Quotes About Music

I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I've stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.

I went to music school, and I guess I was a difficult, know-it-all type of student.

When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!

Although I don't come from a musical background, I was given piano lessons along with my sisters, but I wasn't what you would call a good student. I tended to write songs rather than do scales.

Dates and periods are of interest only to the student of musical history.

I am a student of Ghulam Ali, who was like my guru. I changed my name in his honour.

I'll always be a student of music.

I have so much respect for the genre of country music and for all the greats that have been a part of it. I'm a country singer, I'm a country fan, and I'm a student of country music.

Finally, I was no longer a student and was making music for myself.

You're a constant student, as a musician.

I wasn't a good student in high school. I mean, I got through it, but unless it had something to do with music, it didn't really interest me.

I am permanently a student of people who make great songs, but besides sort of learning by absorption, I just love listening to music, hearing what's going on, hearing new things or new old things.

'We Will Rock You' is one of my favorite shows. I first saw it when I was a student at the Royal Academy and loved it.

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn. Don't dismiss something out of hand because you think it's either beneath you or outside of the realm of where your interests lie.

I've always adored my father's music, but ever since I'd started singing, whether it was while I was still a student at the University of Massachusetts or professionally, I avoided Dad's material.

We get notes sent to us backstage from college students that say, 'My parents used to play your albums all the time! I grew up with you, and I love the new stuff.'

I noticed that when it came time to improvise, my students would often make mistakes.

Open rehearsals reach people who might not otherwise hear the Philharmonic - people on fixed incomes, people who can't move easily at night, students.

I studied with Felix Blumenfeld, who had studied piano with Anton Rubinstein and composition with Tchaikovsky. Felix, my professor, was the right hand of Anton Rubinstein. Blumenfeld knew his playing by heart, from every angle.

I have always studied my parts with the orchestral score and not with the piano reduction.

I never minded giving my opinions. They are just opinions, and I had studied music and I had strong feelings. I was happy for my opinions to join all the other opinions. But you have to be prepared for what comes back, especially if you don't agree with the dominant mythology.

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.

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 studied jazz at home with my grandparents. They always had jazz dudes at the house, but I didn't study formally. I just hung around a lot of musicians.