Quotes About The Piano

#1. I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids!

Eddie Van Halen

#2. My favorite sound is definitely mules. If it was an instrument, it's really pingthe touch of the black keys of the piano.

Christian Louboutin

#3. When I did get signed and I was going around letting people know what I was about, that's exactly how I did it: me on the piano, playing a couple of songs I'd written and talking to the people in between. That's how I got my performance chops up.

Alicia Keys

#4. Well, I was interested in playing the piano from as early as I can remember.

Warren Zevon

#5. I am surprising myself [at] each show, and the delivered piano often surprises me. Sometimes the piano is so old that I don't have to prepare it, and sometimes I have a concert grand!

Volker Bertelmann

#6. I sat down at the piano and my hands began to browse over the keys. Thensomething happened. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I foundmyself playing a melody, one I'd never heard or played before, and words came intomy head - they just seemed to fall into place ...

Thomas A. Dorsey

#7. I love to sing and play the piano. As a child, I've always loved to sing my heart out, and even my teachers encouraged me to take up singing.

Terence Lewis

#8. The harp was so much more gestural and physical for me than the piano - something about bringing this instrument into your body.

Zeena Parkins

#9. I have no clue as to where my interest and love for music came from. In fact, I have never learnt any music either, though I wish that I could just close my eyes and play the piano - that is my most cherished desire.

Dhanush

#10. He had approached the villa on that night of the storm not out of curiosity about the music but because of a danger to the piano player. The retreating army often left pencil mines within musical instruments. Returning owners opened up pianos and lost their hands.

Michael Ondaatje

#11. Every time she allowed her gaze to wander to the group at the piano, she found Lord Wentworth's eyes on her. In the end it was easier to study the patterns in the ornate rug on which her chair sat. She was glad when the evening ended.

Susan Leona Fisher

#12. I always stayed on before and after practice. I just think that if you want to excel at anything, be it basketball, dance or the piano, you need to practice a lot.

Dolph Schayes

#13. And I've played piano since I was little, so I was originally the piano player in the band.

Caroline Corr

#14. Once, when I remarked that she looked like a disoriented bandicoot, she leapt up from the piano bench and beat me within an inch of my life with a rolled-up piano sonata by Schubert. Ophelia has no sense of humor.

Alan Bradley

#15. 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

#16. I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of the Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we'd take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear.

Paul McCartney

#17. In rugby there are those who play the piano - and those who shift them

Pierre Danos

#18. I closed my eyes and the roof was gone. I could see the stars while the piano tinkled. I could see Jupiter and it was blue, and Neptune was silver like a tennis ball sprayed silver. I could reach out and touch it, like cold water.

Heather O'Neill

#19. Just before I play, I like to feel that no-one has ever played the piano before, that I'm in complete virgin territory, and that every note I play is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

Kenny Werner

#20. The honest truth is that it was just traumatizing with the piano, with the authority of the piano teacher, getting rapped across the knuckles, and so whenever you put a piece of music in front of me, there's a Pavlovian reaction where it starts off.

Hans Zimmer

#21. The piano is really the featured instrument of a 10-piece chamber orchestra. The construction is the harmonic language.

Howard Shore

#22. It has to be 'The Piano' by Jane Campion. It inspired me to pursue my dream to direct. It is not just my favorite woman-directed film - it is my favorite film.

Sarah Gavron

#23. Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

Roberta Flack

#24. As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.

Gustave Flaubert

#25. I always sang when I was little and my father, who was a great influence on me, also had a wonderful voice. He and my mother really encouraged me to sing and play the piano. They were always very supportive.

Judy Collins

#26. I don't like the piano player music of the movies, the Michael Nyman, and sometimes that piano music makes me puke. It's not really romantic. It's just trying to get your Pavlovian juices flowing because it's a technique now.

Charlemagne Palestine

#27. 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

#28. I wanted to be a cheerleader, like my sister was - all the most popular and beautiful girls are cheerleaders and I wanted that, and it demolished this vision of myself. That's when I found the piano, when music saved me; that's when I first attempted to write my own songs.

Paula Cole

#29. Well, I would say that music just happens with me, I'm not in the driver's seat when I am at the piano, the piano is.

Vanessa Carlton

#30. I was really affected by 'The Piano.' Had I not seen that movie, I wouldn't have gone to film school.

Paul Schneider

#31. 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

#32. Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I'm invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who'll play the piano after dinner, and I know you're not really invited for yourself. You're just an ornament.

