Pianist Quotes & Sayings

My father was a banker, but he was an independent spirit. He was a very good pianist and very much into music. — Yoko Ono

It's all very well having a great pianist playing but it's no good if you haven't got anyone to get the piano on the stage in the first place, otherwise the pianist would be standing there with no bloody piano to play. — Ian Holloway

But most of the time, with a contented resignation that comes normally to a man only at the end of a long and busy life, he sat before the keyboard and filled the air with his beloved Bach.
Perhaps he was deceiving himself, perhaps this was some merciful trick of the mind but now it seemed to Jan that this what he had always wished to do. His secret ambition had at last dared to emerge into the full light of consciousness.
Jan had always been a good pianist, and now he was the finest in the world. — Arthur C. Clarke

Singers actually used to begin singing at a much younger age than they do now. I would say for me, I started late. But it's not unusual. I discovered I had a voice. I wanted to be a pianist when I was seven, and circumstances didn't allow that I studied it. — Dolora Zajick

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

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

I am the pianist of the duo, although Aleksey does pretty good ... you know we've written more and more stuff where he has to play the piano. But you know, to be very honest, I actually went into music because I wanted to be a composer and a conductor. And piano was just one of the ways to get into that. — Richard Hyung-ki Joo

My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music. — Carla Bruni

You cannot play the piano by telling a pianist what to do, go a little more to the left or to the right. And the same is for the computer, really. You have to play yourself to get the most out of it. — Massimo Vignelli

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

To search for a pianist, it is very difficult; sometimes you find one. — Victoria De Los Angeles

Mathematicians - for what they do - are really poorly rewarded. And it's a very competitive field, almost as bad as being a concert pianist. — Gian-Carlo Rota

It is not a profession to be a pianist and musician. It is a philosophy, a conception of life that cannot be based on good intentions or natural talent. First and foremost there must be a spirit of sacrifice. — Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

I was like a well trained pianist who knows which note to hit, but can't make the music his own. — David Benioff

It's a pity to shoot the pianist when the piano is out of tune. — Rene Coty

My mother adores singing and plays piano. My uncle was a phenomenal pianist. My brother John is a double bassist. I used to play the piano, badly, and cello. My brother Peter played violin. — Fiona Shaw

I sat on the piano bench next to my mother in church. Something happened before I set foot on this planet. I was crawling around inside of her. She was a church pianist. My dad was a brilliant singer. I was hearing it. — Al Jarreau

Steinway is the only piano on which the pianist can do everything he wants. And everything he dreams. — Vladimir Ashkenazy

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

Whenever I open a book about jazz, I turn to the index and look for Lennie Tristano, the incredible pianist; Lee Konitz, the luminous alto sax player; and Warne Marsh, the tenor player who captured some of the most beautiful sounds in the world. — Carolyn See

Newspapers ascribe the word "climber" to any person who falls in the mountains or off a rock. To refer to anyone who falls in the mountains as ... a climber ... is as factual as to say that anyone who sits down at a piano is a pianist. — Pat Ament

Then, for a hot three or four weeks I wanted to be a concert pianist. — Frank Langella

I've loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother's a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs. — Rachel Bloom

I have been like a mediocre concert pianist playing in front of a tone-deaf family, who applaud out of duty rather than for accomplishment. — Chris Murray

I started off as a studio pianist in Hollywood. — Skitch Henderson

Rachel, who before her marriage had been a promising pianist, and now sat with the baby on her knee, picking out nursery tunes with one finger. Nev said it wouldn't be like that, and she believed him - or at least she believed he meant it - but it would, because marriage changed everything. It had its own logic, its own laws, and they were independent of the desires and intentions of those who entered into it. She felt a moment's pleasure in the cynicism of this perception, though God knows it was depressing enough. — Pat Barker

Many in Hollywood viewed the public persona of the young Debbie Reynolds as demure and vulnerable to be a complete facade. Pianist Oscar Levant once quipped, "She's as wistful as an iron factory." — Elizabeth Taylor

Investing in a startup does not make you an entrepreneur any more than buying a grand piano makes you a concert pianist. — Jeffrey Fry

Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg imply a type of pianist who is intellectual. That's not always associated with female soloists. — Jeffrey Tate

When Hank Jones had his night off, I would get somebody to take my place as intermission pianist and I'd play the show with Ella, so I would get a chance to play with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as well. — George Shearing

I actually think that many of the musicians who have something meaningful to say don't win competitions. An incredible pianist like Horowitz had so much to say, but he might not win anything in competition because of his wrong notes. — Charlie Albright

