Monetti Piano Quotes

You okay, Bobert?"

He says pretty much what I expect: "I don't know how I'm going to pair Ramón. He'll drown Lisa."

Robert's pianist, a man named Luther, is pretty wonderful. "Can Luther carry the solos?"

"On piano?"

I shrug. "Just spitballing here."

He appears to consider it, and then shakes his head. "The songs don't lend themselves to keys. The strings have a richness, a vibrancy that the piano can't mimic. It needs to stir something inside you. Luther is amazing, but we need a musician who demands your attention. Who makes you feel."

The idea seems to heat my blood, and I straighten. "Wait. Wait." Robert looks up, confused. I hold up my hand. "An idea is forming in my brain."

His expression clears in understanding. "No, Buttercup."

"He's exactly what you're describing," I insist. "You've never heard him, but trust me - he is."

"He plays guitar. Honey, I know you're enamored, but - "

"It's not that, I swear. And he's not just some busker hanging out on the street. He's gifted, Robert. Listening to him play is like watching Luis onstage. I feel the notes. I know I'm not . . ." I search for words, flushing. Trying to tell Robert how to do his job is dangerous; he may be my uncle, but he's been a brilliant musician for much longer. "I'm not a trained musician like you are," I say carefully, "but I feel like classical guitar might work here. It's gentle ~ Christina Lauren

My mother did play classical piano, not that well. And actually, my father sang with the big bands - he sang with Bob Crosby's band - but he had to give up show business when his father died. He had to come back to Montgomery and take over the furniture store. ~ Toni Tennille

But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?
Yes ... the same age you will be if you don't. ~ Julia Cameron

I believe I inherited my sense of music from my father. My father was an ear piano player; he could just hear something and play it. ~ Richie Havens

The Steinway piano is the most harmonious implement for musical intention. It completes what is beautiful and artistic. ~ Yefim Bronfman

My music teacher was like, "Ester, you need to pay attention in class." I'm like, "No miss lady, 'cause I can sing." I didn't want anybody to change the way I sung. I learned by gospel CDs and by watching my momma sing; I didn't need this teacher to tell me. I wish I had, because then I would have learned how to play the damn piano or something. I would have a couple of more things under my belt if I wasn't so hard-headed. ~ Ester Dean

I could scream down 90 mountains
to less than dust
if only one living human had eyes in the head
and heart in the body,
but there is no chance,
my god,
no chance.
rat with rat dog with dog hog with hog,
play the piano drunk
listen to the drunk piano,
realize the myth of mercy
stand still
as even a child's voice snarls
and we have not been fooled,
it was only that we wanted to believe. ~ Charles Bukowski

For ten years, I went to piano lessons. I don't think I'm a very musical person, and the theory quite defeated me, but I had a freak aptitude for Debussy and Ravel. ~ Ronald Frame

I started playing the piano from the age of three and I started teaching myself; we always had a piano round the house. ~ Ella Henderson

Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics. ~ John Legend

I've heard some people say that I'm selling out, but I'm not. If I hadn't done 'Black Radio', and just kept on doing just piano trio stuff, I wouldn't be honest with myself; I'd be doing it to please other people. That would be selling out. ~ Robert Glasper

I heard a young black pianist. He was a teenager, I was eight years old, and he was playing boogie-woogie, and he just knocked me out. He thought he was alone in the old barn on the beat-up upright piano, but I was hiding in the corner so he wouldn't see me. ~ Mike Stoller

Man, after all my grandma put into me learning the piano, that was a hard day, telling her I was telling jokes for a living. ~ Jamie Foxx

Some mothers seem to have the capacity and energy to make their children's clothes, bake, give piano lessons, go to Relief Society, teach Sunday School, attend parent-teacher association meetings, and so on. Other mothers look upon such women as models and feel inadequate, depressed, and think they are failures when they make comparisons ... Sisters, do not allow yourselves to be made to feel inadequate or frustrated because you cannot do everything others seem to be accomplishing. Rather, each should assess her own situation, her own energy, and her own talents, and then choose the best way to mold her family into a team, a unit that works together and supports each other. Only you and your Father in Heaven know your needs, strengths, and desires. Around this knowledge your personal course must be charted and your choices made. ~ Marvin J. Ashton

A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing. ~ Bill Shankly

Knowing how to do things not just with the head, but with the hands as well: this might seem a programmatic and ideological goal. It is not. It is a way of safeguarding creative freedom. ~ Renzo Piano