Marilyn Monroe

#33. There is a good day to die and there is a good day to play the piano.

Sherman Alexie

#34. It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.

Gary Oldman

#35. In a clear brook
With joyful haste
The whimsical trout
Shot past me like an arrow
I play the line of the song, I play the leaps and plunges of the right hand of the piano, I am the trout, the angler, the brook, the observer.

Vikram Seth

#36. At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes? I also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not be hampered by notes.

James Weldon Johnson

#37. I used to love 'Jeeves And Wooster.' That theme tune was great. I remember writing to them when I was little to get the music so I could learn it on the piano, and they sent me the sheet music.

Lydia Leonard

#38. There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that sometimes one needs help with moving the piano.

Rebecca West

#39. I remember him watching me through the crack of a door singing with a hairbrush. I was in front of his mirror. I think he wanted me to sing. He would get me on the table and make me sing sometimes or play the piano. He was very encouraging on that front.

Lisa Marie Presley

#40. He played like he wanted to break the piano.

M. Pierce

#41. I actually grew up playing the piano in the church and was deeply involved in music ministry.

T.D. Jakes

#42. Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.

Gustave Flaubert

#43. I hope to refine music, study it, try to find some area that I can unlock. I don't quite know how to explain it but it's there. These can't be the only notes in the world, there's got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys.

Marvin Gaye

#44. The piano is a divinely inspired instrument, a mirror held up to its player's soul that captures the light and shadow of the performer and reflects them back to the listener.

David Lanz

#45. Rain began to beat at the narrow lattice windows in the stop-and-start manner of an untalented child practicing scales at the piano.

Dorothy Cannell

#46. With my personal preparation at the piano, I can afford to hum at half voice.

Placido Domingo

#47. The only instrument I can play is piano. Whenever I make songs at home, I play the piano and make them on the piano.

Yoko Ono

#48. My responsibility as an artist is to turn up at the page or the piano or the microphone. The rest is up to God.

Nick Cave

#49. I assure you, my dear, were you to play the piano on the moon, I would hear every chord.

Amor Towles

#50. When I was twelve, my appendix burst, and as they were wheeling my ass into the operating room, I asked the doctor, "How will this affect my piano playing?" and he said, "Don't worry, you'll still be able to play the piano," and I said, "Wow! I wasn't able to before!" And then they gassed me.

John Scalzi

#51. 'Beneath the Piano' by The Devil Makes Three somehow reminds me of an old Johnny Cash song. The song is a lot of fun and tells a story.

Ben Lovett

#52. I like the piano - I'm always about 15 feet away from a piano.

Brian Wilson

#53. I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.

Sylvia Plath

#54. I should hate to be employed and have no time for my needlework and my painting and playing the piano and seeing people. I find I have little enough spare time as it is." "Rubbish, caro, one can find time for important things if one makes an effort." conversation between Georgie and Lucia

Tom Holt

#55. My dad keeps referring to me playing the piano when he's trying to teach me something in archery.

Miranda Leek

#56. 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

#57. I had a very strong interest in music, specifically the piano from a very small age.

Jim Parsons

#58. I wish I could play the piano. I started when I was four and finished when I was five. I got bored. I couldn't tell my left hand from my right back then!

Lesley Nicol

#59. Frankie Muniz is amazing at everything he does. Many people don't know that he can play the piano like you wouldn't believe, and he can bowl and play basketball like you wouldn't believe.

Samaire Armstrong

#60. I guess, you know, if I didn't make it with the piano, I guess I would've been the biggest bum.

Thelonious Monk

#61. 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

#62. You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes.

Robert Schumann

#63. When I'm creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy; but - the eternal dilemma - how can we be happy amid the unhappiness of others? I'd do everything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what's at the heart of my music.

Nino Rota

#64. A Composition on the Piano

Johann Sebastian Bach

#65. Remember the music is not in the piano.

Clement Mok

#66. All my writing, I always do it in the studio, 'cause everything sounds good. The piano's there, the keyboards; if you want to put strings on something ... And everything sounds good when it's in the cans; it sounds killer.

Zakk Wylde

#67. I close my eyes and try and shut him out. My fingers don't want to stay in time. They want to race ahead in fury, plunging into the dense fog of black notes, pulling the music out by its roots, hurling it up out of the piano and into the air.

