Top 100 Joshua Bell Quotes
#1. In those projects with Sting and Josh Groban and people like that, I see a very interesting effect: their fans coming to my classical concerts, people who've never been to a classical show at all.
Joshua Bell
#2. My teacher, Josef Gingold, a student of the French school, always loved the music of Saint-Saens and Henri Vieuxtemps and all the French repertoire.
Joshua Bell
#3. Music is a continual learning process. One finds new insights all the time. For me, it began at a very early age; from the beginning, there was something besides the notes.
Joshua Bell
#5. You're really looking for the truth of what the piece is about. And that's going to be different for different people.
Joshua Bell
#6. For me, music has been, in a sense, my religion, and it is what brings me closest to God or truth or whatever you want to call it.
Joshua Bell
#7. When I hear people clapping at the wrong times, I think that's great. We have got a listener that's not used to going to - we have got a new listener.
Joshua Bell
#8. Music - you need the give and take from the audience, the feeling of attention. It's not about me: it's about the music itself.
Joshua Bell
#9. When Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was premiered, after the second movement, they clapped so much that they had the repeat the second movement and do it again.
Joshua Bell
#10. It's very hard to find a pianist that's willing to play the so-called accompanist role on part of the program and yet be capable of being a great solo pianist that you would want for the big sonatas.
Joshua Bell
#11. Over the years, I've seen how being a soloist and having a family can really work.
Joshua Bell
#12. If I read every comment on my YouTube videos, I'd go crazy with people that are saying negative things.
Joshua Bell
#13. I'm addicted to the adrenaline of performing, and I think when you're used to having that high, you look for it in other things.
Joshua Bell
#14. I Came away from the U.S. Memory Championship eager to find out how Ed and Lukas did it. Were these just extraordinary individuals, pridigies from the long tail of humanity's bell curve, or was there something we could all learn from their talents?
Joshua Foer
#15. In 1987, I had no idea who Steven Isserlis was. We met at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. It was originally just an Italian summer festival, but for the past 14 years, there's also been a spring festival in America.
Joshua Bell
#16. It's interesting about classical music that the more you hear something, the more you get to know a piece, the better and better it gets, period, which is just an interesting thing on it.
Joshua Bell
#17. For me, I'm sort of a wanna-be composer, and I love being involved with the arrangements.
Joshua Bell
#18. Good conductors know when to push and when to lay back. I've known so many great conductors that I'm still doing what I can to learn the craft of this role.
Joshua Bell
#19. Over the years, I've collected a lot of musical friends.
Joshua Bell
#20. If you mess up the tiniest little thing in the Beethoven concerto, or the phrasing isn't just exactly perfectly executed, Beethoven brings out the worst in the best violinist. You almost never hear a satisfying performance, because it doesn't play itself.
Joshua Bell
#21. The real architecture happens within the works themselves, and that was done by the composer. That's where the real skill is. In putting together a program, you're more a curator, but that's important as well. And then the interpreting of it is where our big job is.
Joshua Bell
#22. The man on the street, he knows who Beethoven is, he knows who Mozart is.
Joshua Bell
#23. In a way, the highest praise you could give to a composer like Bach was to take and make your own arrangement; it was sort of an homage to that composer and to his work, so it wasn't considered sacrilegious to do something like that.
Joshua Bell
#25. Everyone's definition of what God means can vary. But music is something that really takes you to that - 'sublime' is a great word. That thing that is greater than we are. The beauty, the magic of the universe.
Joshua Bell
#26. The beauty of a Stradivarius is that you can play in Carnegie Hall without any amplification, and it has this - the sound has, inside it, has something that projects, and it has multifaceted sound, something that kind of gets lost when you use amplification anyway.
Joshua Bell
#27. You don't have to have lots of love affairs to know what love is.
Joshua Bell
#28. I think it's really important to always kind of stretch your boundaries and your limits and get out of your comfort zone. And for me, that's very important.
Joshua Bell
#29. As far as I'm concerned, the stakes are always very high. Whether it's playing at the White House or playing for a group in my own house - you know, one of those soirees I play in. Once I start playing, the stakes are somehow higher, in a way, than any of the context.
Joshua Bell
#30. I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.
Joshua Bell
#31. No one tells you what to do if you completely flop at the beginning of a performance.
