Johnny Mathis Quotes

I am a frustrated saxophone player. If I could, I would abandon all of my books, and I would trade it all if I could play the way people I admire play.

Music was my first love, but it was difficult for me. It's something that I really love, but I didn't feel that I was so good at it. I can sing well, but I'm not a great singer. When I sing, I don't feel I'm expressing all the emotions.

You can chase a Beethoven symphony all your life and never catch up.

I'm not musically inclined. It blows my mind that people can write music. I don't have that talent; I look up to the people that do.

I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton... oh, there's many more! I wouldn't want to be like them, you understand, but I'd like to be equal, if you will.

When I look at my kids, and the ease with which they pick up music, I wish I had that.

I have music inside me and I'm very lucky to be able to play music and that's the way that I try to do it.

I think there are always people who, when they get the bug to play an instrument, they want to get as good as they can with it rather than just be simply adequate at it. You run into them every once in a while - some kid who wants to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan, for whatever reason, and plays exactly like him.

Nothing special, I have not a special talent. I have been born with a sound, and I like music and try to serve it, but talent is a scientist.

I was the only one in my family to be musically inclined, and my mother loved that. It encouraged my grand aunt to find me a music teacher, because it was quite obvious music was in me.

Only one of my grandchildren is serious about a musical instrument. The others dabble in it.

I like to believe that I play bass like Dusty Hill, and that's something nobody else can do as well as me. I'm the best Dusty Hill I know.

I'm lucky that my family is musical. Music was encouraged. So when I saw Carlos Santana play and decided to really pursue the electric guitar in earnest, it was OK. My parents knew I was going to go for it.

I knew music was for me from an early age.

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.

You can tune your guitar funky, and something's gonna come out. There's no secret to it - either you got it, or you don't.

I'll make music as long as I can sing and stand up and hold a guitar and I feel like doing this.

I think that, initially, I was most passionate about music and particularly about playing the piano. I started playing when I was nine, and I was obsessed with it, really. I wouldn't even go spend the night at a friend's unless they had a piano. But I didn't have the chops, the extraordinary talent to be able to play the piano professionally.

With me, I would never lose my sight of music.

I've always idolized people who can write songs.

Growing up, I was always around adult musicians who played for their entire lives. So that's what I wanted to do, and I always had that in mind.

I wish I was really talented in music because then I would be doing it. I felt that I could write a decent song, but it was a big struggle.

My parents made me take piano lessons from 1st grade to when I graduated from high school, and music never came to me as naturally as my other more visual artistic talents.

I'm honored people think enough of my playing to chase my sound. Hell, I chase other players' tones all the time.