Welcome to our collection of inspiring piano quotes! The piano, with its elegant keys and enchanting melodies, has long been a symbol of musical creativity and emotional expression. From the classical masterpieces of Mozart and Beethoven to the modern compositions of Chopin and Debussy, the piano has captured the hearts of musicians and listeners alike across generations.
In the world of music, the piano holds a special place, serving as a versatile instrument capable of conveying a wide range of emotions and narratives. Whether it’s the soft, melancholic notes of a nocturne or the thunderous chords of a concerto, each keystroke carries with it a story waiting to be told. Join us as we delve into the profound words of composers, pianists, and music enthusiasts who have found solace, inspiration, and joy in the timeless beauty of the piano.
Below, you’ll discover a curated selection of quotes that celebrate the piano’s allure, its power to evoke emotions, and its enduring influence on the world of music. Feel free to copy these quotes, adorn them with stylish fonts, or place them on captivating images to share the magic of the piano with others. Let the music begin!
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. Oscar Wilde
If I sit down with an electric guitar, what’s going to come out are Sabbath/Zeppelin type riffs, but if I’m sitting behind a piano late at night, I might write something like ‘Desperado.’ You’re not going to write ‘Desperado’ between a wall of Marshalls and thumping, crushing volume. Zakk Wylde
Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it. Tom Lehrer
‘Southern Accents,’ I think that’s one of my best, really. That would have been 1984, and I wrote that on the piano in the studio at home. I had a studio, and I just happened to be down there in the middle of the night. It was quite late, probably early morning, and I just started to play, and a song just started to appear. Tom Petty
There are two places where I can completely relax: in nature and by the piano. Sigrid
Well, I was very lucky. I was brought up west southwest coast of Scotland and my mother and father had a music shop, and so I was surrounded by pianos and drums and guitars, and music, of course. Clive Anderson
I spent thousands of thousands of hours playing the piano, and by thousands of hours, I mean playing in cover bands or wedding bands or disco bands or original bands or playing cabaret for Todd McKenney. Tim Minchin
I remember, for my fifth birthday, Chet Baker sat me on the upright piano, and he played just for me for a few minutes. I can still remember the pressure of the air on my chest. It was my first physical contact with sound. Jean-Michel Jarre
When Marty Short and I get together, I sit down at the piano and play the score of ‘Godspell.’ Paul Shaffer
Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading. Igor Stravinsky
I played with Prince in 2010… the America tour. The one with Misty Copeland dancing on top of the piano! But Prince played the piano on that song. But I played two dates with him on that tour. When we played the gig, every couple of songs, Prince would change his clothes. Jon Batiste
I’ve always been involved in music. Whether it be taking piano lessons or something, I always have. Juice Wrld
Lectures should go from being like the family singing around the piano to high-quality concerts. Bill Gates
I wanted to take up guitar because playing piano is a little harder. Carrying a keyboard around is harder, and finding a real piano is much harder, and I wanted to play live more, so I figured a guitar would be easier to carry around. Mitski
I play the piano. I bought an upright piano that is actually electric, so I can practice my scales with headphones on and not make my neighbours’ lives hell! Eva Green
Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power. Joan Didion
I chose ‘Time’ by Hans Zimmer because it’s very melodic, and the way it progresses throughout the track is very unique. I am personally a very big fan of piano melodies, and to me, ‘Time’ is just perfect. Alan Walker
Get up from that piano. You hurtin’ its feelings. Jelly Roll Morton
I have always wanted to learn the piano, but because I travel so much, I can never get any consistency of lessons. So everywhere I go, if I can find a piano, even if it is in the lobby of a hotel or something, I go on YouTube and pick some songs to learn. Lewis Hamilton
I started playing piano age six. I was also singing in the choir, so my mum put me into music school. I went to study there for seven years, but it was not my passion. I quit because I wanted to study marketing. But I can still play piano. Irina Shayk
I wanted to try to write songs on the piano to get a different flavor. Aimee Mann
I play piano every day. Sarah McLachlan
I do a long sound check. I get there at noon on the day of a show and sit behind the piano and then walk around with the microphone. Then I feel like I have done my homework. John Tesh
When I was young, I wanted to be a writer or painter. I was always writing stories, and I excelled at drawing. My teachers encouraged my art work. When I was 9 or 10, I began learning piano and started writing music. Bat for Lashes
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 going to go on and be Mozart or Michael Jackson. But music makes you smarter. Jamie Foxx
I studied with Felix Blumenfeld, who had studied piano with Anton Rubinstein and composition with Tchaikovsky. Felix, my professor, was the right hand of Anton Rubinstein. Blumenfeld knew his playing by heart, from every angle. Vladimir Horowitz
I never actually had a guitar lesson. I taught myself the guitar from piano exercise books, which led me to have a pretty good technique on the guitar and allowed me to find different ways to do things. Trevor Rabin
Music is like nuclear plants. In a way, it’s true! Music is totally artificial. Still using some material from nature, a piano is assembled with wood and iron. Nuclear power uses material from nature, but it’s been manipulated by humans, and it produces something unnatural. Ryuichi Sakamoto
