Rakim Quotes

I read and write classical piano and percussion, also guitar.

I started playing in the band and learned to play piano by ear.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

I want to learn to sight-read music. And to play the bass pedals on the organ. Those are my only ambitions.

It's quite hard to have your mom as a teacher - it's like, she's not necessarily a 'real teacher' for me. But she'd always teach me to really hear the music, and develop my ear, and to try and hear the harmonics of the piano.

I just can't read music.

I never learned to read music.

It has never been necessary for me to learn how to read music.

I can play songs that I hear from a movie and just play it a few times on the keyboard. I will hit all the notes on the keyboard until I find the right key, and then I will play the rest of the song.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I am so happy that I didn't go to school and I didn't have anyone to tell me how to position my fingers on the piano correctly. And what you do with music and what is the correct way to write it and what is not the correct way to write it.

I grew up playing classical piano and percussion.

Learning a play is one thing, but to learn to play Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' without music: that's brilliant.

Musical composition, about which I know little, is a complicated art, and some contemporary music may be the equivalent of a complex abstract painting.

I was put through piano lessons when I was a kid. I say 'put through' because it was fun and I loved it, and it's been beneficial now, but it was difficult because, although I can read music, I much prefer just playing and improvising and at least finding my own way to play an instrument.

I just play music by listening and responding, so I don't know anything about writing songs or arranging and all of this stuff. You know, it's in my head, but I don't know how to get it out.

My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I'm a natural musician.

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

I'm an interpreter of music.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

I listened to many different types of instruments and music, and have always tried to look at the bass as an instrument as opposed to only a bass.

I'm kind of the town pump. I think I have a pretty good ear for what sounds good in this style.

Reading music is something that's inherently hateful to me. It makes music like mathematics.

I still don't know how to read music.