Quotes & Sayings About The Piano

There was soot and orphans everywhere, and gaslit cobbled streets full of fog and sinister gentlemen out for a night of illicit murder. It was a strict and unforgiving society; looking at a piano, eating too much butter, dancing with elan
the sour-faced Queen Victoria forbade all these things. And, it was also raining in the London of themdays
dirty grey slabs of rain that left everywhere shining and slippery. — Gideon Defoe

Well I mean I just sit at the piano and maybe figure out some harmony or melody or both. Sometimes you can hear it in your head. Sometimes you don't always have to write it down. You just write it down so you can remember it. — Roy Hargrove

The effect is captivating as all of the tones mix, like a watercolor with hues swirled together, and lovely carrying notes long after the fingers are lifted from the keys. — Thad Carhart

I started playing the piano, pretty much on my own, when I was 5, and I started writing music when I was 7. In fact, I won a composition award. It was a crummy little piece, but I won with it. — Maury Yeston

I started playing in the band and learned to play piano by ear. — Kevin Richardson

Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas. — Peter Ackroyd

This solo piano exploration (Beyond The Sky) by Rob Schwimmer is full of passion and love ... his execution and ideas flow with a beautiful sense of freedom that captures you from his first phrase to the last. — Joe Lovano

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage. My mother is an Evangelist and I used to play the piano at her revival meetings. — Nina Simone

When you want genuine music
music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,
when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo! — Mark Twain

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing. — J. D. Souther

One does not play the piano with one's fingers, one plays the piano with one's mind. — Glenn Gould

We have a piano in this house that exists solely for the purpose of supporting her photograph. — Chris Lynch

People compose for many reasons, to become immortal; because the piano happens to be open; because they want to become a millionaire; because of the praise of friends; because they have looked into a pair of beautiful eyes; or for no reason whatsoever. — Robert Schumann

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar. — Cassandra Clare

The library door is already open when I dash in, but the room is empty. Books line shelves three floors high, and windows just as tall let in rays of dying sunlight. Three balconies wrap above me and a grand piano stands in the center of the bottom level, but there are no people, not even a servant dusting old books in a corner. — Sara Raasch

Ernst Dwinger in his Siberian Diary
mentions a German lieutenant - for years a prisoner in a camp where cold and hunger were almost
unbearable - who constructed himself a silent piano with wooden keys. In the most abject misery,
perpetually surrounded by a ragged mob, he composed a strange music which was audible to him alone.
And for us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished
beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection
which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity. — Albert Camus

Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going. — John Darnielle

I wasn't a jock in school, and by the 10th grade, when I was in boarding school I was carrying water buckets for the girls' hockey team. I was the kid with long hair and glasses and acne trying to learn how to play guitar and piano in the music center. I was not an athlete past the age of 13 or 14 when they start throwing the ball really fast. — Michael Weatherly

I used to play the piano in the band, and so there's some horrendous scenes of me playing the keyboards. — Caroline Corr

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

I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on. — William Hague

There's a lot of intelligence in the hands.When you pick up a shovel, the hands know what to do. The same thing's true of sitting at the piano. — Tom Waits

Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way
through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all. — John Coltrane

I wound up writing a review that asserted her greatness but also said that this was not her career album, and that she could and would do even better than this.

I was in Atlanta, late at night, leaving a piano bar (don't ask), when my cell phone rang and I distractedly picked it up.

'Hello?'

'Peter Cooper?'

The words came out as one: 'Petercooper?'

'Yes.'

'You better get your ass over here right now.'

'Who is this?'

'Petercooper, it's Leeannwomack. Where the hell are you?'

'I'm in Atlanta?'

'Why?'

That one was hard to answer. I paused to ponder.

'Doesn't matter. Get your sorry ass over here right now.'

'I can't. I'm in Atlanta.'