Joshua Bell
#32. Every orchestra is different. Sometimes, you're blown away by a particular musician. If I'm playing the Brahms concerto, it's crucial to have a great oboe player, because we work in tandem.
Joshua Bell
#33. I want to do everything. That's my problem.
Joshua Bell
#34. I don't want to portray myself as a daredevil. I'm not at all.
Joshua Bell
#35. In art and music, particularly in the 20th century, there was a big period there where for something to be called profound you had to not be able to understand it.
Joshua Bell
#36. I don't sleep with a violin in my bed, but there is something very magical about the instrument. You open up the case; it's a masterpiece, it's gorgeous, the varnish is still there from 300 years ago. People who know violins, they look at it and it's almost like a face.
Joshua Bell
#37. I was lucky enough to have parents who started me on music very early, but most kids don't get that kind of exposure.
Joshua Bell
#38. Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.
Joshua Bell
#39. I use Facebook quite a lot to keep up with my friends, although I had to delete 'Words With Friends' from my phone because it was wasting too much of my time.
Joshua Bell
#40. I learned early on how to make best use of my time. You know, quality is more important than quantity when it comes to practice time. And unfortunately, I still need to practice a lot.
Joshua Bell
#41. Being a director or a conductor is a balance of many things. And to do it right is a very difficult tightrope to walk. I've come to the conclusion that there's really no way to be one hundred percent popular as conductor.
Joshua Bell
#42. Anyone who knows classical music and loves classical music has heard the Beethoven Seventh hundreds of times probably in their life.
Joshua Bell
#43. So much of performing is a mind game. You're memorizing thousands of notes, and if you start thinking about it in the wrong way, everything can blow up in your face.
Joshua Bell
#44. Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people.
Joshua Bell
#45. At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off.
Joshua Bell
#46. I happen to love Saint-Saens in general. I think he's a brilliant composer and sometimes underrated in a way because people like to pass him off as fluffy and not being serious.
Joshua Bell
#47. I kind of alternate between conducting and playing and kind of juggling those things, but I don't use a baton.
Joshua Bell
#48. Although I hardly ever turn on the TV set unless it's football season, I do watch a lot of TV on my iPad - perfect for long airplane journeys.
Joshua Bell
#49. I love the outdoor festival feeling. When I'm on stage, it's very gratifying to watch people on the lawns enjoying the music with a glass of wine.
Joshua Bell
#50. I love pressure in a different sort of way; I enjoy the pressure of getting out and performing for the public. Being compared and judged doesn't seem quite right to me.
Joshua Bell
#51. I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.
Joshua Bell
#52. I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.
Joshua Bell
#53. Bach's music is really some of the greatest. I think, in some ways, Bach is the most profound composer of all.
Joshua Bell
#54. There are some days I take my violin out and it feels dreadful, like nothing is responding, and I want to sell it and get rid of it. And the next day suddenly the skies open up and the sound is glorious again. So it's like a relationship: There are good days and bad days.
Joshua Bell
#55. I hate YouTube sometimes because people put up things of mine that were never meant for consumption and also because of some of the comments people write about my videos.
Joshua Bell
#56. You only live once, so I try to say yes to everything.
Joshua Bell
#57. Obviously, I want it to be legally downloaded, and I myself have spent a fortune on iTunes because, for me, that's the easiest way to get music.
Joshua Bell
#58. Art and music is part of what it means to be a human being. And if you're neglecting that, you're basically ignoring a huge side of the brain and a huge side of what it means to be human.
Joshua Bell
#59. The one thing in my contract that they have backstage for me is bananas. And usually my assistant will go and get me chicken broth.
Joshua Bell
#60. Hamburgers are my favorite thing to eat, period.
Joshua Bell
#61. I love celebrating music in different and unique ways.
Joshua Bell
#62. The great Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, "I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder."17
Rob Bell
#63. I like blackjack. I like the psychology of poker.
Joshua Bell
#64. The best way to refine an interpretation is by getting out and performing.
Joshua Bell
#65. When you play for ticket-holders, you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted.
Joshua Bell
#66. Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.
Joshua Bell
#67. People wrote the most beautiful things during the ugliest times.
Joshua Bell
#68. It's different for people who have not seen a symphony conductor conduct from a chair. I feel very connected to the orchestra in a way that a conductor sometimes does not feel. I think it's more visceral.
