Classically Trained Quotes & Sayings

I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences. — Brad Dourif

I'm trained as an actor for the stage - classically trained, believe it or not - and I worked closely with Stella Adler for years. People don't know that much about it. They just think I am these people. But I've been in this comedy racket, because it's just how everybody wants to see me. — Michael Richards

I was classically trained in operetta from about age 4, I think. — Clare Bowen

I'm the lady by day, and I'm Gaga by night. And I'm always going to be that way, because it's a testament to your discipline as a musician. I do like to drink, I like to get crazy, I like to go out with my friends, and I like to sing rock and roll. I used to go-go dance! And I like to be inspired by young artists, people like Millie who are outrageously hard, disciplined individuals. But at the end of the day I'm a classically trained pianist and I'm a singer, and that's what allows the girl that goes out at night to also go on stage with Tony Bennett at Lincoln Center. Because I know how to do it. — Lady Gaga

I think that people have been claiming hip-hop as being dead since the moment it started. I think there are people - and I can be included in that category sometimes - that get frustrated feeling like maybe the industry has handcuffed itself, or trained its artists to do or think about music in a way that classically hasn't led to the greatest records in hip-hop. — El-P

My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around. — Wolf Blitzer

I'm not the pedigree kid. I'm not classically trained. I didn't come from the fancy home, no. — Kate Winslet

I have a lot of influences. I'm American-schooled. I'm classically trained. I'm a pretty universal student, if you will. I have a lot of degrees, which really don't pay the rent. I have two doctorate degrees, I have a bachelor's degree, but I'm still a cook. — Emeril Lagasse

I never contemplated. I just went in there and did my acting. I never thought, "What's the character actually feeling here? What's he trying to get across?" And never looked at it from that classically trained actor's point of view. — Matthew Lewis

Nobody inspired me more than Julie Andrews, who is a classically trained soprano herself. — Lesley Garrett

I'm not a classically trained actor. I'm not a product of Stavlovski method or anything like that. — Bob Newhart

I started piano lessons when I was four; I was being classically trained at the Colburn School. — Jacqueline Emerson

I was trained classically, and that's something that I want to do, but I do want to say that right now it's a good market for female comedians, and I want to explore that right now. I really do want to do dramas and meatier roles, especially film. — Eliza Coupe

Comedians have varying levels of training. It can range from classically trained actors (like Robin Williams) to people who took comedy classes to folks who just started doing it. That's the beauty of comedy: it's close to a pure meritocracy. — Ted Alexandro

I went to drama school. I'm classically trained; I studied Shakespeare, blah blah blah. But I always preferred to do Oscar Wilde, or Shakespeare's comedies over his dramas. — Elizabeth Banks

People misconstrue when I say I was a dancer. I was not classically trained. I was a street dancer, and I got to do what I did in the nightclubs of New York City. — Michael K. Williams

As a filmmaker I find it much more rewarding to work with actors who are classically trained. It's about the work and only the work. — George Hickenlooper

My dad actually taught me how to play piano. I was classically trained, but I've started to branch off a little bit into blues and jazz. That's my new thing. — Noah Gray-Cabey

Well, I've been a musician my whole life. When I was two, I would sing the theme from Star Wars in my crib; my mom taped it for proof. Then, when I was five, I asked for a violin. No one knew why I would want one, but my wish was granted and I ended up a classically trained fiddler by age 12. The only problem with that was, when you're a classical violinist, everybody expects you to be satisfied with playing Tchaikovsky for the rest of your life, and saying you want to play jazz, rock, write songs, sing your songs, hook up your fiddle to a guitar amp, sleep with your 4-track recorder, mess around with synths, dress like Tinkerbell in combat boots, AND play Tchaikovsky is equivalent to spitting on the Pope. — Emilie Autumn

I'm kind of floating out there as an artist. I'm in a safe place where I can play a girlfriend or a best friend or a mommy or a lawyer, but a huge part of me is unused. I'm classically trained, historically inclined and somewhat revolutionary by nature, so I'm frustrated as an artist. — Nicole Ari Parker

Sometimes people get really sniffy about the films you choose if you've done more dramatic projects or you're classically trained. — Alan Cumming

The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather. — Jeff Buckley

What people really should be able to be confident in is that the standards of music- making that classically trained musicians present is elite, it is the best and all of us as artists should be committed to that. — Lesley Garrett

I knew from a young age that I could sing and it was impressed upon me that if I got a classically trained education in voice, it would serve as a foundation for whatever I chose to do. — Shuler Hensley

