Nina Simone Quotes

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.

I'd say that, first and foremost, I'm a performer; I started performing when I was four years old, and being on stage from a young age set me up.

The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.

I loved being on stage. I was in elementary school when I started, so I couldn't say that it was about the building of characters.

I started on the stage when I was 13 and I consider the stage my home.

I started performing music about the age of 16. I lived in Brooklyn, New York, and this thing called the Flatbush Fair comes once a year. That was my first time on stage.

I started playing the piano when I was 6 years old 'cause my folks tried to get me away from the gramophone. And I just - I lived for music since I could think. And they got me piano lessons. So by the time I was 13, I was quite an accomplished piano player and musician.

I've been classically trained in piano since I was little. My father was a pianist, so they started me early.

I knew I was an exhibitionist. I came from a huge family. I found an emotional connection being on stage.

I was three years old, and I walked onstage during a performance that my father was a tenor in 'The Barber of Seville.' I walked out onstage, and people started laughing and clapping, and that was it. That was all it took. Laughing and clapping, I still enjoy today.

I was a bit of a backstage baby, but I wasn't at all precocious, and there was never a light bulb moment when I decided to go on the stage.

My mother played piano at home; she came from a musical family. Her father, who I never met, was a conductor and composer.

I started playing the piano aged four in an effort to copy Grandpa, who was constantly showing off and entertaining us all, singing comic songs on his baby grand.

I was on stage at a young age.

Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.

A lot of people can play the piano, but not everyone can be Billy Joel.

I would play music every day from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old. Every time I would go from one end of the house to the other, I would pass the piano and play a few notes.

My parents had a love for music. There were so many records, so much music constantly being played. My mother played piano, my father sang, and we were always surrounded in music.

I've never really not played the piano. I've played it since I was six or seven and it's something I've always done - I don't think I could ever really play anything else, I would be a bit out of it without a piano.

There was always a piano around the house and I've got other brothers and sisters but I'm the youngest, and none of them ever wanted to play it. So I guess I was the only one that was gonna end up playing it, if it was one of us.

Some play the piano well and some badly and there is a great difference in the melodies they produce.

I play piano, but not well enough to play professionally.

I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.

I have been playing the piano for my entire life - since I was three.

Fact is that I played piano and performed, as a young kid, a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra . Don't forget I was only eleven-years-old and to be on the stage at that age had tremendous impact on me. Basically love for classical music and performing as a kid on the big stage probably led toward this decision, which meant that music is going to be my big love but also my profession.