'Well, get in your car and drive to Nashville. 'Cause I'm gonna give you three swift kicks to the groin. — Peter Cooper

At first he had appreciated only the material quality of the sounds which those instruments secreted. And it had been a source of keen pleasure when, below the narrow ribbon the violin part, delicate, unyielding, substantial and governing the whole, he had suddenly perceived, where it was trying to surge upwards in a flowing tide of sound, the mass of the piano-part, multiform, coherent, level, and breaking everywhere in melody like the deep blue tumult of the sea, silvered and charmed into a minor key by the moonlight. But at a given moment, without being able to distinguish any clear outline, or to give a name to what was pleasing him, suddenly enraptured, he had tried to collect, to treasure in his memory the phrase or harmony - he knew not which - that had just been played, and had opened and expanded his soul, just as the fragrance of certain roses, wafted upon the moist air of evening, has the power of dilating our nostrils. — Marcel Proust

With the a cappella groups, every voice is like one string on a guitar, one note on the piano, or one cymbal, and you don't have the luxury of falling back on anything. — Ben Folds

When I was playing piano, it was like, 'I'm going to write a song using all the white keys.' My music director, who knew my jazz background, suggested I try big-band music, so we spent a year experimenting with it in concert, and the audience reaction was really good. — John Tesh

It has sometimes been said that prudery reached such a height in the nineteenth century that people took to dressing their piano legs in little skirts lest they rouse anyone to untimely passion. Thomas — Bill Bryson

Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you've split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays. — Francesca Lia Block

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

Tomas turned the key and switched on the ceiling light. Teraza saw two beds pushed together, one of them flanked by a bedside table and a lamp. Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below. — Milan Kundera

She watched him in the glow of the lamplight, his broad shoulders hunched over the piano, his hair flopping over his face, and knew she couldn't fight her feelings for him any longer. Denying him wasn't going to make them go away. And looking at him right at this moment, she didn't want them to. — Alexandra Potter

Whenever I'm done with an album cycle, I still wanna write music. If I'm bored when I'm at home, which never happens, my first instinct is to go to the piano and bang something out. — Avril Lavigne

Whether you love Bach or would rather listen to a composition produced by Kulitta Software, Bach has and will continue to demand the we approach and answer the question, 'what is the art, science and language of music? — Anastasia Lily

But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach. — Isabelle Huppert

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and my relationship with the piano has been going on for about 38 years. — Cyrus Chestnut

I always just sit down at the piano and make the main hook - what I want the track to be about melodically - and then I'll build everything else around that. But growing up, I did not play any instruments. — Avicii

Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art. — Stephen Sondheim

A piazza is not a plaza. The plaza is the theme park of the piazza; the plaza is the commercial version. A piazza is an empty space with no function. This is what Europeans understand. — Renzo Piano

I read like a crazy person, I play the piano, and I'm a photographer. I always say my photography keeps me sane. I spend a lot of time in the darkroom. It's a very solitary, quiet life when I'm not working. — Alaina Huffman

The choral group. I have even begun to master the organ, not so different from Monsieur's piano. I strained to hear the whisper, as Sister Agnes went on with her thought. The audiences prefer children who are young, too young to be out working for themselves. It pleases them to feel as though they're donating to — Lisa Wingate

At first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody's eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them. — Frances Hardinge

Mostly, in song writing, my experience is that there isn't so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes. But the urge to write is something you have to have. A conviction, an ambition to write and never stop until you think, 'This is the best I can do.' — Bjorn Ulvaeus

The piano has been drinking, not me. — Tom Waits

The beauty of the flute was in its simplicity, in its resemblance to the human voice. It always sounded clear. It sounded alone. The piano, on the other hand, was a network of parts - a ship, with its strings like rigging, its case a hull, its lifted lid a sail. Kestrel always thought that the piano didn't sound like a single instrument but a twinned one, with its low and high halves merging together or pulling apart. — Marie Rutkoski

I liked the piano. I always liked playing. I just hated homework. — Mike Shinoda

As she trotted down the stairs, she saw Blake stand up, tucking his piano in his pocket. The day's bright sun had him trapped in his spot in the shade. She stepped into his cover and kissed him.
"Thanks for the roses. And Teddy loves his bow." She brushed her hands through his hair. — Debra Anastasia

