Leonard Bernstein Quotes

Playing octaves was just a coincidence. And it's still such a challenge, like chord versions, block chords like cats play on piano. There are a lot of things that can be done with it, but each is a field of its own. I used to have headaches every time I played octaves, because it was extra strain, but the minute I'd quit I'd be all right. But now I don't have headaches when I play octaves.

It's really hard for me to sing and play bass.

I really worked to try and be creative enough on the guitar parts so those who aren't real educated would know that there was some difficulty in doing it.

Sometimes the simplest forms of music are the hardest to play. Especially for musicians that are accomplished.

People think that singing and playing is easy. It's not. It's easy to strum along, but if you actually want to really play, where it's important, that's a hard thing and not too many people are good at it.

The violin - that most human of all instruments.

If you can play the piano, you can play any instrument.

Unfortunately, every time I have somebody play an instrument, it's always like, they don't know how to do it.

The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well.

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.

I don't mind conducting the orchestra if I can play the violin.

The hardest instruments for women to play are bass and drums. Drums because of the physicality needed and bass just because its heavy and it's not an easy instrument to play.

The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, 'I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.'

If there's one thing I feel very strongly about, it's that there shouldn't be a distinction between pianists who play Ligeti and those who play Chopin. It might seem that they involve different skill sets, but I don't think that's true: whether playing Ives or Bach or Beethoven, you must bring the same imagination, the same sensitivity, and an ability to deal with same kinds of musical problems. The method behind my madness, anyway, is to keep plugging away at this idea.

If I could play an instrument, it would probably be a cello or an electric guitar.

We all want to play great music all the time, but if that is not possible, you have to hit as many right notes as you can.

The great mystery isn't that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn't play the trumpet very well.

Music is the most important thing. I'm thinking of my future. There has to be something new, and I want to be part of it. I want to lead an orchestra with excellent musicians. I want to play music which draws pictures of the world and its space

I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.

I had the chance to play with Benny 'The King' Carter here in Copenhagen for three days in the Montmartre, and two days in Paris. 'What a Thrill.' He knows so much music, and he is the only person that I get the shakes trying to play my horn behind or with him (smile). However, it was a ball.

To me, all guitar players can play, because I know they're getting to where they're at. It's a very hard instrument to accept, because it takes years to start working with it, that's first, and it looks like everybody else is moving on the instrument but you. Then when you find a cat that's really playing, you always find that he's been playing a long time, you can't get around it.

If you can't play all the instruments in the orchestra of story, no matter what music may be in your imagination, you're condemned to hum the same old tune.

Get the most out of everything in your life; the happiness and the sadness, the success and the failure...get a good perspective of what life is all about. Let the orchestra of your life play all the notes, the high notes, the low rumblings of the difficulties and perplexities that all we all face.

We need to play each others instruments.

I must play the instrument I've got.