My father left his piano at the house when he left, and I wasn't allowed to play it when he was there because I wasn't as good as him. So when he left, I was determined to get as good as him, and I taught myself how to play music, and I just stuck with it, and I did it all the time. ~ Prince

Football management is such a pressurised thing - horseracing is a release. I'm also learning to play the piano - I'm quite determined - it's another release from the pressure of my job. ~ Alex Ferguson

The day I went to see my father to say I wanted to become an architect, he was a bit surprised, because for him being a builder is much more than being just an architect. He was very angry, and I never thought I could do something else. ~ Renzo Piano

Whenever I record something, I always believe that it's worthy of inclusion in the pantheon, and I would certainly like pianists to pay more attention to it. I think it's ridiculous now, because the range of repertoire - or what's considered 'safe' - is so narrow, even though there are pianists who are really trying to push the envelope. There is still a lack of attention, and there's no reason for it. The piano repertoire is so rich, with so many wonderful things that still are not given their due. ~ Marc-Andre Hamelin

In the woods it was not so much that it was quiet as that the few sounds were loud and distinct, not the orchestra tuning-up of the city but individual grace notes. Birdcalls broken into pieces like a piano exercise, a tree branch snapping sharp and then swishing down and thump on the ground, the hiss of water coming off the mountain. ~ Anna Quindlen

The very first hit factory was T.B. Harms, a Tin Pan Alley publishing company overseen by Max Dreyfus. With staff writers like Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, T.B. Harms was the dominant publisher of popular music in the early twentieth century. Dreyfus called his writers "the boys" and installed pianos for them to compose on around the office on West Twenty-Eighth, the street that gave Tin Pan Alley its name, allegedly for the tinny-sounding pianos passersby heard from the upper-story windows of the row houses. The sheet-music sellers also employed piano players in their street-level stores, who would perform the Top 40 of the 1920s for browsing customers. ~ John Seabrook

My brother Max made my desk. It's a masterpiece, like a piano. Everybody who comes in my office loves my desk. ~ Reem Acra

I am a classical fan. I like Debussy a lot, so I was trying to learn it on the piano. I've learned like a third of it, but I think I'm getting to a section that may be beyond my skill level. ~ Charlie Day

To play the piano is to consort with nature. Every mollusk, galaxy, vapor or viper as well the sweet incense of love's distraction, is within the hands and grasp of the pianist. ~ Russell Sherman

I had learned that a dexterous, opposable thumb stood among the hallmarks of human success. We had maintained, even exaggerated, this important flexibility of our primate forebears, while most mammals had sacrificed it in specializing their digits. Carnivores run, stab, and scratch. My cat may manipulate me psychologically, but he'll never type or play the piano. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

The piano is an orchestra with 88 ... things, you know ~ Vladimir Horowitz

My music is based on melody and when I play the piano, it's as if I'm singing with them. When you try to transform that into a vocal, there was very little adjustment. ~ Yanni

Did you know that Mozart had no arms and no legs? I've seen statues of him on people's pianos. ~ Victor Borge

I play guitar, piano, and I'm learning to play the drums. ~ Nolan Sotillo

But Jace", Clary said. "Valentine taught him more than just fighting. He taught him languages, and how to play the piano"
"That was Jocelyn's influence." Sebastian said her name unwillingly, as if he hated the sound of it. "She thought Valentine ought to be able to talk about books, art, music ... not just killing things. He passed that on to Jace."
A wrought iron blue gate rose to their left. Sebastian ducked under it and beckoned Clary to follow him. She didn't have to duck but went after him, her hands stuffed into her pockets. "What about you?" she asked.
He held up his hands. They were unmistakably her mother's hands - dexterous, long-fingered, meant for holding a brush or a pen. "I learned to play the instruments of war, " he said, "and paint in blood. I am not like Jace. ~ Cassandra Clare

I didn't decide to start to playing piano until I was almost 13 years old when my friends and I thought it would be fun to start a band. None of us actually played any instruments so the band never quite got off the ground, BUT it made me go home and ask my parents for piano lessons. That was really the beginning for me. Once I started, it was all I wanted to do. ~ Andrew Hollander

You cannot reconcile creativeness with technical achievement. You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter ... having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer the technique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy of singing is essential. When the joy is there, the technique can be built up from nothing; you will invent your own technique, you won't have to study elocution or style. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

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. ~ Alexandra Daddario

My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all. ~ Pete Seeger