Seinabo Sey Quotes

Nobody was listening when I learned how to play music. But there's something about being on stage, talking to the audience, looking at them and smiling, that's always been difficult for me. I'm a lot more comfortable now, but there are still moments of awkwardness.

I never, never thought one day I will sing at La Scala or I will get the Grammy. I'm lucky. I work a lot with a teacher, with my coach.

I always wrote music for my friends, but my focus was on playing piano. I didn't think I'd be quite good enough to be a soloist, but I believed that if I worked hard enough, I could work as a player, a teacher.

There was the best teachers from the Czech Philharmonic, highly dedicated people, some of the best musicians in the world passing on the knowledge about the country, about the principles, and about the music.

My parents were both high-school music teachers.

I got started when I was 3 years old because my father was a music teacher and my lessons were free. Instead of learning to walk, you learn to play the piano.

I've been making music since I was 14, but for a while, I was afraid to perform.

I had a really creative teacher at primary school. He used to get us doing things such as singing Spandau Ballet in drag in the choir, and I remember loving it.

Before I got Doctor Who, I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I went back to take the final grade exam, which is the grade you have to take before you can take the teacher's diploma.

I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice, theory, humanities. And nowadays, music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more.

I first started going to shows when I was about 16 - seeing local bands. I mean, I loved music before that, and I played a bit of guitar when I was younger and thought maybe I'd become a guitar teacher or something, but when I saw other kids doing it, I was like, 'Whoa, these are great bands! I can do it, too.'

I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me - to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That's normally how I perform. That's how I am.

I had kind of a mean piano teacher. I went to Catholic school, so it was like the typical thing you would imagine - a little kid with a white-haired teacher frowning at the fact that I didn't practice.

I do remember a teacher telling me when I was about ten that I was really good at acting. I was so proud, even though I am sure he said that to all of us in the class.

When we first started, and I jumped in this band, I was like, 'I'm not a singer.' I didn't go to school to sing. I just played to have fun. But these guys teach me, and they show me stuff and give me courage to try new stuff.

In the United States, we spend millions of dollars on sports because it promotes teamwork, discipline, and the experience of learning to make great progress in small increments. Learning to play music does all this and more.

My first solo was in church when I was five.

There are different people who got me into music, but what I liked about Beethoven is that even when I didn't understand it or it was too long, there's still something about it that drove me to it. Then it got me excited about actually learning music, like a theory of it.

Openness is something any teacher strives to instill in his or her students.

I think my mom always wanted to play the guitar, and somehow she projected that to me. So I started learning to play guitar when I was five years old, but actually I'd never managed to get the academic side of it. So even up to today, I don't know how to read or write music.

I'm really at ease in being me and going all around the world playing music. But I do get a lift once we start. I'm humming stuff in the dressing room and smiling, looking at myself and making sure I don't have nose hair! But once I get really close to the stage, and the guys are doing the intro thing, I do get a pick-me-up.

So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.

I was in the band as a boy and was taught music and learned to compose.

I almost chose the career of an ethnomusicologist because I was so fascinated by that music. It gives a different feeling of time.

Music is an element that should be part and parcel of every child's life via the education system.