my brother was a partier. So it all just seemed to work.

  Jason Graae

  Mom, Mother, Brother

  Source: www.broadwayworld.com

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• By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.

  Nina Simone

  School, Eight, Piano

  Source: boscarol.com

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• I was like a well trained pianist who knows which note to hit, but can't make the music his own.

  David Benioff

  Notes, Wells, Knows

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• I don't regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I'm not a great player. I just like music. Drums 'n' bass is pretty exciting and I'd love to explore it.

  Keith Emerson

  Country, Player, Bass

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• It seems that a lot of people, who haven't known of me as a pianist, think I've just started off as a comedian. And so for them the piano was something extra. But, of course, playing the piano was something that came before all of what's happened now.

  Dudley Moore

  Thinking, Piano, People

  "Jazz Professional", Interview, 1966.

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• I'm a concert pianist, that's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.

  Oscar Levant

  Way, Moments, Pretentious

  "Fictional character: Adam Cook". "An American in Paris", www.imdb.com. 1951.

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• The zenith of virtuosity, a violinist like Jascha Heifetz, the supernatural in a pianist like Vladimir Horowitz, these are performers who were so idiosyncratic and personal that to imitate them would be like filling somebody else's bottle with your wine.

  David Finckel

  Wine, Would Be, Bottles

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. July 11, 2012.

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• Even if you are a pianist, your concerto repertoire is very limited compared to what your chamber repertoire would be if you were a chamber music pianist.

  David Finckel

  Would Be, Chamber Music, Ifs

  "David Finckel and Wu Han". Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. July 11, 2012.

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• The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development; he is like a pianist who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives a concert.

  Ayn Rand

  Beautiful, Exercise, Giving

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• To play the piano is to consort with nature. Every mollusk, galaxy, vapor or viper as well the sweet incense of love's distraction, is within the hands and grasp of the pianist.

  Russell Sherman

  Sweet, Hands, Play

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• The artist who gave me the most inspiration and direction, especially as a singer - and I absolutely consider myself a singer, 100 percent - is Nina Simone. She's my ultimate pianist-singer-type person.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Inspiration, Artist, Singers

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• It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

  Franz Liszt

  Ambition, Glowing, Wish

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• The piano ain't got no wrong notes.

  Thelonious Monk

  Piano, Notes, Piano Teachers

  "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original". p. 444. Book by Robin Kelley, 2009.

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• I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.

  Frederic Chopin

  Paris, Musical, Ass

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• If there's one thing I feel very strongly about, it's that there shouldn't be a distinction between pianists who play Ligeti and those who play Chopin. It might seem that they involve different skill sets, but I don't think that's true: whether playing Ives or Bach or Beethoven, you must bring the same imagination, the same sensitivity, and an ability to deal with same kinds of musical problems. The method behind my madness, anyway, is to keep plugging away at this idea.

  Jeremy Denk

  Thinking, Play, Skills

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• When we are very young, we tend to regard the ability to use a colon much as a budding pianist regards the ability to play with crossed hands: many of us, when we are older, regard it as a proof of literary skill, maturity, even of sophistication; and many; whether young, not so young, or old, employ it gauchely, haphazardly, or at best inconsistently.

  Eric Partridge

  Writing, Maturity, Hands

  Eric Partridge (2003). “You Have a Point There: A Guide to Punctuation and Its Allies”, p.54, Routledge

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• Bob Erlendson, a local piano player, taught me chord structure and which scales go along with them. Later, I began listening to [pianists] Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. Then I got interested in [saxophonist] John Coltrane.

  Lenny Breau

  Music, Player, Piano

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• There's a pianist out of Boston who made a beautiful record for the Fresh Sound label called "Sketch Book"; his name is Vardan Ovsepian.

  Brad Mehldau

  Beautiful, Book, Boston

  "Brad Mehldau's Opening, Middle And Endgame". Interview with Mike Brannon, www.allaboutjazz.com. October 7, 2003.

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• I wanted to be a veterinarian until I saw a video of a vet performing surgery on a dog. Then I decided I wanted to be a pianist.

  Amy Lee

  Dog, Musical, Vets

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• Steinway is the only piano on which the pianist can do everything he wants. And everything he dreams.

  Vladimir Ashkenazy

  Dream, Piano, Want

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• There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists.

  Vladimir Horowitz

  Three, Kind, Homosexual

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• Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.

  Frederic Chopin

  Practice, Goal, Simplicity

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