Musical Memorization Quotes

I think every singer should be able to jump in for a singer who has been sick, for instance, and learn an opera in two days. I know people who can do it.

I've always been that way. I'm not very good at reading music but I'm pretty quick at picking things up.

It's so easy to practice out of context. For example, if you're learning a scale, you take that scale and you sit in your room and you go up and down the fretboard, over and over. You've gotta do that, because you need to get that scale working. But you have to keep in mind that that's not the finished product. That's the starting point.

Anyone can rehearse and play constantly any song in the world.

I don't have a good memory, so learning all the songs for my TV performances was a real challenge.

If you have a recital to do, you have to memorize the songs. I never use music when I do recitals. It produces an instant barrier, both for yourself and the audience.

I know only two tunes: one of them is 'Yankee Doodle', and the other isn't.

I'm not very good at picking stuff up off the radio. It takes me way too long to learn other people's music.

I tried to play 'Barracuda' on 'Guitar Hero,' and because you have to anticipate and push buttons, it's really counterintuitive.

If you arrive at a concert ready to play your piece, that's not nearly good enough. You must have your music ready to the point where you can play it on a short rehearsal, after a long plane flight, on a strange piano, having had an unpleasant lunch, in an unfriendly atmosphere. You have to be so over-prepared that you can cope with anything.

With the help of modern technology, I can compose intricate keyboard parts and then I have to go back and learn them in order to perform them properly.

When you learn a Bruce Springsteen song, it's like learning to ride a bike. You don't forget it.

Scriabin slept with Chopin under his pillow, and I slept with Wagner under mine. I could not concentrate on memorizing Bach fugues, but I had all of 'Gotterdammerung' in my fingers.

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.

The nice thing about the violin repertoire is that it's small enough that you can plan on learning everything at some point - whereas the piano repertoire is so enormous it wouldn't be possible unless you're a learning machine.