Pianist Quotes - Page 8

• My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching.

  Twyla Tharp

  Mother, War, Teaching

  "A Conversation With Choreographer Twyla Tharp". Interview with Daviv Shenk, www.theatlantic.com. February 26, 2010.

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• This was solidarity. The debutante having her toenails pedicured - the housewife buying carrots from a pushcart - the bookkeeper who had wanted to be a pianist, but has the excuse of a sister to support - the businessman who hated his business - the worker who hated his work - the intellectual who hated everybody - all were united as brothers in the luxury of common anger that cured boredom and took them out of themselves, and they knew well enough what a blessing it was to be taken out of themselves.

  Ayn Rand

  Brother, Taken, Blessing

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• Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and acrobat knows enough to let the mind go, let the body run itself. Every driver of a manual vehicle arrives at destinations with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth time. You are all sleepwalkers.

  Peter Watts

  Running, Climbing, Dancer

  Peter Watts (2006). “Blindsight”, p.302, Macmillan

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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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• 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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• 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'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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• 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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• 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 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 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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• I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.

  Oscar Peterson

  Music, Believe, Ideas

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