Playing Violin Quotes & Sayings

The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin and it was as if Juliek's soul had become the bow. He was playing his life ... He played that which he would never play again. — Elie Wiesel

Even though I started playing the violin when I was four, my early chamber music experiences helped build a strong foundation for my solo work, as all music is a rich language and dialogue that is shared on stage, no matter what the size of the ensemble. — Anne Akiko Meyers

If I'm playing a violin thing, for instance, I tend to respond to that sound with the way I finger. — Andy Summers

I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms. — Joshua Bell

I wasn't making it with the violin because I was playing all of the 'long hair' stuff. — Louis Prima

Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice. — Alain De Botton

Your violin has only two strings," I say. "You're missing the other two."
Yes, he says. He's well aware.
"All I want to do is play music, and the crisis I'm having is right here. This one's gone," he says of the missing top string, "that one's gone, and this little guy's almost out of commission." His goal in life, Nathaniel tells me, is to figure out how to replace the strings. But he got used to playing imperfect instruments while taking music classes in Cleveland's public schools, and there's a lot you can do, he assures me, with just two strings — Steve Lopez

I started playing the violin when I was 5, but by the time I was 12 or 13, I wasn't really liking it. — Randy Bachman

More so than with any other instrument, the violin becomes part of the body. Good musicians are physically dissolved when playing, and for violinists, who cannot see where to place their fingers and have nothing to guide them through touch, music must be more than ever about memory than fingertips and breath; the ventage is deeper, more of the self, closer to singing. — Lavinia Greenlaw

I'm not crying about anything or anyone in particular. The life I live I created for myself, and I wouldn't want it any different. I cry because in the universe there is something as beautiful as Kremer playing the Brains violin concerto. — Peter Hoeg

When I first wrote for orchestra, I didn't realize, when you have 20 people playing a violin line, that is very different than one person playing that line. — David Del Tredici

I love classical music and have been playing violin since I was seven. Music helps me to express feelings in a way words often cannot. — Jane Chen

It's the world's smallest violin, playing 'My Heart Pumps Purple Piss for You'. — Stephen King

I was playing violin for a long time, about 6 years. It takes a while. You need very patient people in your house when you have a violin. — Kevin Eubanks

I don't think there is any end to translucence. It's an endless journey, rather like playing the violin. — Arjuna Ardagh

There is a man, playing a violin, and the strings are the nerves in his own arm ... — James O'Barr

But it's the eyes that hold me captive, empty of concentric creek ripples and breezy tree branches playing the sky like my bow plays my violin. — Emily Murdoch

Ah, two firm friends, reunited at last! There should be sweet violin music playing for us, but I'll settle for the screams of the dying. — Jonathan Stroud

Violin playing is a physical art with great traditions behind it. — Vanessa Mae

I am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day. — Itzhak Perlman

I'm being rather a brute to you, aren't I?" he said; "this isn't your idea of a proposal. We ought to be in a conservatory, you in a white frock with a rose in your hand, and a violin playing a waltz in the distance. And I should make violent love to you behind a palm tree. You would feel then you were getting your money's worth. Poor darling, — Daphne Du Maurier

Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat's entrails with horsehair. — Alan W. Watts

I started playing the violin at age 3, and I was very fortunate because there were people who heard me who were influential in getting me auditions. By the time I was 7, I was playing concerts - it was just ridiculous. — Phil Ramone

I grew up in a musical environment. My parents played music and had it playing on the radio. They brought me to a concert at the age of 5, the same age I started violin lessons. — Joshua Bell

Happiness isn't happiness unless there's a violin-playing goat. — Julia Roberts

Pop leadership abuts pop psychology, and is very destructive. In no other serious domain of human endeavor (surgery, playing the violin) is the subject distilled down to nice-sounding aphorisms that mean nothing. — Paul Gibbons

I'm not changing to the point where suddenly I wear floor-length skirts and start playing the violin; I'm just growing up a little bit, I guess. — Denise Van Outen

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age. — Paul Desmond

It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings
his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again ... When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse. — Elie Wiesel

