Quotes & Sayings About Learning While Playing

I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly. — Richard Price

When we were children, letters were like fun toys. We played with them through our building blocks. We colored them in books. We danced and sang along with TV puppets while learning C was for "cookie." Soon, letters turned into words. Words turned into sentences. Sentences turned into thoughts. And along the way, we stopped playing with them and stopped marveling at A through Z. — Ji Lee

- I should be doing my homework now. But the way I look at it, playing in the snow is a lot more important. Out here I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life.
- Such as?
- Procrastination and rationalization. — Bill Watterson

I consider the first 20 performances just learning the piece. Think about it this way: If you think about a pianist who plays a Schubert sonata through his whole lifetime - if you listen to Rubenstein or Horowitz playing their repertoire later in their life, you understand the richness with which they play that music, and how differently they must have played it when they were younger. — Philip Glass

I relax while I work. It's really weird but my job doesn't feel like work at all. That's why I try to do as much as possible. When I'm on the set, learning lines and playing around, I'm relaxed. It's so amazing. — Terry Crews

I suppose I am a frustrated musician so I annoy my family by playing guitar in the house. I used to be into acoustic stuff but my son Joseph is learning drums, so now I have an electric guitar and we play Metallica. We have an amp and a PA in the garage with his drum kit. — Kevin McKidd

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

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning. — B.B. King

This classmate told me that Plato drove this idea home in his dialogue Euthydemus, in which Socrates puts down the Sophists, claiming that a man learns more by "playing" with ideas in his leisure time that by sitting in a classroom. And Plato's successor, that world champion of pleasure, Epicurus, believed in a simple yet elegant connection between learning and happiness: the entire purpose of education was to attune the mind and sense to the pleasures of life. — Daniel Klein

I suppose you mean Camilla?" "Yes, that's the book; such unnatural stuff! An old man playing at see-saw, I took up the first volume once and looked it over, but I soon found it would not do; indeed I guessed what sort of stuff it must be before I saw it: as soon as I heard she had married an emigrant, I was sure I should never be able to get through it." "I have never read it." "You had no loss, I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense you can imagine; there is nothing in the world in it but an old man's playing at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul there is not. — Jane Austen

Caregiving offers many fringe benefits, including the sheer sensory delight of nourishing and grooming, sharing, and playing. But caregiving does buttonhole you; you're stitched in one place ... Paul wasn't on a learning curve but seemed trapped in a circle. He's swoop forward only to loop back again and fall to earth. — Diane Ackerman

There's no winning or losing in this game, only playing, endless playing, you want your adversary to be strong not weak, smart not dumb, you're delighted to trick him and delighted to be tricked by him, boy learns from girl, white learns from black, old learns from young, the teaching is the doing is the beauty is the grace is the humor, endlessly you go on learning, smiling, moving, feinting, never missing a beat. Gingare, the dance of life: the controlled, prolonged, sustained, ineffable excitement of capoeira is like an endless climax. — Nancy Huston

When we meet somebody whose separate tunnel-reality is obviously far different from ours, we are a bit frightened and always disoriented. We tend to think they are mad, or that they are crooks trying to con us in some way, or that they are hoaxers playing a joke. Yet it is neurologically obvious that no two brains have the same genetically-programmed hard wiring, the same imprints, the same conditioning, the same learning experiences. We are all living in separate realities. That is why communication fails so often, and misunderstandings and resentments are so common. I say "meow" and you say "Bow-wow," and each of us is convinced the other is a bit dumb. — Robert Anton Wilson

For a small child there is no division between playing and learning; between the things he or she does just for fun and things that are educational. The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play. — Penelope Leach

Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge - it's the only kind of power no one can take away from you." Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor. — Min Jin Lee

There were some summers when every boy in Ayrshire seemed to be playing golf, and my dad taught me. But he was a terrible teacher - of everything. Learning to drive with him almost killed me. He was the world's most impatient man - awful short fuse. — John Niven

Childhood is for playing and learning. Adulthood is a time for accomplishment and mastery -- the time to provide for ourselves and our loved ones and to fulfill community and workplace responsibilities.

Elderhood is equally as important as childhood and adulthood. It is not a time when we begin to fail at adulthood. It is the time for being, contemplating, and sharing. Let's embrace elderhood and treasure it for the magical time it is. — Judy Cornish

I think L.A. radio is learning from the Bay. The Bay is a very classic place. Mac Mall, C-Bo, all that stuff, they love their artists, they're old school up there. My first big concert was playing in the Bay; I played the Fillmore. — Ice-T

I would rather be on stage playing to 25 people with a band I love and the music I love than learning dance moves I don't want to do for 25,000 people. — Drake Bell

Having fun while learning feels like playing a game. — N.N. Porchezhiyan

My basic profession is as an actor, and I have learnt much about life through working as an actor. Working as an actor is really a spiritual profession, since it means to create life on the stage. It means to play a role totally, while at the same time you know deep down inside yourself that you are not the role that you are playing. Working as an actor gave me early a spiritual discipline, which taught me a lot about awareness and meditation. Life is also about learning to play different roles, and learning to change between different roles with the same easiness that you change shirt. — Swami Dhyan Giten

I was reasonably interested in mathematics in school. Typically what happens is ... when you start playing chess, it takes up a lot of your attention. But about 10 years ago, I found that the Internet is very good to start learning about a lot of subjects. — Viswanathan Anand

Learning is available at the library for free; under a tree with a dog-eared paperback; at a job with a boss who gives you responsibility and mentorship; while traveling; while leading a cause, movement, or charity; while writing a novel or composing a poem or crafting a song; while interning, apprenticing, or volunteering; while playing a sport or immersing yourself in a language; while starting a business; and now, while watching a TED talk or taking a Khan Academy class ... — Michael Ellsberg