I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone. — Anthony Hopkins

When you think of diversity, George Duke fits that bill better than a lot of people. He's played a lot of straight-ahead jazz with people like Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley; he's played a lot of fusion with his own groups, with Stanley Clarke; and, you know, he did the rock thing with Frank Zappa. He's written all kinds of big arrangements for people like Burt Bacharach. So, he's covered the board. He's still a great pianist. — Christian McBride

My father was a stone mason, and a talented amateur pianist and vocalist. — John E. Walker

Oscar Peterson is my favorite all-around pianist. There are pianists I like because of one thing and pianists I like because of another. But overall, I like Oscar Peterson best. — Carmen McRae

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

The pianist smiled at him, a smile of amusement with only the barest hint of apology. And not the least bit of shame. Fuck.
No ... not that. Anything but that . Whatever hope had been in Kingsley's heart a second earlier shattered and died like the last stray note of a symphony. The old love, the old desire coursed through his veins and into his heart, and there was no stopping it. He met the blond pianist's eyes - the priest's eyes - and released the breath he'd forgotten he'd been holding.
"Mon Dieu ... "
My God. — Tiffany Reisz

When I was very young, I remember my mother telling me about a friend of hers in Germany, a pianist who played a symphony that wasn't permitted, and the Germans came up on stage and broke every finger on her hands. I grew up with stories of Nazis breaking the fingers of Jews. — Steven Spielberg

Once in a while, a teacher gets rewarded with a brilliant student. My two years with Dan Szabo at the New England Conservatory were indeed a gift
he is a pianist with unlimited potential and a composer that makes my heart sing. I deeply feel that he is an important musician for the coming years. — Bob Brookmeyer

I come from a wonderful family. My mother was a pianist and my father was a salesman. They were very middle-class, very middle-Western. — Charles Kimbrough

One last thing I remember which was like a portent of things to come. We had been having tea in Dr Jordan's house in Baghdad. He was a good pianist, and was sitting that day playing us Beethoven. He had a fine head, and I thought, looking at him, what a splendid man he was. He had seemed always gentle and considerate. Then there was a mention by someone, quite casually, of Jews. His face changed; changed in an extraordinary way that I had never noticed on anyone's face before. He said: 'You do not understand. Our Jews are perhaps different from yours. They are a danger. They should be exterminated. Nothing else will really do but that.' I stared at him unbelievingly. He meant it. It was the first time I had come across any hint of what was to come later — Agatha Christie

I ... started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out. — Nat King Cole

I wanted to be a jazz pianist, but I wasn't good enough. I got into city college because I didn't have the grades to get into university. I took acting because it was a way to get three credits. I just needed three credits and my friend told me to take acting because it was like gym - nobody fails you. I took it and that's literally how I got involved in acting. — Dustin Hoffman

I've had to ban my mum from coming to see me play. She gets so nervous before any show. I've always got a few nerves but she's so much worse than me. You'd think she'd be able to handle that kind of situation. After all, she is a concert pianist. — Birdy

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary. — Billy Joel

I don't think I'm even close to fulfilling my potential. And I think also that, unlike a pianist or a flutist, an actor has an instrument that is constantly changing. — Kerry Washington

I know a flute player is technically called a "flautist," but something about it sounds a little sketchy, as does "pianist," so I will refrain. — Julie Halpern

AB is an admirer of Les Dawson. AB says that only an extremely accomplished pianist could to play as badly as Les Dawson (pretends to do). Maybe it's the same with S. Beckett. He could write a really good (sensible) play that everyone would get, but he doesn't.
Like Les Dawson, he's pretending to be crap. Which you can only do if you're a genius. — Nina Stibbe

Music informs my work so intensely. The better actor I become, the better pianist I become, and vice versa. — Janina Gavankar

...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

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

I began ear training when I was about six months old. My mother was a concert pianist, and she started all of her children with music before they were a year old. Then she began to see that I had a musical gift. — Twyla Tharp

Empty-page staring again tonight. It's maddening. I suppose people who don't write (like the Connollies) imagine anything that can be though can be expressed. Well, I don't know. I can't do it. It's this sort of thing that makes me belittle the whole business: what's the good of a 'talent' if you can't do it when you want to? What should we think of a woodcarver who couldn't woodcarver? or a pianist who couldn't play the piano? Bah, likewise grrr. — Philip Larkin

