Top 60 Pianist Quotes

‘Andhadhun’ is the most challenging film and character. For playing the role, first and foremost I had to learn how to play the piano and then how to emulate gestures of a blind pianist.

My dad Chester was a pianist and later a well-known television entertainer so football was never really something that was on his radar. However when I was a young boy a family friend took me to see an Arsenal game and from that moment on I was totally and utterly hooked.

I’m basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a very good keyboard player. People think I think I’m good. I think I’m a very poor piano player.

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called ‘Monk’s Dream’ almost every day from the time I was born.

I’ve had to ban my mum from coming to see me play. She gets so nervous before any show. I’ve always got a few nerves but she’s so much worse than me. You’d think she’d be able to handle that kind of situation. After all, she is a concert pianist.

I used to be a very serious pianist, and I was one of the snot-nosed classical ones who was appalled by nightmares of Ethel Merman and trombones blasting in the background and who knows what else.

Classical pianist Awadagin Pratt. I first heard this eccentric and introverted performer when I was living in the Midwest. He was playing Brahms ballades – haunting.

My mother adores singing and plays piano. My uncle was a phenomenal pianist. My brother John is a double bassist. I used to play the piano, badly, and cello. My brother Peter played violin.

My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music.

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.

I knew I had a remarkable voice, but I was embarrassed because it was so high. But when I sang at my bar mitzvah, the rabbi was in tears. He said to my parents, ‘He must become a cantor in the synagogue,’ but my mother said, ‘No, he’s going to be a concert pianist.’

When a pianist sits down and does a virtuoso performance he is in a technical sense transmitting more information to a machine than any other human activity involving machinery allows.

As a young pianist in Hollywood, I began orchestrating for others, and I just felt really comfortable doing that.

When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I’d devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.

The pianist Cecil Taylor is extremely melodic; the guitarist Derek Bailey is extremely melodic, and Ornette Coleman.

My mom is an elementary school music teacher, a pianist, and a singer, and my dad plays guitar – he’s a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. My mom does musical theater, too. All of those influences were around.

I’d say I’m really, really good for a 16-year-old, which is where I peaked. I’m impressive, but not classically trained, not a concert pianist.

My oldest daughter is a pianist; she plays concerts. We play together, also.

To be able to produce many varieties of sound, now that is what I call technique, and that is what I try to do. I don’t adhere to any methods, because I simply don’t believe in them. I think each pianist must ultimately carve his own way, technically and stylistically.

I’ve been classically trained in piano since I was little. My father was a pianist, so they started me early.

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.

I’m not saying that in order to be a great jazz musician you have to be a great classical pianist first. But I am saying that it makes things easier when you can get around the instrument, and you have some idea of how to approach the various hurdles.

Mum was a brilliant classical pianist. She was Canadian and studied music at McGill University. She took me to ballet when I was a little girl, and those are some of my happiest memories.

When I was younger, I always wanted to be either a pianist or a classical singer, and when I discovered songwriting, it was like a new portal had been opened.

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.

‘The Pianist’ is a movie I could watch over and over again.

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice – or of an architect who didn’t bother to find out why buildings stand up?

My mother was a very talented pianist, and she was a music teacher who hated to teach music, actually, but she loved to play, so I was brought up with Chopin, Debussy and Mozart.

I’m a first – I was the first person in my family born in the United States. My mom is from Croatia, and my dad is from Iran. They met at music school in Belgium. I grew up as a pianist. I was really interested in piano and sort of discovered that I was a writer when I was about 13 and started writing.

Then, for a hot three or four weeks I wanted to be a concert pianist.

I’d seen how ‘Green Book’ had been a box-office hit, but left pianist Don Shirley’s family feeling betrayed because his life and relationships had been distorted.

I want to act in a film like ‘The Pianist.’

We’ve always connected musically in Fleetwood Mac because we’re the only people who play more than one note. I’m not the best pianist, but I know how to interlace around what Lindsey’s playing.

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

The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.

My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist.

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn’t my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.

In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.

When I was first starting out as a kid, I tried to pad my resume with everything I had ever done – ice-skate, carry a tune. I can’t dance for my life, but I can learn, so I’ll tell people I can dance. I play the piano – I’m a really good pianist, actually.

I can’t get anything out of an orchestra if I have the 10 best guitarists, but I don’t have a pianist or a drummer.

I wanted to be a veterinarian until I saw a video of a vet performing surgery on a dog. Then I decided I wanted to be a pianist.

But my mom was a pianist, and she taught piano out of her house. I was just so excited, being a little kid and having all these other kids come to my house twice a week. I thought it was a big party.

The thing is, I’m not really a great pianist at all. But if God said I could either sing or play piano, and which would it be? I would definitely choose the piano.

Once I understood Bach’s music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

Everything we did on the training pitch, we did with the ball. You’ll never see a pianist run around his piano. People ask me, ‘Why don’t you run through the forest, through the trees?’ Well, I’ve never seen a tree on a football field.

At the age of 16, something happened with my finger and the doctor told me, you never can be a organist or pianist, so think about what you do with music.

I had to go to an audition for a rather large West End musical set on a Greek island. I didn’t realise that you had to go with sheet music to give to the pianist. I took a Mark Bolan CD, a small ghetto blaster and then sang along. It was absolutely appalling.

I’ve loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother’s a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs.

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.

The one who really captured me and became my absolute favorite was Nat King Cole. He was a genius at what he did. Most people don’t realize what a great pianist he was. After listening to him for years, I finally met him, and he was the nicest human being.

I couldn’t say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.

I don’t regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I’m not a great player. I just like music. Drums ‘n’ bass is pretty exciting and I’d love to explore it.