I always thought of myself as the piano player in the band. That, I suppose, I'm confident about, and I guess my songwriting developed as I went along and I got a certain amount of confidence in that. The songs are like my kids, I'm proud of all of them for one reason or another. — Billy Joel

You hear lots of notes, don't you? Some have a major sound. Some have a minor sound. But there's not one blue note among all these black and white keys. The real blues, the soul of the sound, comes from the spaces in-between. — David Mutti Clark

My mom tells this story that even when I was in the womb, my father played the piano and she sang. So, before I officially got here, I was already surrounded by music. I also like the way my father explains it. When I was about 3-years old, in order to keep me quiet, my father would put me in the bassinet and either put on some music or play the piano. When he started playing, I got quiet and eventually went to sleep. He said by the time I turned 3, I just climbed up on the piano and started playing it with the attitude of I'm gonna play dis here piano. — Cyrus Chestnut

Cole," I breathed, "what have you done to yourself?"
The wolf's head jerked back toward its shoulders, again and again.
Cole sang from the speakers, his voice slow and uncertain against a sparse backing of just piano, a different Cole than I'd ever heard:
If I am Hannibal
where are my Alps? — Maggie Stiefvater

It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and meter rhythm. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains, which he himself could never hope to hear. — John Ruskin

I'd never heard of them, but at that moment, it was the best song I'd ever heard. I went out and bought Ten and listened to it on repeat. When I listened to track five, "Black," it was like I was there, in that moment all over again.
After the summer was over, when I got back home, I went to the music store and bought the sheet music and learned to play it on the piano. I thought one day I could accompany Conrad and we could be, like, a band. — Jenny Han

Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. — Charles Bukowski

The waiter had set down the hot drinks, and the steam did feel glorious. The piano played Satie ever so softly. Life was almost worth living, even for a son of a bitch of a monster like myself. — Anne Rice

The unchanging Man of history is wonderfully adaptable cloth by his power of endurance and in his capacity for detachment. The fact seems to be that the play of his destiny is too great for his fears and too mysterious for his understanding. Were the trump of the Last Judgement to sound suddenly on a working day the musician at his piano would go on with his performance of Beethoven's Sonata and the cobbler at his stall stick to his last in undisturbed confidence in the virtues of the leather. And with perfect propriety. For what are we to let ourselves be disturbed by an angel's vengeful music too mighty for our ears and too awful for our terrors ? Thus it happens to us to be struck suddenly by the lightning of wrath. The reader will go on reading if the book pleases him and the critic will go on criticizing with that faculty of detachment born perhaps from a sense of infinite littleness and wich is yet the only faculty that seems to assimilate man to the immortal gods. — Joseph Conrad

I like to play the piano with lyrics as if it was a piece of love letter. — Yoochun

Whenever I record something, I always believe that it's worthy of inclusion in the pantheon, and I would certainly like pianists to pay more attention to it. I think it's ridiculous now, because the range of repertoire - or what's considered 'safe' - is so narrow, even though there are pianists who are really trying to push the envelope. There is still a lack of attention, and there's no reason for it. The piano repertoire is so rich, with so many wonderful things that still are not given their due. — Marc-Andre Hamelin

When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff. — Trey Parker

In 1972, I recorded Gumbo, an album that was both a tribute to and my interpretation of the music I had grown up with in New Orleans in the 1940s and 1950s. I tried to keep a lot of the little changes that were characteristic of New Orleans, while working my own funknology on piano and guitar. — Dr. John

Fundamentally I feel that there is as much difference between the stage and the films as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both. — Ethel Barrymore

The piano sounds like a carnival and the microphone smells like a beer. And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, man, what are you doing here? — Billy Joel

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece. — Lady Gaga

Someone skipped on the rent and they left behind a huge upright piano, which got moved into our apartment so the other apartment could get rented out. I took to it and started playing. — Cy Coleman

Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings. — Wassily Kandinsky

Steinway is the finest piano ever made. Its tone is magnificent and its well-balanced action superb. — Billy Taylor

