Quotes About Pianists

#1. A mission that comes from the heart to promote these things and to encourage composers to write, then of course they should do it. And there are more than a few pianists these days who do this, fortunately.

Marc-Andre Hamelin

#2. I don't record for my own glory.I mean, of course part of it is for career advancement, but more importantly, I want some of that repertoire - as much of it as possible - to remain and enter pianists' consciousness and, hopefully, into the standard repertoire.

Marc-Andre Hamelin

#3. tidying with what a couple of the other pianists had called her obsessive-compulsive neatness. Well, could she help it if she liked the sheet music alphabetized? And then put in numerical order according to the year it was written?

Elizabeth Bevarly

#4. When I was studying ... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.

Nina Simone

#5. Pianists don't argue too much generally because we have such a hard time just getting things right; arguing is for string players.

Emanuel Ax

#6. Back in the Stone Age, before there were workshops, it was a very difficult idea to get into musical theatre. Normally, you would be a chorus girl or boy and write something. People would get their start as rehearsal pianists or dance assistants.

Maury Yeston

#7. Some pianists seem to really remember the keys and not so much the notes they play. They want to learn until it's a physical habit that can be replicated. For pianists, this is much more of a problem than for other instruments, like the violin, where you actually have to think of the pitch.

Carlo Grante

#8. I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby.

Barbara Kingsolver

#9. Bob Erlendson, a local piano player, taught me chord structure and which scales go along with them. Later, I began listening to [pianists] Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. Then I got interested in [saxophonist] John Coltrane.

Lenny Breau

#10. The irrepressible spirit that made his playing seem like good conversation is the Rubinstein legacy for pianists, if they can pick up their heads from the keyboard long enough to claim it.

Donal Henahan

#11. It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

Franz Liszt

#12. There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists.

Vladimir Horowitz

#13. As a young child, I thought that all pianists played everything. I mean, I thought anything on piano - any piano music, all pianists played it.

Allen Toussaint

#14. Roaring like a tiger turns some children into pianists who debut at Carnegie Hall but only crushes others. Coddling gives some the excuse to fail and others the chance to succeed.

Ayelet Waldman

#15. Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary.

Anton Rubinstein

#16. Few of us boggle - though we should - at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists.

Terry Teachout

#17. I don't think I handle the notes much differently from other pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, there is where the artistry lies!!

Artur Schnabel

#18. In the rather informal survey I have taken over the years on intensity of interest in food by profession, lawyers rank only a few trades below concert pianists ...

Calvin Trillin

#19. I'm one of those pianists who tends to ignore every existing recording and lots of traditions about playing pieces when I start.

Jeremy Denk

#20. You hear the same work by different orchestras, different conductors, violinists, pianists, singers, and slowly, the work reveals itself and begins to live deeper in you.

David Ogden Stiers

#21. Well, no. I believe that it's not at all impossible that some of the performances that I've heard so far by some pianists may be superior to my own playing because those are two totally different acts altogether.

Leo Ornstein

#22. I'm really very sorry, but it is not my fault. People are so annoying. All my pianists look exactly like poets, and all my poets look exactly like pianists

Oscar Wilde

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

Frederic Chopin

#24. Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing.

Oscar Peterson

#25. Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz.

Jon Pareles

#26. Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today.

Herbie Hancock

#27. I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.

Frederic Chopin

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

Artur Schnabel

#29. 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

#30. Okay, I'll admit it. That part was MY fault! I just

Rachel Renee Russell

#31. You better stand tall when they're calling you out, don't bend, don't break, and don't back down!

Jon Bon Jovi

#32. Daughters of Naiads were a dime a dozen in those days; the place was crawling with them. Nevertheless, it never hurts to be of semi-divine birth. Or it never hurts immediately.

Margaret Atwood

#33. And what did the North Star tell the Moon last night? He said "I love you!

Avijeet Das

#34. Do I want someone to get more hits than me? No. Do I want someone to hit more home runs than me? No. Do I want someone to have more RBI than me? No. I get a kick out of seeing the all-time leaders and my name's on top of every one, with the exception of strikeouts. I get a kick out of that.

George Brett

#35. He was exhaled; his great Creator drew His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.

John Dryden

#36. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

Steven Wright

#37. Those who hold conversation with themselves keep sorry company.

Stephen King

#38. Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence. Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle, so do the selves of girls go down in droves.

Mary Pipher

#39. On the day of the audition for 'Sullivan and Son,' I had three other auditions all around Los Angeles. It was so hectic. I remember changing in my car before I went in to read.

Valerie Azlynn

#40. If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.

Carl Jung

#41. I hold theatre acting in such high esteem that it scares me.

Kate Bosworth

#42. To me, having the courage to tell your own story goes hand in hand with having the curiosity and humility to listen to others' stories.

Sarah Kay

#43. Reality is merely one-tenth visible section of the iceberg that one sees above the surface of the ocean - art remaining nine-tenths of it that lies below the surface. That is why it is more near Truth than Reality itself. Art does not merely reflect Reality - it enlarges it.

Anita Desai