Tabitha Suzuma

#68. The corridor smelled of water in the bottoms of purple vases and the piano was banging just beyond this emptiness.

John Hawkes

#69. Usually, I make a simple beat, throw in the acapella, and then I just improvise on the piano. Whatever comes up, I record the result, and I rework on it. Sometimes it takes a while to come with an idea, but mostly it comes naturally because I already have a connection with the song.

Shook

#70. I'm an intense guy. I run 10 miles a day, which helps alleviate my intensity. Also, singing helps defuse my intensity. Playing the piano helps, and writing helps.

Dan Hill

#71. Put a small piano in a truck and drive out on country roads; take time to discover new scenery; stop in a pretty place where there is a good church; upload the piano and tell the residents; give a concert; offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend; leave again.

Sviatoslav Richter

#72. I am stronger than when I knew them. I stand straighter. I am more patient. I hold fewer grudges. I am more thankful for what I have, less resentful for what I don't. I am less restless. I read a lot more books. I play the piano. I'm engaged.

Taylor Jenkins Reid

#73. On the stage Tristen bent over the piano, his fingers swift and sure, his blond hair gleaming under the spotlight. I glanced around at the audience, watching their faces, gratified that they were as captivated as I was by the dark, thunderous song that Tristen conjured.

Beth Fantaskey

#74. And I definitely have an affinity with the piano.

Jim Coleman

#75. When there's a moon the shadows in the house grow larger;
invisible hands draw back the curtains,
a pallid finger writes forgotten words on dust
of the piano ...

Yiannis Ritsos

#76. My hands look terrible but I can do anything I want to do, so, you know, I just think I'm playing all around with more good taste and not dashing up and down the piano.

Marian McPartland

#77. I like music that is really pure and honest. For me, acoustic music, like a piece played on the piano, is very personal.

Shook

#78. The guitar is something you kind of embrace, and the piano is something you kind of - when you play it, you sort of push it away. It feels very different.

Nick Cave

#79. I grew up hard. I picked cotton and plowed with the mule and fixed the cars and played with the guitar and the piano.

Pinetop Perkins

#80. I was obliged to play the piano, like middle-class children are. I didn't start to love it until I was 14.

Jonathan Dimbleby

#81. I learned to play piano on my own and my parents thought "Oh it would be a good thing for you take piano lessons. That's the way you really need to learn to play the piano."

Colin Munroe

#82. I learned to play the piano on my mother's knee - that was before we got a piano.

Victor Borge

#83. I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes.

Cecil Taylor

#84. I always start with emotion. That's where I start all of my improvisations, on the piano. I always start with the mood or the feel of where I am in that moment.

Laura Mvula

#85. I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying?

Nayvadius Cash

#86. You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

David McCullough

#87. 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

#88. The piano has been my friend all my life; it has always comforted me. Writing songs and sitting down at the piano is not only a business, it's a hobby I enjoy.

El DeBarge

#89. 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

#90. 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

#91. When Little Richard used to stand up and play it was just fabulous, and Liberace had the candlesticks and the rings and the gift of the gab. The piano's is the most ungainly rock' n' roll instrument of all time but those two people transcended it, as did Jerry Lee Lewis.

Elton John

#92. 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

#93. I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing, and business, and playing the piano and so on.

William Hague

#94. I normally write on acoustic guitar, although piano is the instrument that I actually studied. Occasionally, I'll write on the piano or sometimes with no instrument at all.

Adam Schlesinger

#95. For as long as it takes for the sorrow and pain to transfer into acceptance. I'll stay here. With you. By your side. I won't leave."
"Promise?"
"Vow." I placed his hands gently on the piano. "I vow.

Rachel Van Dyken

#96. Any professional knows that the flute and the piano is a boring combination. All you've got to arrive at is a kind of typical gestural crap, right? You might agree, though you wouldn't call it gestural crap.

Morton Feldman

#97. There's green eyes in my eyes
And a lover on my mind
And I sing from the piano
Tear my yellow dress and
Cry and cry and cry
Over the love of you

Florence Welch

#98. The opportunity to use a computer is great when it is used as one component, or when someone is working on his or her own sounds and approaches. I think it actually has the same restrictions as using the piano or any other instrument in [a traditional] way.

Volker Bertelmann

#99. I play the piano a lot at home. I write songs on the piano and guitar. I would like to actually play piano on stage. I don't think I'll get the chance for a while.

Mick Taylor

#100. But when I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.

Alicia Keys