Nicholson Baker Quotes

I didn't even start playing the piano until I was about 13 or 14. I guess I must have had a little talent or whatever-you-call-it, but I practised regularly, and that's what counts.

I promise you, if you look at YouTube and see some of my first covers, you will hear that I don't sound good. But I was so obsessed with it and wanted so much to be good at it that I forced myself to figure out what sounds right and what sounds wrong.

Basically, if you work hard and practice an instrument every day, you'll learn how to play like a professional. You'll get better and better each day. And that's how it works for me. I wasn't magically inclined to play. I had to keep practicing and practicing to train my fingers.

To stay a great singer or guitar player, you've got to do it 24/7. That's what I do.

There are some musicians who are talented and see themselves as some kind of natural geniuses or something because of a certain amount of natural ability. But that is often rarely the case over the long term.

If I started at 13, by the time I was 14 I was already good enough to play in front of people. I started off playing drums when I was 5, so playing in front of people didn't matter - not a problem.

I was for a minor amount of time but I was probably a better pianist at 15 than I am now.

I've never been happy with the quality of my work. I always felt as though my musicianship was lacking and that I should have worked harder at it when I was younger. As I sang and sang, I improved.

One thing that stays the same is my passion for music. Other than that, I've become more dedicated. I think that I really work much harder than I ever did when I first started at my craft; I'm more dedicated, and I have become a perfectionist.

The day I stop learning and I don't try to make myself better on the guitar, that's the day I hang it up and say, 'Goodbye.'

I think we've debunked the myth of talent. It doesn't appear that there's anything like a music gene or center in the brain that Stevie Wonder has that nobody else has.

Ideally, I'd really like to put my own stamp on things, but it takes years, you know, and you're constantly learning and studying and falling in and out with your instrument, learning different approaches and different attacks.

You are born with the talent; then you work with it. You develop the right mentality.

One thing you notice is, there's a lot of people with raw talent, and then there's people who take that talent and work hard.

This is how many people become artists, musicians, writers, computer programmers, record-holding athletes, scientists... by spending time alone practicing what they love.

The more you practice and study, the better you are... so I still practice and study all the time.

I'm not good enough, technically, to be a classic musician. I lack discipline.

The older I get, the more I believe in practice and work over natural talent and ability.

Music is all about wanting to be better at it.

You don't have to have magic unicorn powers. You work at it, and you get better. It's like anything: You sit there and do it every day, and eventually you get good at it.

To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study and practice.

I can play any instrument if you give me 20 minutes.

You can work hard to sharpen your talent, to get better at whatever it is that you do, and I think that's what it comes back to.

I cannot now change my style, which I acquired, as you can imagine, by dint of labour.

It's true that the more you put in the more you get out and that has to be there I think, If you aren't really hooked on your instrument this job would be a hell on earth but if you are, it's the best.