She told Mik, "You have perfect violin-playing muscles."
"And you, with your mighty puppeteer arms. We put the chimaera to shame."
She stopped fanning and fell backward onto the bed. It was a bad bed in a cheap motel, and the flop jarred her teeth. "Ow," she said without conviction.
"Hey. You're turn isn't even half up."
"I know. I just succumbed to ennui."
"Just now."
"Just exactly now. You saw it happen. — Laini Taylor

Add to that six tables of cakes, ices, and punch bowls, a group of seven musicians playing the violin, three hundred candles, and who knew how many courtiers, and the result was a room that made Rachelle feel like she was being punched in the face just by looking at it. — Rosamund Hodge

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 started skiing around the same time as I began playing the piano, at around four, before moving to the violin at five. — Vanessa Mae

At the age of nine, playing the violin at school, and then onto the mandolin. — Noel Redding

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin. — J. Cole

I made the valuable discovery that practicing wasn't a matter of time at all. It was a matter of intensity. Five minutes spent working consciously and hard at the elimination of an error, was worth five hours just playing away ignoring errors as if they hadn't happened. — Leonard Wibberley

It's hard to explain what happens when jazz and punk fuse with a violin twist but it works. Probably because Anson Choi takes off his shirt while he's playing the saxophone. Whoever's not chatting up a Cadet or a girl from Darling House or playing chess with the guys is watching the band. I turn into a
groupie. — Melina Marchetta

Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. — Samuel Butler

I started playing violin when I was six, so I thought I could be a professional. It wasn't until I was 15 when I got into acting classes and realized this was what I wanted to do. — Torrey DeVitto

My mother played the piano and my father the violin, I can remember my dad teaching me how to waltz; I had my feet on his, my mother playing the piano, and my husband will tell you the lessons weren't very successful. — Quentin Bryce

Sometimes the rain
falls
just for you and me

to be the violin
playing
in the background
of our loneliness's song. — Sanober Khan

Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. — Oscar Wilde

The thing that influenced me most was the way Tommy played his trombone. It was my idea to make my voice work in the same way as a trombone or violin-not sounding like them, but "playing" the voice like those instrumentalists. — Frank Sinatra

The only downside to playing the violin is that you never know when you're going to be asked to play. I could be out to dinner or having a drink at a bar, and someone could just give me a violin, and I've got to be ready to play. — Charlie Siem

I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin. — Andrew Bird

Cooking is like playing a violin. The bow is a tool used to play, as is the knives and other tools you use to prepare. (a chef's knife is even held in the same manner) Spices are the notes used in the score. The way the food is cooked and prepared is the rhythm and tempo. The ingredients are the violin themselves, ready to be played upon. The finished dish is the music played to its best melody. All of these things must be applied together at the right pace, manner, and time in order to create a flavourful rush of artwork and beauty. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Magnus didn't look at her; he was looking down at the tent, where Clary sat talking with Tessa, where Alec stood side by side with Maia and Bat, laughing, where Isabelle and Simon were dancing to the music Jace was playing on the piano, the haunting sweet notes of Chopin reminding him of another time, and the sound of a violin at Christmas. — Cassandra Clare

It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert. — Jacques-Yves Cousteau

I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus. — John Lennon

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound. — Andrew Bird

Well, since I'm six years old, I've been playing the violin, the piano, I've been singing. It's always been a dream of mine, but I really never had the courage to actually go and do it professionally. — Paris Hilton

In his writings, Patton was shameless about his ambition to woo Lena to be his bride. He detailed the gradual progress he made, playing music for her on his violin, writing her poems, beguiling her with stories, engaging her in conversation. It was clear that he obsessed over her. He knew what he wanted and never relented until she was his. — Brandon Mull

My grandma has a picture of Louis Farrakhan playing violin in her house. — Shamir

It is very unnatural to dance while playing the violin. I had to practice so hard to learn how to do it, but now it is part of my expression, and it comes naturally. I have to know a song perfectly before I can even begin to move. — Lindsey Stirling

I basically started playing violin at the age of six. That lasted about three years because my previous teacher died and the second teacher didn't really know how to successfully get me going. — Miroslav Vitous

He was gazing at her, the way one did when one felt one was unobserved. He had that look on his face, the look he usually got only when he was playing the violin, as if he were completely caught up and entranced. — Cassandra Clare