When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany. — Andrea Bocelli

They wanted me to be a concert pianist, because I had a very good right hand, but my left hand's terrible and I hated performing. — Stephen Sondheim

I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi. — Frederic Chopin

I told him what I thought and he suddenly leapt into the air with joy, like a child: 'Also, wirklich, gut?' [So it was really good?]. Such a titan, and so unsure of himself. — Sviatoslav Richter

I like Stevie Wonder as my favorite non-pianist pianist. I mean, I shouldn't call him a non-pianist, because he's really a great pianist, but he doesn't feature it that much - he uses his keyboards and his piano technique to support his great songs and so forth, but he can really blow. — Chick Corea

I was the first person in my family born in the United States. My mom is from Croatia, and my dad is from Iran. They met at music school in Belgium. I grew up as a pianist. — Ottessa Moshfegh

Baton technique is to a conductor what fingers are to a pianist. — Igor Markevitch

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

These hands are steady enough, but they are large. Had he been a proper pianist - he's dabbled inexpertly - his ten-note span might be of use. — Ian McEwan

That Raymond was something," Nestor said. "Very talented."
"Perhaps not the best pianist." Bocha grimaced apologetically, as if compelled to put that evaluation on the record.
"He used to tell me he was basically faking it on the piano," Pescatore said. "He said he played just well enough to get into trouble. — Sebastian Rotella

Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it. — Nat Wolff

I find that in California I can't find guys that have enough energy. They play a little bit and that's about it. They play less. If I start a tune and then the pianist has to solo, I am looking to everybody to get to a certain climate and then I come back in while the energy is up high. Somehow that doesn't happen. — Pharoah Sanders

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well ... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven. — Irwin Shaw

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

One may be an excellent pianist, mathematician, gardener, or scientist and still be cranky and jealous, but in the West one can be considered a great moralist and yet not live by one's moral principles. We must simply recall here the Buddhist requirement that a person and his or her teachings be compatible. Ethics is not like any ordinary science. It must arise from the deepest understanding of human qualities, and such understanding comes only when one undertakes the journey of discovery personally. An ethic that is built exclusively on intellectual ideas and that is not buttressed at every point by virtue, genuine wisdom, and compassion has no solid foundation. — Matthieu Ricard

When I do operas, I'm not really singing very classically. I have a classical background as far as being a pianist and an oboist, but my voice isn't really classical in the operatic sense. But I certainly have a classical sensibility, so I'm comfortable being in that world. — Jason Graae

I'm by no means a pianist. I think that's safe to say, but the piano, for me, I would say it's the enabler. It gave me what I needed and gives me what I need in order to write a song. And I think playing or improvising on the piano is where I feel most liberated and sort of less conscious of all my insecurities or inadequacies. — Laura Mvula

I practiced writing in every possible way that I could. I wrote a pastiche of other people. Just as a pianist runs his scales for ten years before he gives his concert: because when he gives that concert, he can't be thinking of his fingering or of his hands, he has to be thinking of his interpretation. He's thinking of what he's trying to communicate. — Katherine Anne Porter

There's a difference between doing something and being something, but they merge into each other. I mean, you play the piano a bit, and then more and more, and at some point you become a pianist. That's who you are. — Nicci French

Shook is the musical universe I created. I come from a classical and jazz background and my father is a jazz pianist, so my world bears largely the marks of this influence. As a sort of gateway, I started composing my own music on the computer at the age of 13. Before Shook, I had not yet discovered the kind of music I wanted to dedicate myself to, so I did a little of everything. — Shook

I'm a concert pianist, that's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment. — Oscar Levant

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

To wake up one day and be Steinway and Glen in One... Glen Steinway, Steinway Glen, all for Bach. — Thomas Bernhard

When a pianist sits down and does a virtuoso performance he is in a technical sense transmitting more information to a machine than any other human activity involving machinery allows. — Robert Moog

Inside the music like this, she understood many things. She understood that Simon was a disappointed man if he needed, at this age, to tell her he had pitied her for years. She understood that as he drove his car back down the coast toward Boston, toward his wife with whom he had raised three children, that something in him would be satisfied to have witnessed her the way he had tonight, and she understood that this form of comfort was true for many people, as it made Malcolm feel better to call Walter Dalton a pathetic fairy, but it was thin milk, this form of nourishment; it could not change that you had wanted to be a concert pianist and ended up a real estate lawyer, that you had married a woman and stayed married to her for thirty years, when she did not ever find you lovely in bed. — Elizabeth Strout

