Stephen Hough Quotes

I was playing 'The Flight of the Bumblebee,' and I totally forgot the ending, so I performed the whole piece again, and I still couldn't remember it.

I can sit on a chair with a score and give myself a wonderful performance.

I'm an interpreter of music.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

I do love using keyboards and I love writing keyboard parts, but I am not a player in the true sense of the word.

I don't think so, in so far as I always aspired to play the way I do now but just couldn't get the sounds out always due to technical limitations - now I can pretty much play what I hear in realtime.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

I never learned to verbalize an abstract musical concept. No thank you. The whole point of being a serious musician is to avoid verbalization whenever you can.

I think when you're learning an instrument, you are restricted because much of it is the noise of individual theory and your ability to play the instrument.

Scales played in the correct musical way are very exciting and rewarding.

As a dancing violinist, there have been a couple of moments where I'm like, 'Oops! This is an expensive mistake!'

The thing with music education is that it is good at teaching technique, but not texture. You only learn about that from listening to music and experimenting on your own.

Fundamentally, if there is any secret, it is about the need to find that peace and calm in our personal space with music, as most of 'learning music' is about listening to music and practicing over and over again.

I don't think you can have a calculated approach towards learning music.

I can't play piano well enough without making mistakes.

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.

The right notes mean more than 1,000 mph arpeggios.

Studying music involves a lot of mathematics and a lot of exercises of memory. Or you've got to be able to be like somebody, to play like somebody, to play Mozart's music the way he played it and how he intended it. You've got to make it perfect, and that's not what I want to do. Although it is beautiful.

I always communicate musically. I want my band not only to learn the form and feel of the song by ear, like I do, but also have the freedom to contribute.

I play in tune like a cello player and use legitimate vibrato. There are no tricks; it's just all in the hands!