At the age of 16, something happened with my finger and the doctor told me, you never can be a organist or pianist, so think about what you do with music.
Kurt Masur

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.
Roberta Flack

But my morn was a pianist, and she taught piano out of her house. I was just so excited, being a little kid and having all these other kids come to my house twice a week. I thought it was a big party.
Vanessa Carlton

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.
Billy Joel

I decided during my teens that I wasn't going to have the life of a concert pianist, much to the chagrin of a lot of people who had put a lot of money into me!
Cy Coleman

I don't regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I'm not a great player. I just like music. Drums 'n' bass is pretty exciting and I'd love to explore it.
Keith Emerson

I don't think I could have ever had a career as a pianist because I never ever wanted to play the notes the way they were written, I was too sloppy to learn them quite right.
Jerry Hunt

I started off as a studio pianist in Hollywood.
Skitch Henderson

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.
Steve Lacy

I was for a minor amount of time but I was probably a better pianist at 15 than I am now.
Josh Silver

I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.
David Hyde Pierce

I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
Alan Hovhaness

I'm basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good keyboard player. People think I think I'm good. I think I'm a very poor piano player.
Ray Manzarek

I'm not really a pianist.
Harold Budd

In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.
David Amram

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.
Carly Simon

My father was a stone mason, and a talented amateur pianist and vocalist.
John E. Walker

My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist.
Bernie Worrell

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.
Amy Tan

Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
Nina Simone