Piano Quotes - Page 5

• If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

  Gustav Mahler

  Funny, Music, Expression

  Letter to Max Marschalk, March 26, 1896.

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• Paul McCartney's dad told him that when he was a kid. "Son, play the piano and when you go to parties, the girls will come to you."

  Anthony Kiedis

  Girl, Dad, Party

  "Anthony Kiedis Interview Radio 2". Interview with Chris Evans, thechilisource.com. June 17, 2016.

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• I couldn't listen to music with lyrics for the first few months after the brain surgery, because they were too complex and disturbing. So I listened to a lot of classical music. I didn't really want to read, either, so I listened to books on tape or watched movies. I also re-taught myself all of my childhood piano pieces. It helped me repair my brain.

  Rosanne Cash

  Book, Childhood, Brain

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• Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Music, Feelings, Speech

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1909). “Miscellany”

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• Look at the piano. You'll notice that there are white notes and black notes. Figure out the difference between them and you'll be able to make whatever kind of music you want.

  George Gershwin

  White, Differences, Black

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.

  Randy Newman

  Rays, Steinway

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• To know the piano is to know the universe. To master the piano is to master the universe. The spectrum of piano sound acts as a prism through which all musical and non-musical sounds may be filtered. The grunts of sheep, the braying of mules, the popping of champagne corks, the sighs of unrequited love, not to mention the full lexicon of sounds available to all other instruments-including whistles, scrapes, bleatings, caresses, thuds, hoots, plus sweet and sour pluckings-fall within the sovereignty of this most bare and dissembling chameleon.

  Russell Sherman

  Sweet, Fall, Unrequited Love

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• Quoting Demosthenes, 'For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.' I would rather make money playing a piano in a whorehouse than arguing that no cost is incurred when employees are paid in stock options instead of cash. I am not kidding.

  Charlie Munger

  Believe, Men, Wish

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• I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Enjoy, Audience

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• My favorite sound is definitely mules. If it was an instrument, it's really pingthe touch of the black keys of the piano.

  Christian Louboutin

  Keys, Black, Sound

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• The elephant smoked too much.(explaining why the keys of his piano were so yellow)

  Victor Borge

  Keys, Elephants, Yellow

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• Meditation takes discipline, just like learning how to play piano. If you want to learn how to play the piano, it takes more than a few minutes a day, once a while, here and there. If you really want to learn any important skill, whether it is playing piano or meditation, it grows with perseverance, patience, and systematic training.

  Jack Kornfield

  Perseverance, Play, Skills

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• My mother had a lot of parties when I was a child. There'd always be a moment when she would place me on the upright piano and have me sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Mother, Children, Party

  "Portrait of the artist: Rufus Wainwright, musician". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. April 12, 2010.

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• I took piano lessons when I was 6. I didn't want to go on with it. I don't remember being moved by a piece of music.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Pieces, Goes On, Lessons

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• I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.

  David Mamet

  Typewriters, Sound, Rhythm

  "Mamet Talk" by Lillian Ross, www.newyorker.com. May 19, 2008.

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• Lectures should go from being like the family singing around the piano to high-quality concerts.

  Bill Gates

  Singing, Quality, Lectures

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• I play the piano. I bought an upright piano that is actually electric, so I can practice my scales with headphones on and not make my neighbours' lives hell!

  Eva Green

  Practice, Play, Hell

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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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• Psychoanalyses is like music lessons, for 5 years you do not notice any progress and suddenly you can play the piano.

  Woody Allen

  Music, Years, Play

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• This happened to me last week. We're in the process of remodeling our house; we've been doing it for a while now. And we have the painters in, putting sheets up around the furniture, you know? And we have a piano, just a regular, up against the wall piano. One of the painters said to me, "Is that y'all's piano?" I said, "Nah, that's our coffee table, it just has buckteeth! Here's your Sign!

  Jeff Foxworthy

  Coffee, House, Teeth

  "Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie". www.imdb.com. January 10, 2003.

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• When I was recording from '70 to '82, I always played piano and laid the tracks down. But I used to talk to the other musicians while the track was playing.

  Roy Ayers

  Track, Musician, Used

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• [Thelonious] Monk is a subject in itself. I mean, most piano players in most big bands sit down and they play with the band, you know. But Monk would just sit there like this. And all of a sudden there'd be a pause from all the trumpets and everything and Monk would go 'plink!' like that. And everybody would go 'Yeah!

  Ray Brown

  Mean, Player, Band

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• I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I'm always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It's therapy. It's always happening.

  Erykah Badu

  Song, Writing, Artist

  "Life on the Line: A Telephone Conversation With Erykah Badu". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. December 10, 2015.

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• They usually have a piano in every nursing home, and I always wanted to perform for whoever would listen when I learned something. I grew to understand very early that a lot of these people who are in nursing homes are elderly and don't have a lot of things that give them joy from day to day.

  Erykah Badu

  Home, Nursing, Elderly

  "Life on the Line: A Telephone Conversation With Erykah Badu". Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. December 10, 2015.

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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, Technique

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