I wanted to be a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall; that is what I wanted to do from really early on. — Kirsten Nelson

There were two things I used to do to seduce girls: jokes and music. Since I'm not a great pianist, jokes were my thing. — Gad Elmaleh

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

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a racing car not called a racist? — Steven Wright

I'm lucky enough to be doing my dream job, but my second dream job would be to be a concert pianist. — Robert Emms

Somewhere in the city, an orange cat finished chewing on a marjoram plant next to his studio apartment's door and leapt purring onto the shoulder of his owner, home early from work. Somewhere in the city, a young Chinese pianist sat down at a rehearsal hall and let his fingers play the first opening notes of the Emperor Concerto, notes that would envelop the small girl in row D of the Philharmonic that night in a shimmering cloud. A boy in Staten Island touched his finger to the lower back of the girl who had been just a friend until then. A woman in Hell's Kitchen stood in her dark attic garret, her paintbrush in hand, and stepped back from the painting of chartreuse highway and forest-green sky that had taken her two years to complete. A clerk in a Brooklyn bodega tapped her crimson fingernail on a box of gripe water, reassuring the new mother holding a wailing baby, and the mother's grateful smile almost made both of them cry themselves. — Stephanie Clifford

When a young pianist hits a wrong note, we don't say he is not worthy to keep practicing. We don't expect him to be flawless. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now we can be content with progress in the right direction. Why is this perspective so easy to see in the context of learning piano but so hard to see in the context of learning heaven? — Brad Wilcox

I grew up in this industry. I'm a third generation actor, and I believe strongly that life and career are two different things. Career is inside my life. I'm also a photographer, a pianist, and lots of different things, so my life consists of so many different elements that there are moments when I have to step away and be me. — Alaina Huffman

I'm a first - I was the first person in my family born in the United States. My mom is from Croatia, and my dad is from Iran. They met at music school in Belgium. I grew up as a pianist. I was really interested in piano and sort of discovered that I was a writer when I was about 13 and started writing. — Ottessa Moshfegh

I went to this boy's choir school when I was growing up, and I think that the first time that I consciously started making music was when this one kid joined our class. He was an amazing pianist and would come up with all these ideas. I've always had a really competitive side, so I saw him doing that, and was like, "I have to try writing songs as well." — St. Lucia

He was waiting for me at the best table in the room, toying with a glass of white wine and listening to the pianist who was playing a piece by Granados with velvet fingers. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We must take arms each and every day, perhaps knowing that the battle cannot be entirely won, but fight we must, if only a gentle bout. The smallest effort to win means, at the end of each day, a sort of victory. Remember that pianist who said that if he did not pratice every day he would know, if he did not practice for two days, the critics would know, after three days, his audiences would know.
A variation of this is true for writers. Not that your style, whatever that is, would melt out of shape in those few days.
But what would happen is that the world would catch up with and try to sicken you. If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. — Ray Bradbury

'The Pianist' is a movie I could watch over and over again. — Vidal Sassoon

When we hear a Mozart piano concerto today, we're most likely to hear the piano part played on a modern concert grand. In the hands of a professional pianist, such a piano can bury the strings and the winds and hold its own against the brass. But Mozart wasn't composing for a nine-foot-long, thousand-pound piano; he was composing for a five-and-a-half-foot-long, hundred-and-fifty-pound piano built from balsa wood and dental floss. — Robert Greenberg

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

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of. — Amy Tan

I was for a minor amount of time but I was probably a better pianist at 15 than I am now. — Josh Silver

Playing Rachmaninoff was like walking on a rope bridge across a gorge with dreamy skies above and a raging, muddy river below. — Ella Leya

Duke Ellington is my choice for many reasons. Nobody has written so many great pieces of music, which are everlasting, and he has made them available to the world through his orchestrations of his work in a unique way. Lastly, he was himself a fine pianist. He covers the entire musical spectrum with his genius. — Marian McPartland

I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist. — Donald Fagen

There is a kind of classlessness in the theater. The rehearsal pianist, the head carpenter, the stage manager, the star of the show-all are family. — John Kander

I have a good friend, Rudolf Serkin, the pianist, a very sensitive man. I was talking to him one day backstage after a concert and I told him that I thought he had played particularly sensitively that day. I said, "You know, many pianists are brilliant, they strike the keys so well, but somehow you are different." "Ah," he said, "I don't think you should ever strike a key. You should pull the keys with your fingers." — Andrew Wyeth