I’ve never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I’ve always played with other musicians. It’s how I play, there’s no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play. Ringo Starr
I’ve had grand pianos that are more expensive than, like, a year’s worth of rent. Lady Gaga
The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth. Andres Segovia
Mom and sister played piano growing up; my grandma still plays piano in church. They always beat me over the head trying to get me to play piano, but I was more interested in riding dirt bikes and playing in the mud. Dustin Lynch
The music is within your heart, your soul, your spirit, and this is all I did when I sat at piano. I just go within. Alice Coltrane
Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano! Frederic Chopin
I can’t read music. Instead, I’d do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize – out of like 5,000 kids! Eddie Van Halen
I’ve always wanted to smash a guitar over someone’s head. You just can’t do that with a piano. Elton John
It’s a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can’t do. David Gilmour
Piano playing is a dying art. I love the fact that I can be one guy with one instrument evoking an emotional and musical experience. Jon Bon Jovi
I was about 10, and I was supposed to be playing the piano at the school concert, and I got up in front of the whole school and said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m changing the agenda. I want to play some songs I’ve written.’ Andrew Lloyd Webber
I’m trying to learn classical piano, Mozart and Beethoven and stuff. I took lessons when I was younger and now I sort of sight read the music and play it by ear. It’s fun. It takes up a lot of time. I practice a couple of hours a day, but I find it soothing. Evan Peters
The history of the music industry is inevitably also the story of the development of technology. From the player piano to the vinyl disc, from reel-to-reel tape to the cassette, from the CD to the digital download, these formats and devices changed not only the way music was consumed, but the very way artists created it. Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
I was always involved in the arts from a young age. I started studying classical piano at age four as a student of the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music. Monica Raymund
We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion. Zelda Fitzgerald
Every day a piano doesn’t fall on my head is good luck. Meg Rosoff
The piano has been drinking, not me. Tom Waits
I totally related to Cole Porter’s magnetic pull to any piano that was in the room, which he was famous for doing, as was Gershwin. You couldn’t drag them away from a piano. Kevin Kline
Fingers don’t have much to do with playing the piano. The idea that they do must be unlearned. Glenn Gould
My daughter is one of my greatest inspirations. She’s an environmentalist, she plays piano, she’s raising money for the earthquake victims in Nepal. Every day she surprises me and teaches me something. Patti Smith
My father left his piano at the house when he left, and I wasn’t allowed to play it when he was there because I wasn’t as good as him. So when he left, I was determined to get as good as him, and I taught myself how to play music, and I just stuck with it, and I did it all the time. Prince
I grew up the son of a Seventh Day Adventist minister, so I was really close to the church and sang church music between sips at my bottle, you know? I sat on the piano bench next to my mother. She was the church organist, so that music is deeply inside of me. Al Jarreau
My grandmother played the piano, and I used to toddle over there and pick out little things that sounded good to me. Billy Strayhorn
Whenever I see a piano, I just play on it. Lil Mosey
If you put your hand on the piano, you play a note. It’s in tune. But if you put it on the violin, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. You have to figure it out. Itzhak Perlman
I am so in the past. I’m such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano. Elton John
One does not play the piano with one’s fingers: one plays the piano with one’s mind. Glenn Gould
Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people’s buttons, you can play them like a piano. Tristan Harris
Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you’re listening. Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time. Kelsey Grammer
For a female artist, it takes a lot more to be taken seriously if you’re not sat down at a piano or with a guitar, you know? Dua Lipa
I left Northwestern University after a year and was in New York playing piano in a little bar on 58th Street, and I didn’t know whether to go back. Warren Beatty
As for my own music, I’ve never written a book about it. I’m not pedagogical… When I write an abstract piano sonata or a concerto, I write what I feel. I’m not a self-conscious composer. Samuel Barber
I can’t read music. Instead, I’d do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize – out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, ‘Very interesting interpretation!’ I thought I was playing it right. Eddie Van Halen
My first big break came with Lauryn Hill on a track called Everything is Everything, I played piano on that track way back in 1998. John Legend
I learned when I started to study piano that I could play by ear. I could hear a song on the radio a couple of times and hear the song and the lyrics and sing it for you after a couple of plays. Ronnie Milsap
I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play. Taylor Swift
I like to play the ukulele, but I’m not, like, awesome at it. I mostly play the piano and the guitar. Zooey Deschanel
I guess as a kid, I was always creative, and I was involved in music, like piano and violin and choir, so I always knew – I always knew that I wanted to do something that would allow me to be who I am. Generally, that was creatively, imaginatively. Reggie Watts