...as a pianist, I can't say I was always a big fan of contemporary music. The challenge of late Beethoven, or Mozart, or Schubert seemed to me to be somehow greater or more worthwhile than that of learning difficult, ill-placed notes. To me, the kind of transcendence in the older pieces really was more interesting. That's not to say I didn't love the contemporary pieces I did play. I became very attached to the ones I learned, and I played them with pleasure and absolute commitment. It may be terrible to say this, but playing some of that music is like having a handicapped child. You love it all the more for the problems that it gives you. — Leon Fleisher

Naturally, in 10 years, you change as a person and you learn a lot from your mistakes. You also learn a lot about wasting time and the right way to handle things. We're not touring as much. We're not doing eight or nine months of the year, so I've got a bit more time to get a perspective on what I do. I think I've improved my songwriting. I'm every bit as enthusiastic about playing as ever and I'm still learning. — Rory Gallagher

The evolution of consciousness requires a wide range of opportunities and a playing field that affords almost unlimited options for development. If human life represents a learning process, then society is the ideal school that affords an extremely wide range of options for numerous levels of consciousness to develop, progress, define, identify, and grasp endless subtleties as well as learn more gross lessons. The ego is extremely tenacious and therefore often seems to require extreme conditions before it lets go of a positionality. It often takes the collective experience of millions of people over many centuries to learn even what appears upon examination to be a simple and obvious truth, namely, that peace is better than war or love is better than hate. — David R. Hawkins

When we stop learning in our relationship, whether we are studying, playing or whatever we are doing, and merely act from the knowledge we have accumulated, then disorder comes. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

'SVU' is one of my favorite shows. When I got the call to appear and play myself, I jumped at the chance. Obviously, I went over my lines, but playing yourself is a really great way to get your feet wet in the acting field. I enjoyed being on set and learning as much as I could about the scripted world. — Taylor Hicks

Learning is the only game worth playing in life. — Debasish Mridha

As you're learning your lines and the character you're playing, you're going to make mistakes but I learned more about Shug Avery. I learned my lines, but everything had to be done quickly. — Heather Headley

Th e basic principle of Method acting is that you should draw on your own personal experience - "You know how you felt when you were seven, and your dog died? Well, think about that when you're playing Hamlet." It sounds simple enough, but it involves learning lots of techniques to heighten your capacity for emotional recall. Those techniques were westernized from the original Russian templates by people like Lee Strasberg, who taught James Dean and Al Pacino, and Stella Adler - another teacher in New York at the time - who taught Brando. — Anonymous

High school and college were my punk, formative years. I was playing hardcore, learning to be a musician. In bands, you tour, but you're paid nothing; you're playing to 50 people in a basement, sleeping in a van, and you love it. — Steve Aoki

I think people who basically do one thing like Eric Clapton is great. But I've always enjoyed playing different kinds of music and playing with different kinds of musicians because I find that really interesting, like learning and working with Kip Hanrahan. There's a great conga player called Milton Cardona and he taught me a lot of the nuances, he's a Santeria Priest and so he knows his onions as it were. — Jack Bruce

Man, you'd be surprised how much I'm learning - not only about myself, but about the musicians who came before me. You don't realize at first when you listen to Armstrong's records how great this man was and how hard that Hot Five music was to play. After the experience of reading and playing those parts, I have an even greater respect for Louis Armstrong than before — Freddie Hubbard

By playing games you can artificially speed up your learning curve to develop the right kind of thought processes. — Nate Silver

I really enjoy playing with someone else and whether it's chess or tennis or games, I love card games. I love that, but I think there's something so important to gain from winning and losing and learning how to lose and how you can be better from that. — Hilary Swank

Knowing is a vital part of learning and sharing a vision of what we want to create together. But "how" questions are on the doing side of the model. As in playing tennis, we learn how by doing. There is no other way. We can read books on tennis techniques and strategies. We can get a good tennis player to show us how he or she does it. We can watch players on TV for hours and analyze every stroke. But only by doing will we ever be able to learn how to do it. We may make mistakes but mistakes actually teach us more than our successes. — Fred Lee

Most beginners want to learn lead because they think it's cool .. consequently, they never really develop good rhythm skills .. since most of a rock guitarists time is spent playing rhythm, it's important to learn to do it well .. learning lead should come after you can play solid backup and have the sound of the chords in your head — Eddie Van Halen

My mom had this romantic notion of her children playing classical music. The idea is you learn it when you're still learning language. It's using the same part of the brain. — Andrew Bird

No one had more impact on my career than Gil Hodges. Playing for him was a
learning experience, and he was a tower of strength. Not everbody liked him, but
everybody respected him. He went about his job in a very professional manner,
and it caused me to do the same with my job. — Tom Seaver

Role-playing situations work well for many parents. After deprivation or prenatal exposure to substance, many children have verbal instruction as their weakest learning area, but many have role playing as their strongest. — Deborah D. Gray

than those who are less skilled. The most critical information comes from the bowling hand and its relationship to the bowling arm after front foot contact has occurred. Abernethy is of the view that anticipatory skill develops slowly and requires extensive exposure to adult movement patterns.
Retrospective studies of successful batsmen frequently reveal that these players have experienced large amounts of unstructured practice during their developing years (especially informal activities such as backyard cricket) and have had early exposure to playing against adults. The latter may be important not only in providing early opportunities to start learning the features — Cricket Australia

I started playing guitar back in '56. I was a teenager, and guitars had just come in, and I had a thing for it and got one. Started learning lead breaks from songs, because that was the easiest thing to do at the time. I had the guitar for two years before I learned any chords. Really. — Roger McGuinn

Talent is required, but much of writing is a matter of craft, which develops with time, attention, patience and practice, like playing an instrument or learning to dance. — Susan Wiggs