After a while, though, you realize that a whole slew of young singer-songwriter piano players are getting compared to you. That's when you feel the passage of time is occurring.
I never saw my grandfather because he had died before I was born, but I have good memories of my grandmother and of how she could play the piano at the old house.
When Seymour saw me seated at the piano at that first rehearsal, he shouted: 'What's that kid doing here? Call your piano player and let's get started.'
He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.
Oh yeah, we all write. That's what's great about when you have basics in piano.
I guess, you know, if I didn't make it with the piano, I guess I would've been the biggest bum.
I've never broken a piano. However, I've been banned from particular clubs for breaking piano strings.
When I was five years old, my parents gave me a drum set for Christmas. My mom played the piano, and Dad played the saxophone badly. But that Christmas morning, I remember we all played together, and I thought it was the greatest day ever.
I certainly miss playing piano, and I really wish I did it more - it's really a very therapeutic thing to do for me. I just need to be home for more than a few minutes to be able to play more, I guess.
I've got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.
In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed by study.
Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.
There's no debate about the greenhouse effect, just like there's no debate about gravity. If someone throws a piano off the roof, I don't care what Sarah Palin tells you, get out of the way because it's coming down on your head.
When I was three, I didn't play with other kids very much; I was kind of isolated. I got used to be being bullied and having to think my way out of situations in the same way that other kids would fight their way out. Then I discovered a piano, and it became my playmate.
I'm very quiet. In the beginning, my brother would play the piano, and I would sing, because that's what my mom and dad did. And then along the way, somebody teased me for even thinking that I could get up there. That stayed with me, and I became very shy.
Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background.
I played, like, a year of piano until I learned the 'Pink Panther' theme. That was my goal. Once I was good enough, I quit. Now my music has to have some rock.
I would be happy at a piano bar, singing. I just want to home in on being the best singer I can be.
I also went to art school and learned to play a piano there, but I play by ear.
In college I had a weekend gig at a restaurant, a solo thing that was the best practice I could have ever had. That's where I learned to coordinate my singing and my piano playing.
I cannot write music. I cannot play the piano.
I'm incredibly competitive in all sports in a way that is so mystifying to my wife because she grew up playing the violin and piano. I've always been like that.
Well, my sister played trumpet. Can you imagine having a sister blowing the trumpet around the house, Fred? And my brother, he played piano. Everybody was playing some kind of music, so it was natural for me to get into it.
I grew up taking piano lessons and liking Wagner when I was in second grade.
My brother Leon started it all. He played the piano. In school they made me leader of the orchestra because I played the violin, but I followed Leon and the boys in his jazz band around.
I wanted to play the piano.
I was coerced into taking piano lessons in the early '50s. It was a quite unpleasant experience.
As human beings, we are the only organisms that create for the sheer stupid pleasure of doing so. Whether it's laying out a garden, composing a new tune on the piano, writing a bit of poetry, manipulating a digital photo, redecorating a room, or inventing a new chili recipe - we are happiest when we are creating.
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.
Sometimes, I make music in my sleep. So I get up, put on my headphones, and compose it on the piano.
Some acts are tricky. Eartha Kitt was tricky in a wonderful, old-style way. She did yoga on the piano and put her hands over her ears when the other acts were on.
I basically have paid for a piano and a flat-screen television completely with my poker earnings. I'm pretty good at it.
Bud Powell's probably the biggest influence on my piano playing.
I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.
If you play the guitar, you've got to hold the chords down with one hand while you play with the other, so you're limited to one hand. But the piano is the king of instruments because you have your 10 fingers, which become the 10 members of the orchestra.
I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, 'Very interesting interpretation!' I thought I was playing it right.
