Quotes from your favorite pianist (or fav musician)

[16251]

I read this quote today on FB from the Bill Evans Legacy Organization.  I think this quote is brilliant and there must many more from the great musicians that can help think differently and expansive. 

 

"There are no wrong notes, only wrong resolutions, I think of all harmony as an expansion and a return to the tonic."
- Bill Evans

[Ivan May]

“You see its all clear…you were meant to be here”

 

—Greg Lake 

[Cliffk]

I’ve got this on my WhatsApp profile:

’To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable’ (Beethoven).

[Docbop]

I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn. - Herbie Hancock

 

"It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not, it's feeling."   -Bill Evans

 

"The note is only 20%. The attitude of the mf playing it is 80%." -Miles Davis

 

"If you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean."  -Thelonious Monk

 

"Jazz is about closeness to the material, a personal dance with the material."  -Keith Jarrett

 

If you’re going to practice, you might as well practice correctly.    In most cases correctly means slower.  Almost everybody practices too fast.   Playing slowly helps you to develop your sound, it helps your rhythm, it gives you time to train your muscles to execute difficult physical maneuvers, and it allows you to become more intimate with your instrument and with the music you are attempting to play.   —  Wynton Marsalis.

[Finale]

"The first piano was built long after they didn't have any at all." - Victor Borge

 

"Do it." - Vangelis

[JamPro]

Frank Zappa: "The mind is like a parachute.  It doesn't work if it is not open."

 

Also FZ: "Modern Americans behave as if intelligence is some kind of hideous deformity."  How prescient.

[CyberGene]

“It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.”
 

Bach

[timwat]

“The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.”

 

"If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?"

 

"Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them."

[zephonic]

“if it doesn’t swing, why bother?” - Herbie Hancock

[surfergirl]

I don't ever worry about whether I'm being true to my county roots. My country roots were adopted. I never worry about what I can do and what I should do. I just do what I want to do. 

Emmylou Harris 

[Old No7]

OK, I'll play...

 

The best thing about this band is I'm the leader!

Keith Emerson

 

I don't care who I play to, as long as they enjoy listening to what I play.

Keith Emerson

 

Music is an emotional experience, and that is what imprints itself on the soul. And I think for me, any great art is art which communicates human emotion.

Greg Lake

 

I think good music comes from the heart. That's my belief.

Greg Lake

 

There are others, but I found none for Carl Palmer.

 

Old No7

 

[D. Gauss]

"My guitar. All you need to play it is five strings, three chords, two fingers and one asshole."  -Keith Richards

[David R]

“If you are thinking, you are not playing.” Airto Moreira

[o0Ampy0o]

“If we had known we were going to be The Beatles we would have tried harder.”

 

“As far as I’m concerned there won’t be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.”

 

”To the best of my knowledge none of The Beatles can read music.”

 

”The biggest break in my career was getting in The Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them.”

 

”I wasn’t Lennon, or I wasn’t McCartney. I was me. And the only reason I started to write songs was because I thought, “Well, if they can write them I can write them.”

 

~George Harrison

[marino]

"History is like a rear-view mirror; you have to check it often, to avoid serious accidents". Vittorio Nocenzi, virtuoso keyboard player and composer

 

"Watching a pianist play is a distraction from music; you're watching the struggle of the player, but you should only listen to the results". Sviatoslav Richter

 

"Imitation is limitation". Joe Zawinul

 

"Playing is a simple matter: All you have to do is to play the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself". J.S.Bach!

EDIT: Oops, already included by someone else. But just too good to delete.

[SteinwayB]

Every note I play is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

 

--Kenny Werner

 

...I wish it were true

--me

[KuruPrionz]

The Singer IS the solo, shut up! ~ me

[surfergirl]

Fanny:

They were extraordinary:

they wrote everything, they played like motherf@#&ers, ther were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody's ever mentioned them. They're as important as anybody else who's ever been; it just wasn't their time. 

David bowie 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

On 1/5/2023 at 1:10 PM, surfergirl said:

Fanny:

They were extraordinary:

they wrote everything, they played like motherf@#&ers, ther were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody's ever mentioned them. They're as important as anybody else who's ever been; it just wasn't their time. 

David bowie 

 

That quote reminds me of this classic - 

 

“They were the worst musicians in the world… They were no-playing motherfuckers.” - Quincy Jones on The Beatles.  

 

[HSS]

At the risk of angering jazzers whom I respect as consummate musicians, Zappa humorously observed:

 

"Jazz isn't dead. It just smells really bad." 

 

Qualifier:  Although I really dig Zappa, he is / was not my favorite musician, but he was probably the cleverest and funniest.