Joshua Bell
#69. Criticism is always hard to take - we musicians are sensitive. It's always hard when someone says something negative - but you try to learn to just let it roll off and not worry about it.
Joshua Bell
#70. I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.
Joshua Bell
#71. For some reason I can't explain, artist and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what you're doing and keep your imagination open. That's a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age.
Joshua Bell
#72. We live in the least ugly time in history.
Joshua Bell
#73. A conductor can do wild things which can feel forced, but if you're directing from within the orchestra, you can't do that, things have to feel natural.
Joshua Bell
#74. There are days that I get neurotic with the violin. Every little adjustment will change the balance for good or for bad. It's kind of a miracle, the way the whole thing works as an acoustical whole, so perfectly balanced.
Joshua Bell
#75. I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading.
Joshua Bell
#76. I'm not a businessman, so I don't know how to solve the problems of the recording industry.
Joshua Bell
#77. So many times, I've seen conductors that, every time they have a thought, they stop the orchestra and say it, and I can see the orchestra rolling their eyes and saying, 'Oh, God, he stopped again.' So there's a technique to rehearsing.
Joshua Bell
#78. I open up my violin case every day, and have one of the great creations. It is very inspiring. It makes you want to practice. How can you open up a case and look at a violin that was made in 1713 by one of the greatest artists in history and then say, "No, I don't feel like practicing today."
Joshua Bell
#79. I like trying things, I am kind of adventurous and I like thrill seeking.
Joshua Bell
#80. You're a constant student, as a musician.
Joshua Bell
#81. I started directing chamber orchestras, then adding bigger pieces, adding winds, adding small symphonies. I've always loved chamber music, and I've done a lot.
Joshua Bell
#82. I've been touring for 25 years. I'm used to it, so I love it. Although I feel the tug of home, as I have three little kids, I don't suffer like some artists who constantly complain about how much they hate traveling.
Joshua Bell
#83. When you hear extraneous noise, they are bored in some way, so it makes me upset. Even coughing, I find, is passive-aggressive, usually.
Joshua Bell
#84. As my career has gone on, I guess I've become more well known. I'm playing to fuller halls in general, which is a nice feeling. When you're doing that, you're going to have a certain number of people who are not just the hardcore classical fanatics, and this makes me very happy.
Joshua Bell
#85. In concertos, I stand up, and I conduct with the bow when I'm not playing. During symphonies, I sit, but sometimes I stop playing to conduct. Being seated in a section allows me to feel more like we're playing chamber music, which is how I like to approach it.
Joshua Bell
#86. My whole life, I've been watching conductors. I was 7 the first time I played with a conductor. Seeing the ones that do it well, it's an amazing thing.
Joshua Bell
#87. What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do.
Joshua Bell
#88. After every concert, I greet young people in the lobbies. And I see a huge surge of young people playing music.
Joshua Bell
#89. There are some great teachers who have had great students, but they themselves can't play a note. I don't understand it, because the most I learned from my teacher was just hearing him play.
Joshua Bell
#90. I think music should be the basis of an education, not just something you do once a week.
Joshua Bell
#91. Music plays a huge role in the movie. The music in Star Wars, I can't imagine what the movie would have been like without it. It made the film.
Joshua Bell
#93. 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
#94. As far as doing TV, I do think there's a big audience out there that could enjoy classical music, but they don't know how to find it, and sometimes by doing different things ... crossover things probably make up about 5% of what I do.
Joshua Bell
#95. There was a time, early on in my career, when it was very important for me to be liked by everyone. It meant that I was musically less honest with myself.
Joshua Bell
#96. The great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them. But there are conductors that actually inhibit the players from playing with each other properly.
Joshua Bell
#97. The orchestra confides in me about their music director or their conductor, and I've never seen a conductor that's been liked by everyone.
Joshua Bell
#98. It's endless, the amount of things that music touches on that can help kids grow that are very, very practical.
Joshua Bell
#99. I'm in a position where, theoretically, I could play the same ten concertos and make a very good living bouncing around playing Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Barber, but I really think artists should keep pushing limits and trying new things.
Joshua Bell
#100. I think, as an artist, it's very important to continue to be challenged and feel challenged all the time.
Joshua Bell
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