My mother was the influence on me – my father was absent. He was a diamond dealer; he was doing wonderful things in the background, and women were left at home. So my mother really was in charge of everything: the ballet, dance lessons, piano lessons, and latkes.
I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion.
There are times when we look back and think, ‘Do you remember when we had to lug a piano downstairs to a basement of some venue to play for five people?’ We do a lot of reminiscing. It helps us keep our heads on straight.
My father had a piano that was a nickelodeon – put a nickel, and the roller would play.
There are three things on my piano – my Best Villainess award, my Grammy, and my Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame statue.
I guess play piano, you know, because that’s the thing I started doing when I was a little kid.
I went straight in. Fade in, one… whatever. He’s playing the piano in the radio station.
I remember that when I was in my 30s, a hot age for an actress, lots of offers were coming in, but nothing was great, and I didn’t work for 18 months. It was at a really fruitful age, and I wanted to work. There was nothing coming down the pipeline that I thought was good – and then I got ‘The Piano.’
In junior high, I sang in madrigals, men’s’ and women’s’ choir. I played piano too, but then I got out of it.
I play drums, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, french horn, piano.
I used to play the piano when I was younger, and I loved Alicia Keys. I wanted to be Alicia Keys; she was such an idol to me.
In many parts, I start from the outside and then it triggers things within. For ‘The Piano,’ I went, ‘I’m going to learn these piano pieces. I’m going to learn this sign language, and I’m going to do them all day every day, five days a week.’ It was a totally physical thing.
Every day, I start with a workout; I do vocal lessons, I do piano lessons.
For me, it’s always been about a mix of hip-hop, acoustic singer/songwriters, and piano rock. I pull all those together. Each song may lean more heavily on one than the other, but they all have all three pieces.
The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth.
Nearly all the synth work on Heathen is mine and some of the piano.
Then I started listenin’ a lot to classical composers. Piano works. Just to see what they were doin’. That sort of put me in a different groove to try to blend all that in.
The music is within your heart, your soul, your spirit, and this is all I did when I sat at piano. I just go within.
I like all music… My parents both just loved music from all genres. I don’t have a favorite; I just love music. That’s why I want to play the piano.
I can play piano, classical flute, guitar, bass and I’m OK on drums.
I tend to like the traditional sound: three-part harmonies, guitar, and piano. I mean, a well-played guitar is a joy forever… or something.
Some of my best songwriting choices started as mistakes or learning curves, when I accidentally hit a ‘wrong’ key or something. I try not to lose that the more I learn the how’s and why’s of piano.
I had kind of a mean piano teacher. I went to Catholic school, so it was like the typical thing you would imagine – a little kid with a white-haired teacher frowning at the fact that I didn’t practice.
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.
I was always interested in the arts as a child – drawing, painting, and piano – but acting became a favourite. I was a major theatre geek in high school – if I wasn’t in the drama room at lunch rehearsing, I’d be in the art room finishing up some type of project.
Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I’d gotten a piano scholarship. And now I’m so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you’re flexing a different muscle, but it’s beautiful because it is music.
My parents are both into music. My mom sings and my dad plays piano, so there was always music everywhere. I was singing at a very young age, but I actually got my buzz through rapping.
You have to really concentrate on piano or acting. You can’t do both.
I studied piano for seven years and play for my own enjoyment.
I suffered a bout of depression that pushed me to reevalute things in my life, and I learned a lot about myself and the world and my spirituality. I sat at a piano, and the ideas fell into my head. I started playing, and I felt comfortable with my music for the first time.
We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.
Every so often, if I’m in a melancholy mood, I’ll sing ‘Desperado’ in my shows. I’ll sit alone at the piano and play it as a solo. The song feels like an old friend – except now it’s saying, ‘You were a desperado once, but you worked your way out of it.’
I don’t let the children watch TV on weeknights. They practice playing musical instruments instead. Both my sons play piano, drums and guitar, so my husband and I listen to them in the evening.
I don’t come from a musical family at all, but I realized early on I was a musician. I started begging for a piano when I was 6 years old.
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.
If you’re small and can speak clearly and you’re a cute kid, that’s the craft, really. The whole child actor thing can be dangerous sometimes. Other kids were taking piano lessons; I did ballet and acting.
Immediate, simultaneous connection between the audience and a performer is crucial to me. It’s why I do what I do. Other things, like recording, are satisfying, but they’re not the same. I love the connection I get with the audience when I’m sitting behind that piano.
Frank liked me because I went nuts on the piano using feet, head, whatever I could find to bang on the piano.
I tried piano, acting, and a bunch of things. My family let me do what I wanted to do; they made sure I had balance in my life because I was self-driven. Listen to your kid, encourage them, and make it fun.
In my younger days, I used to visit record shops and covet boxed sets of Beethoven symphonies, Wagner operas, Bach cantatas, Mozart piano concertos. Only rarely was I able to find the money for such luxuries.
My mom, grandma, great-grandma – we’re all named Mary, and we all play piano and sing.
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.
It was the Victorians who covered the piano legs and drew a heavy curtain over what a lady got up to in her boudoir.
I never really trained to be a musician, but I’ve been playing guitar since I was around, like, 13 years old. For me, the guitar has always been the instrument that I’ve played. I play a little piano. I taught myself everything by ear. I don’t read music at all, which has not really been a hindrance.
The best way to do that is to pick up a new instrument or an instrument that you don’t typically write on and see where it takes you. Whether it’s using an acoustic guitar, or piano, or electronics as tools, all of these lead to creating different types of songs and I used all of these methods for this record.
I’ve written lots of songs on the piano. My mother had a piano and it was the first instrument I played.
I’m a pianist – I studied jazz piano in college.
We’re gonna release a studio album probably a year from now and we’ve got these recordings that we did with Coco Taylor and Johnny Johnson, who was Chuck Berry’s piano player.
The only instrument I can play is piano. Whenever I make songs at home, I play the piano and make them on the piano.
Usually I can hear the pianos, the saxophone, and usually I can hear Ronnie. But I really need to listen to Keith and Mick. The rest of the band is sort of an embellishment to that.
I was always super, super musical. So my parents recognized that and put me in choirs, piano lessons, and all that.
When I was nine, my father said ‘You can take piano lessons or do karate’ – I had a black belt and was competing before I was 19.
I just love crafting and shaping sounds. Actually, many of the sounds that I work with start off as organic instruments – guitar, piano, clarinet, etc. But I do love the rigidity of electronic drums.
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.
I would be happy at a piano bar, singing. I just want to home in on being the best singer I can be.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you’re listening. Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time.
Many people who don’t like Rachmaninov’s style consider the ‘Rhapsody’ his masterpiece. It’s written fantastically well for orchestra and piano. He combines a lot of effervescence with a deep, Romantic spirit.