Strike the concertina's melancholy string!
Blow the spirit-stirring harp like any thing!
Let the piano's martial blast
Rouse the Echoes of the Past — W.S. Gilbert

I'm told I was acting in school plays when I was a tiny little boy at the age of three, so they must have seen something then. And even when I was practicing piano eight hours a day, I was still doing school plays. — Christian McKay

I play the piano and write music. — Anwar Robinson

Good Lord's been kind to me, that's all I can say. I wake up in the morning with music in my head a lot of times. I won't say every morning, but I wake up in the morning sometimes with eight bars in my head and I just go to the piano. — Horace Silver

I love playing the piano. I have one in my apartment, and I learnt by ear. I sing a lot of Coldplay, but do my own stuff too. — Christopher Egan

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides. — Artur Schnabel

Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped down a flight of stairs. — Francis Crick

Blake sat down as well, facing her. The moon now claimed the sky as hers, surfacing slowly over the trees. Blake tested her hand-drawn keys, and in his head he heard a full piano play his heart out loud for her.
Livia clapped when he was done. She put her hand behind his head and pulled his lips close. "I think I heard it," she whispered before kissing him. — Debra Anastasia

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative. — Jane Campion

Its always important to fall back on your instincts and core beliefs and that was pretty hard for me to do but trusting in my self the way I trusted that if I were to sit at a piano for two hours and I was going learn something, that trust I'd put in myself really helped me get through it. For five to six months I just wrote songs and believed they would turn out to be things I could be proud of and be happy. — James Vincent McMorrow

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. — Henry David Thoreau

Music has an alchemical quality. And there's more than one voice on the piano. You have two hands. One can be playing a celestial melody while the other is doing quite the opposite. The joining of the profane and the sacred, or the passionate and the compassionate, happens right there on the keyboard. — Tori Amos

Then I was playing the piano at eight, and that helps you learn about women because most of the people I was playing for were women. — Jamie Foxx

I cannot really play. Either at piano or at life; never, never have I been able to. I have always been too hasty, too impatient; something always intervenes and breaks it up. But who really knows how to play, and if he does know, what good is it to him? Is the great dark less dark for that, are the unanswerable questions less inscrutable, does the pain of despair at eternal inadequacy burn less fiercely, and can life ever be explained and seized and ridden like a tamed horse or is it always a mighty sail that carries us in the storm and, when we try to seize it, sweep us into the deep? Sometimes there is a hole in me that seems to extend to the center of the earth. What could fill it? Yearning? Dispair? Happiness? What happiness? Fatigue? Resignation? Death? What am I alive for? Yes, for what am I alive? — Erich Maria Remarque

Here in New Orleans, what a lot of the musical families do - and this is a romantic concept on my part - is they teach their kids to tap dance first. Then after tap dance, you learn piano, and after piano, you get to pick between all the instruments that are out there. — Dave Pirner

I enjoy playing the audience like a piano. — Alfred Hitchcock

I could feel everything. From the tragic cellos, to the tender sounds of the piano giving awe to my touch. My body slowly swayed to the sweet feel of the air sweeping over me. I felt myself being taken away as the hearts of my fans soared with me. — Charles Lee

Do you know my best quality?" she asks.
"Of your many, I could not say, my darling."
"I see the best in people. I fall in love with people when I see a window into their beings, their shining moments. I've fallen in love with so many people but the trouble is I fall out of love so quickly too. I see the worst in them just as easily.
"Do you know I fell in love with you right away? That day at the Trotters' I had noted you because you were new, of course, and then you sat down at the piano, and you played a few notes, but you played them so well, with no self consciousness, and no idea that anyone might be listening. It was in that room off the garden and you were the only one there. I was passing through on the way to the ladies' room and saw you there. I fell in love with you right then, and so I slipped my drink all over myself so I could meet you." — Janice Y.K. Lee

My favorite band at the moment is the Dresden Dolls, they're from Boston. It's a guy and a girl. She plays piano and he plays the drums and she also sings. You can find them on the web they're incredible. — Gerard Way