My youngest sister, Cindy, has Down syndrome, and I remember my mother spending hours and hours with her, teaching her to tie her shoelaces on her own, drilling multiplication tables with Cindy, practicing piano every day with her. No one expected Cindy to get a Ph.D.! But my mom wanted her to be the best she could be, within her limits. Amy Chua
Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament. Marilyn Monroe
Our daily life is filled with electronic pianos, ring tones, the disembodied voice giving you your bank balance over the telephone. Even silence can be electronic, courtesy of sound-canceling headphones. Serge Schmemann
I’ve been playing guitar since I was 6 and then drums, bass, and piano since I was 10 years old. Bazzi
I’ve played guitar and piano for a while, so it’s really fun to play music on film. Austin Butler
Avicii’s melodies were so simple and cool, and they were actually similar to the melodies I played on piano. I thought if I could teach myself how to produce and get those melodies out of my head and into the computer, maybe I could make some cool music, too. Kygo
So yeah, I play the piano for most of the show, but I like rock and roll. Gavin DeGraw
Girls are like pianos. When they’re not upright, they’re grand. Benny Hill
I wouldn’t trust any man as far as you can throw a piano. Ethel Merman
I certainly miss playing piano, and I really wish I did it more – it’s really a very therapeutic thing to do for me. I just need to be home for more than a few minutes to be able to play more, I guess. Audra McDonald
I started off with violin, then I started learning guitar, then I went to piano. But I self-taught piano just because I enjoyed it. I’ve always really enjoyed music. Jesse Spencer
The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records. Eddie Van Halen
I got the idea for the song ‘Bad Company’ when I saw a poster for the Jeff Bridges movie, and it reminded of an old Victorian picture that I’d once seen, and it said, ‘Beware of bad company.’ So I sat down at the piano and started to write the song. Paul Rodgers
One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen. Paul McCartney
You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you’ve looked into a pair of beautiful eyes. Robert Schumann
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don’t feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you’re making art. Stephen Sondheim
I spend many evenings reading or continuing the day’s work, but I also enjoy playing the piano, jogging, and traveling with the family. Robert Woodrow Wilson
I hope to refine music, study it, try to find some area that I can unlock. I don’t quite know how to explain it but it’s there. These can’t be the only notes in the world, there’s got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys. Marvin Gaye
When she started to play, Steinway came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano. Bob Hope
My mother was a piano teacher, my father an inventor. He invented the reflective paint they still use on airstrips. They had faith in my ambition, and I think that made all the difference. Chuck Close
I play the piano a lot at home. I write songs on the piano and guitar. I would like to actually play piano on stage. I don’t think I’ll get the chance for a while. Mick Taylor
I’ve done eight grades of piano training from Trinity College and also done my sound engineering course. Anirudh Ravichander
I think my first experience of art, or the joy in making art, was playing the horn at some high-school dance or bar mitzvah or wedding, looking at a roomful of people moving their bodies around in time to what I was doing. There was a piano player, a bass player, a drummer, and my breath making the melody. Robert Pinsky
My grandfather, Arthur Baskerville, he played and still plays a little bit piano and trombone, and so when I was a kid, I always heard jazz around the house, but I also went to his gigs, whether it be a Saturday brunch in my hometown Columbus, Ohio. We’d go and hear him play with some of the local musicians. Aaron Diehl
I had studied piano since I was 13, but I was surrounded by students who’d been playing since they were 5. I realized I was never going to be anything but mediocre. Kevin Kline
You just need the ear. But the ear is something, I guess, that you can’t buy. And I can’t play the piano fluently, but I feel like my ear is my strong point. Metro Boomin
At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano. Lady Gaga
I’ve played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I’m mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute… Just not well. Kat Dennings
When I was first starting out as a kid, I tried to pad my resume with everything I had ever done – ice-skate, carry a tune. I can’t dance for my life, but I can learn, so I’ll tell people I can dance. I play the piano – I’m a really good pianist, actually. Alexandra Daddario
I attended public school in Houston. I took piano lessons for several years, and in high school, I played trombone in the marching band. I remember especially enjoying two seasonal activities: ice skating with the Houston Figure Skating Club in the winter and visiting an aunt and uncle’s farm in West Texas in the summer. Robert Woodrow Wilson
Love is a piano dropped from a fourth story window, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ani DiFranco
The public is like a piano. You just have to know what keys to poke. Al Capp
I see the player piano as the grandfather of the computer, the ancestor of the entire nightmare we live in, the birth of the binary world where there is no option other than yes or no and where there is no refuge. William Gaddis
When I wake up in the morning, and I go to the piano, and there’s a blank sheet of paper in front of me, by the end of the day, that could be a gold mine. You really do need to wake up and expect that the world is your oyster because it very well may be. Lesley Gore