Violinist Quotes

• A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.

  Josephine Baker

  Dance, African American, Care

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• The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency---half tiger,half poet.

  Yehudi Menuhin

  Half, Poet, Potency

  Yehudi Menuhin (1986). “Life class: thoughts, exercises, reflections of an itinerant violinist”, Vintage

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• Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Music, Food, Literature

  Quoted in The NewYork Times, 16 Nov 1967.

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• Im one of the boys, no better than the last second violinist. Im just the lucky one to be standing in the center, telling them how to play.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Boys, Play, Lucky

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• Never miss an opportunity to teach; when you teach others, you teach yourself.

  Itzhak Perlman

  Learning, Opportunity, Missing

  Twitter post from Oct 05, 2012

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• The way you hold the bow, the way that violinists are trained to produce a note, is really different. I'm not an expert in classical music. I don't want to say something that ends up in print and somebody comes running after me with a shovel, but they're taught for each note to stand alone in a very deliberate kind of way, which is really different than how notes are strung together in old-time music to create rhythm.

  Bruce Molsky

  Running, Together, Experts

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• A guitar is a piece of wood, and if this piece is resonating in a period of 40 or 60 years, it kind of gets to know what it is after awhile... the reason violinists play violins that are hundreds of years old. The wood learns to sing.

  Dave Genn

  Music, Guitar, Years

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• Musical ability is not an inborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properly trained can develop musical ability just as all children develop the ability to speak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited.

  Shinichi Suzuki

  Inspirational, Music, Mother

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• Music is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note and another; how you get from one to the other-that's where the music is.

  Isaac Stern

  Music, Art, Notes

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• Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal.

  Yehudi Menuhin

  Strength, Beautiful, Dream

  US Congress Congressional Record, V. 151, PT. 6, April 21, 2005 to May 5, 2005, p. 7471, 2009.

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• The most important thing to do is really listen.

  Itzhak Perlman

  Important, Things To Do, Important Things

  FaceBook post by Itzhak Perlman from Dec 21, 2012

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• How do I get to Carnegie Hall?

  Mischa Elman

  Inspirational, Music, Carnegie

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  My wife Mary and I have been married for forty-seven years and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, never.

  Jack Benny

  Love, Funny, Relationship

  77 Copy quote

• If at first you don't succeed... so much for skydiving.

  Henny Youngman

  Inspirational, Funny, Success

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• No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

  Jascha Heifetz

  Your Side, People, Intelligence

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• Sometimes I think of blogging as finger exercises for a violinist; sometimes I think of it as mulching a garden. It is incredibly useful and helpful to my "real" writing.

  Kate Christensen

  Real, Writing, Exercise

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The actor must know that since he, himself, is the instrument, he must play on it to serve the character with the same effortless dexterity with which the violinist makes music on his. Just because he doesn't look like a violin is no reason to assume his techniques should be thought of as less difficult.

  Uta Hagen

  Character, Play, Looks

  Uta Hagen (1991). “Challenge For The Actor”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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• Unnur Birna is a Reykjavik-based violinist and singer. She has performed as a session musician with countless Icelandic and international artists while recording and appearing as a solo artist as well. Unnur has joined me as an unpaid guest on a few Icelandic shows in recent years, so it is a great pleasure to return the favour and appear on one of her songs at last. This new track, Sunshine, came about in Italy, written as an ode to sunlight and happiness after fleeing the dark winter in Iceland

  Ian Anderson

  Song, Sunshine, Dark

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• I'm incapable of functioning without music. I've always had it in my life. I played the violin when I was a kid, and my mother was a violinist at that point, so it's always been important to me in one way or another. When I work, there's always music cranking.

  Peter Dundas

  Mother, Kids, Important

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I was always jealous of my violinist friends and cellist friends who traveled with their instruments.

  Christian McKay

  Jealous, Instruments, Cellists

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• Violin playing is a physical art with great traditions behind it.

  Vanessa Mae

  Art, Violin, Tradition

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• The violinist must possess the poets gift of piercing the protective hide which grows on propagandists, stockbrokers and slave traders, to penetrate the deeper truth which lies within.

  Yehudi Menuhin

  Lying, Piercings, Slave

  Yehudi Menuhin (1986). “Life class: thoughts, exercises, reflections of an itinerant violinist”, Vintage

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• Along the way [Mozart] got married; fathered seven children (two of whom survived into adulthood); performed as a pianist; violinist; and conductor; maintained a successful teaching studio; wrote thousands of letters; traveled widely; attended the theater religiously; played cards, billiards, and bocce; and rode horseback for exercise. Not bad for someone portrayed as a giggling idiot in the movies.

  Robert Greenberg

  Children, Teaching, Successful

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• That process by which you become a writer is a pretty lonely one. We don't have a group apprenticeship like a violinist might training for an orchestra.

  Anne Rice

  Lonely, Training, Groups

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• The psychological and physiological mechanism of love is so complex that at a certain period in his life a young man must concentrate all his energy on coming to grips with it, and in this way he misses the actual content of the love: the woman he loves. (In this he is much like a young violinist who cannot concentrate on the emotional content of a piece until the technique required to play it comes automatically.)

  Milan Kundera

  Love Is, Men, Emotional

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