I started playing piano; I picked up a ukulele, and I loved it and kept playing that. I play a bit of guitar, and some African drums from back in the day. — Max Schneider

On television I feel like a man playing piano in a brothel; every now and again he solaces himself by playing 'Abide with Me' in the hope of edifying both the clients and the inmates — Malcolm Muggeridge

All too frequently the amateur will purchase a fine modern camera and proceed to use it for making the most elementary simple snapshots. This surely is like playing 'Chopsticks' on a concert grand piano. — Sam Haskins

I get twitchy if I don't pick up a guitar or sit at the piano every now and then ... I have to do it; I don't have a choice. — Julian Lennon

A guitar riff played on a piano doesn't come close to the purity of it being played on a guitar but I faked it enough to get by. — Barry Mann

I couldn't wait to get out of the car. The first thing I did was smell the air. I closed my eyes and took a breath, the biggest breath of my life, knowing I was taking the biggest breath of my life. I was taking a breath to smell Shepelevo. Breathing in Shepelevo was like hitting the right note on the piano. There was only one right note. When I was young, Shepelevo was the smell of nettles, of salted smoked fish, of fresh water from the Gulf of Finland, and of burning firewood, all wrapped up in one Shepelevo. As it had been, so it was. Across two continents, a dozen countries, twenty cities, three colleges, two marriages, three children, three books, and twenty-five years of another life, I breathed it and smelled the air. Nowhere else in the world had it. "Papa," I said, my voice breaking. "Do you think we could photograph the smell?" He gave me a look and then laughed. — Paullina Simons

With every job I've gotten, I've bought myself something. When 'Glee' was picked up, I rented a piano for the year. For smaller victories, I'll go to dinner with a friend, or go for a walk and think about it all. It's important to say to yourself, Today was a good day. — Dianna Agron

Walking into the library, I took in my breath sharply and stopped: glass fronted bookcases and Gothic panels, stretching fifteen feet to a frescoed and plaster-medallioned ceiling. In the back of the room was a marble fireplace, big as a sepulchre, and a globed gasolier
dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading
sparkled in the dim.
There was a piano, too, and Charles was playing, a glass of whiskey on the seat beside him. He was a little drunk; the Chopin was slurred and fluid, the notes melting sleepily into one another. A breeze stirred the heavy, moth-eaten velvet curtains, ruffling his hair. — Donna Tartt

I couldn't help but feel very different from everybody, so I think that's why I found such a big world in music, and that's why I kind of - I was an introvert as a kid, but I loved the piano, and that's where I felt at home. — Emeli Sande

When there's a piano to be moved, don't reach for the stool. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

All my musical foundations go back to the age of 3. My family tell me that I used to listen to the old crystal set, then go to the piano and pick out the tune that I just heard. — George Shearing

The piano is just a different animal. It's expensive, it's big, it's heavy, and it doesn't fit in the mix easily. Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible - it wasn't an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture. — Ben Folds

Write great songs that sound amazing if sung and played on the piano or acoustic guitar. Always encourage sing-alongs! Be prolific! Say "Yes" to new collaborations because you never know where it could lead. — Wendy Starland

The real you is still a little child who never grew up. Sometimes that little child comes out when you are having fun or playing, when you feel happy, when you are painting, or writing poetry, or playing the piano, or expressing yourself in some way. These are the happiest moments of your life - when the real you comes out, when you don't care about the past and you don't worry about the future. You are childlike. — Miguel Ruiz

Suddenly, as one, all the Greys stop talking and gape at Christian.
What?
Christian is singing softly to himself at the piano. Silence descends on us all as we strain to hear his soft, lyrical voice. I've heard him sing before, haven't they? He stops, suddenly conscious of the deathly hush that's fallen over the room. Kate glances questioningly at me and I shrug. Christian turns on the stool and frowns, embarrassed to realize he's become the center of attention.
'Go on,' Grace urges softly. 'I've never heard you sing, Christian. Ever. — E.L. James