It was really amazing. I mean, he'd never mentioned that he played in the symphony, like serious violin playing, not fiddle playing. And he just blew us away. — Guy Clark

All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. — Elie Wiesel

A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin. — Edmond De Goncourt

It is unlikely you will truly get the feeling of the violin until you have been studying for at least a year -- perhaps even two. Then one day the sheer pleasure of playing the instrument will suddenly flow over you. Perhaps it will be when you hear a fine string quartet. Maybe the revelation will come at the concert of an outstanding string orchestra, or better yet, when you are asked to sit in one made of boys and girls your own age. In any case, you will hear the singing strings clearly -- perhaps for the first time -- as the pure, jubilant spirit of music. — Bill Ballantine

I was up playing violin at seven and translating that information to play guitar, piano at eight. — Ronnie Milsap

It's no use practicing too much. First you have to find out how to do it best. You have to be able to invent ways of doing better. Not only practice; obviously you have to practice. But to invent things how to do better. If somebody doesn't know what invention means, he should stop violin playing! You can't explain everything ... Not practicing only: Think how to achieve quality. — Nathan Milstein

Holmes had cultivated the ability to still the noise of the mind, by smoking his pipe and playing nontunes on the violin. He once compared this mental state with the sort of passive seeing that enables the eye, in a dim light or at a great distance, to grasp details with greater clarity by focusing slightly to one side of the object of interest. When active, strained vision only obscures and frustrates, looking away often permits the eyes to see and interpret the shapes of what it sees. Thus does inattention allow the mind to register the still, small whisper of the daughter of the voice. — Laurie R. King

Inside the house, violin music, richer than the darkest chocolate, started playing. It seeped outside and whispered to Scarlett as Julian's smile turned seductive, all shameless curves and immoral promises. An invitation to places that proper young ladies didn't think about, let alone visit. — Stephanie Garber

There's times I've been quite nervous doing session work, such as when I'm asked to play the violin in a 'country and western' style or a 'gypsy' style. I'm not very good at that sort of playing at all. I think it's important as a session musician to have your own voice. — Ric Sanders

A violin is nothing more than a piece of wood and a dead cat. But it's a piece of technology. So when computers came along, in the '70s, I suddenly thought, hang on a second, this is interesting. These things can become an instrument. So I just became very interested in them, and started, playing with electronics. — Hans Zimmer

I'm a little less hungry as an actor than I used to be. When you're a director, you're the conductor of the orchestra, and when you're an actor, you're playing the violin. There's a thrill to each of them, but as the conductor, you get the fuller sound. — Josh Radnor

Happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat. — Richard Curtis

I decided to make spaghetti for lunch again. Not that I was the least bit hungry. But I couldn't just go on sitting on the sofa, waiting for the phone to ring. I had to move my body, to begin working toward some goal. I put water in a pot, turned on the gas, and until it boiled I would make tomato sauce while listening to an FM broadcast. The radio was playing an unaccompanied violin sonata by Bach. The performance itself was excellent, but there was something annoying about it. I didn't know whether this was the fault of the violinist or of my own present state of mind, but I turned off the music and went on cooking in silence. I heated the olive oil, put garlic in the pan, and added minced onions. When these began to brown, I added the tomatoes that I had chopped and strained. It was good to be cutting things and frying things like this. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I could feel in my hands. I liked the sounds and the smells. — Haruki Murakami

Acting is just playing the violin in an orchestra. Directing is being the conductor. — Jason Bateman

Love is not love, without a violin playing goat. — Julia Roberts

I played the violin my whole life. I wanted to play from the time I was just a little kid, and I've always loved dance as well. I wanted to make people smile. I wanted to add an extra energy to my playing and make it visual and make it unique and fun. — Lindsey Stirling

I've decided to make my main priority for the next two years not playing the violin, but training for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. — Vanessa Mae

My mother playing the violin and my father and grandfather playing the piano, classical stuff. — Pete Seeger

I started playing violin because I was fascinated by how violin players could play so fast. I would buy their cassettes, and learn different concertos, but then I started rounding out my collection. My dad was a big jazz fan, so I just started hearing a lot more soul music. I loved Little Stevie Wonder, and I got really into him as a singer and a writer as I got older. — Toby Lightman