I'm often surprised by classical music and musicians. I've met a large number of them because my wife works for the Boston Symphony, and I'm in that world a lot now. I'm surprised at how difficult it is for people who are classically trained to read music or to memorize music, how difficult it is for them to improvise, to just go off and play. It's sort of, it's like terra incognita. They just, (makes noise) they don't get it. — James Taylor

Written in 1895, Alfred Nobel's will endowed prizes for scientific research in chemistry, physics, and medicine. At that time, these fields were narrowly defined, and researchers were often classically trained in only one discipline. In the late 19th century, knowledge of science was not a requisite for success in other walks of life. — Peter Agre

I actually write film music because I'm classically trained on the piano so as well as songwriting I also write actual film music that could be used for movies like war movies and love movies. — Vanessa Brown

I took vocal lessons all through my childhood and still do. I was classically trained. — Sofia Carson

My mom's a concert pianist, so she started teaching me when I was around seven. When I was eight, I started writing my own songs, and kinda started putting piano and singing together. But I'm trained classically, which is a big influence on me, I think. — Birdy

I'm not classically trained or anything, but I'll rip up a dance floor. — Beau Mirchoff

Being classically trained gave me the real foundation for music. It's so important in my life. Why was I influenced by all these styles of music? Because it gave me a sense of freedom. It made me feel like I could put my hand in a colored bag and pull out a different colored candy and have fun with it. — Lara Fabian

California nurse Jared Axen was holding a dying hospice patient's hand when he began to sing an old hymn. The woman, who didn't speak English, hadn't been responsive in days. But when Axen sang to her, she squeezed his hand, a response that soothed the woman's family. Six years later, Axen, a classically trained musician, sings to some of his patients every day. "It gives them their humanity back," he said. "Music is a common language that helps me connect with my patients." Many patients also claim to feel better and to need fewer pain medications, Axen said. "It's become a vital tool for my patients and their families. — Alexandra Robbins

I used to do a lot of fencing in the theater and a lot of horse riding in the early days, so I'm used to it in a way. If you're classically trained like I am, it's a little bit like mother's milk to me. I enjoy it. — Brian Cox

I didn't go into this business to do action because I'm a classically trained actor. But I'm good at kicking and punching. — Wesley Snipes

But unlike the classically trained, my dancing had no respect for so-called boundaries; I wasn't afraid to break the rules. — Danny Wallace

My wife is a classically trained piano player, and she also orchestrates. — Atticus Ross

Growing up in New England, being schooled and classically trained, it needed to shake, it needed to evolve. — Emeril Lagasse

My first exploration through art was really through music - I've trained classically with piano for about ten years. — Condola Rashad

People who build family businesses are not classically trained. They have to deal with an enormous amount of politics. You think corporate politics are tough? Go work for your dad or your mom. — Gary Vaynerchuk

You almost got me there, at the beginning, with your . . . unorthodox attack. Nothing to it, really, but experienced aggression, but sometimes that's enough to give you an advantage over more classically trained opponents. It's distracting, and not at all expected. If you can finish it then, why, what difference does it make how good you actually are?" Matt — Taylor Anderson

In a way, I'm lucky that I was never classically trained and never went to a music college. I'm just from a normal working class family and happened to get obsessed with music as a teenager. — Imelda May

I'm a classically trained painter, and I was an illustrator in New York working with Fortune 500s companies as well as the NBA and the Olympics. I first got into sculpting when I created a sculpture based on a painting I had done for the 1984 Olympics. — Richard MacDonald

I was classically trained. But more than just the fact that I play violin, there's a lot of classical elements in the way I write, in the way I hear chords. A lot of times, I think of my songs as a symphony made out of electronics rather than instruments. And I love to do orchestral arrangements of my songs after they're done. — Lindsey Stirling

I had joined Yes in 1971. I was a classically trained musician who had worked with numerous artists as a session musician. I played on David Bowie's 'Life On Mars,' Cat Stevens's 'Morning Has Broken' and even on some Des O'Connor records, though I kept that quiet. — Rick Wakeman

There's something to be said for being classically trained on piano, but not having your whole makeup be tied to one instrument. — Victoria Legrand

I'm not classically trained, but I am flawed in a very fantastic way! — Cee Lo Green

My dad's father was a White Star Line trumpet player in the '20s. It shaped the way that I think about music. My grandfather was classically trained, military trained. He was an orphan who ended up in the Military School of Music in Kneller Hall. — Elvis Costello