Tod Machover Quotes

I always have loved the Stradivarius. My teacher, Josef Gingold, he had a Stradivarius. As a treat, he would put it under my chin and let me play a few notes, and I remember that feeling of the overtones, the complexity of the sound. It's like a great wine.

Pianos tend to get better as they age, the more you play them. They grow into their sound.

As it enters the ear, does it come in like broken glass or does it come in like honey?

Piano is like drudgery.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

Drums usually seem to tune themselves.

At first acoustics attributed to the different sounds only a limited number of characteristic features.

The range of the cello is so big, it can play as low as the double bass and as high as the violin. It has the perfect shape, and its sound is the closest to the human voice.

Radio voices have a solid, even texture.

To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra.

The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth.

My philosophy is the thicker the wood the thicker the sound, the bigger the string the bigger the sound. My smallest string is a 14 gauge.

Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.

For me it's the instrument. If I want to think of a flute and the state of the arts I hear a vibrato; I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me.

The lute is tuned differently than the guitar and of course it has many more strings.

Sound is energy, and that energy resonates with your energy. And it gives you a certain feeling.

I love my Fender Rhodes. It's been a part of my family since that keyboard came out, and I've had it reworked so that it's in the best condition it's actually ever been in. That is my baby.

To my eyes and ears the organ will ever be the King of Instruments.

The piano has eighty-eight keys, and you have to be able to play all of them. And the range of white to black is analogous to the eighty-eight keys and you have to be able to play all eighty-eight keys in that palette from white to black.

Of course, your voice always sounds better in the shower for some reason, maybe it's just the octaves or, I don't know, the water, I have no idea.

From the classical guitar right through to the furthest electrical experiments and everything in-between, it's amazing what the guitar can actually do. I mean, when one thinks about sounds.

No birdcall is the musical equal of a clarinet blown with panache.

When one plays a Steinway, there is a warmth and nobility in the sound that is unequalled by any other instrument.

PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up the double octave.