I went to college on a classical piano scholarship. My grandmother made me practice one full hour a day. Every day. Man. I thought all she wanted was for me not to have any fun. Next thing you know, you have a career in music. Now, not everybody's go...
Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the ...
Murph: Tell me a little about this electric piano, Ray. Ray: Ah, you have a good eye, my man. That's the best in the city Chicago. Jake: How much? Ray: 2000 bucks and it's yours. You can take it home with you. As a matter of fact, I'll throw in the b...
When his wounds cut too deep for the blues--when he couldn't sing himself out of his own sorrow--when he was too wounded to shimmy his fingers over piano keys--he came to the healing waters of the Alapaha River. And on the river he recounted his sins...
I thought that I needed a church and hundreds of guests and music that actually sounded like music, but I was wrong. What I needed was a drunken priest, irreverent guests, and a companion who learned to play piano from a goat." "Then you got exactly ...
Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is int...
She felt all right. Her heart was like a drum hanging from piano wire in her chest, slowly, slowly beaten. Her hands and feet were numb, not with cold but with a sultry torpor. Thoughts moved with a tranquil lethargy, her brain a leisurely machine im...
If a piano fell from the sky, my first reaction would be, Oh my God! I hope it didn’t crush my bag of chips I left lying on the ground.
Too many years fighting back tears. Why can't the past just die? Wishing you were somehow here again, knowing we must say goodbye. Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try! No more memories, no more silent tears, no more gazing a...
Hatred. Something almost as physical as walls, pianos, or nurses. She could almost touch the destructive energy leaking out of her body. She allowed the feeling to emerge, regardless of whether it was good or bad; she was sick of self-control, of mas...
A few months ago, I was sitting morosely at my desk, wondering why I had ever agreed to review for an English newspaper. The experience was proving to be a degradation of the act of reading. Imagine, if you will, being strapped into a chair and made ...
When a young pianist hits a wrong note, we don’t say he is not worthy to keep practicing. We don’t expect him to be flawless. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now we can be content with progress in t...
I skipped school one day to see Dizzy Gillespie, and that's where I met Coltrane. Coltrane and Jimmy Heath just joined the band, and I brought my trumpet, and he was sitting at the piano downstairs waiting to join Dizzy's band. He had his saxophone a...
[the Ghetto is being "cleared out", with machine gun fire all around, two SS Guards stop and listen to a fellow Guard playing the piano] First S.S. Guard: Was ist das? Ist das Bach? Second S.S. Guard: Nein. First S.S. Guard: Ist das Bach? Second S.S....
George Baines: Ada, I'm unhappy. 'Cause I want you. 'Cause my mind has seized on you and can think of nothing else. This is why I've suffered. I am sick with longing. I don't eat, I don't sleep. So, if you have come with no feeling for me, then go. G...
George Baines: What happened? Tell me. Tell me! Where is she? Shh. Quiet down! Quiet down. Where is she? Flora: He chopped it off. George Baines: What did she tell him? What did she tell him? I'm going to crush his skull. Flora: Nooo! No, no! He'll c...
Stewart: [to George Baines] She has spoken to me. I heard her voice. There was no sound, but I heard it here. Her voice was there in my head. I watched her lips, they did not make the words, yet the harder I listened the clearer I heard her, as clear...
[Mr. Darcy walks next to the piano] Elizabeth Bennet: You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all your state to hear me, but I won't be alarmed even if your sister does play so well. Mr. Darcy: I am well enough acquainted with you, Miss Eliz...
Daffy Duck: I've worked with a lot of withe-quackerth, but you are dethpicable Donald F. Duck: Doggone stubborn little- That did it! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Daffy Duck: Thith ith the latht time I work with thomeone with a th-peech impediment. Donald F. Du...
Subject: Sundown Date: June 14 2011 09:35 To: Christian Grey Dear Completely & Utterly Smitten I love waking up with you, too. But I love being in bed with you and in elevators and on pianos and billiard tables and boats and desks and showers and bat...
The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said: "Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There i...
