A Quote by Henry Mancini

I play citified Count Basie piano. As few notes as possible, my left hand in my pocket, that kind of stuff. — © Henry Mancini
I play citified Count Basie piano. As few notes as possible, my left hand in my pocket, that kind of stuff.
My dad noticed some kind of talent on piano when he asked me to play a couple random songs on piano when I was 6 and I just did it. I attempted lessons but I was just so bad at reading notes. I would read "Three Blind Mice" by ear, so learning notes was almost impossible.
Since I play piano, I can play the right hand on the accordion, no problemo. It's the left hand with the buttons that makes me crazy.
When you play piano, your left hand and right hand are synced. Your brain basically has a clock, so that the right hand knows that 0.3 seconds after I hit this key, I need to hit that one. And the right hand knows not to hit keys that the left hand is playing, so the hands do not collide.
In the past, heartland whites with some kind of dream or desire left their towns for cities to become citified. They wanted to get away from religion, from their families, they wanted to come out, make art, have sex, have experiences. But this new crew was something we had never seen before. They were the first generation of suburban Americans. They came, not to be citified, but rather to change cities into places they could recognize and dominate.
I wanted to play piano, and that slid quickly into writing - it wasn't enough to play other people's notes: I had to write notes too.
I went through eight years of classical piano lessons without being able to read notes. I only have to hear a melody to be able to play it. It used to freak my piano teacher out when he finally noticed that notes don't make any sense to me and that I played by ear.
A good way to work on alternate picking is to choose three or four notes, and work on those. Too often, players who are trying to improve their right hand dexterity get hung up by playing too many notes with the left hand.I hear a lot of players running whole scales from the sixth string to the first , and playing them really sloppy.Keeping it very basic-and using only a few notes-and playing slowly with perfect rhythm is a task in itself.
In September 2012, I got the blues pretty bad, so I stopped playing for a little while. I started to renew my playing by the time February of 2013 came around. I would go up and rehearse to different songs, play stuff like Count Basie records, jazz or rap.
I got to trumpet, finally. That's why I love to write for brass, and [Count] Basie and [Frank] Sinatra and all that stuff, 'cause that's just like part of my DNA.
I have damaged nerve endings on the right side, so my piano style comes from designing stuff I can play with my right hand. And some of it effectively mimics classical stuff.
When I was a little bitty kid, my aunt showed me how to play a little boogie. It took me years. I had to play the left-hand part with two hands, because my hands was so little. Then as I grew up and I learned how to play the left-hand part with one hand, she showed me how to play the right-hand part, and et cetera. My Uncle Joe showed me how to play a little bit different boogie stuff. I had people in my family that was professional musicians, but I just wasn't interested in what they did. I wasn't very open-minded to a lot of music that I'd be more open to today.
Look at the piano. You'll notice that there are white notes and black notes. Figure out the difference between them and you'll be able to make whatever kind of music you want.
At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes? I also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not be hampered by notes.
I would play music every day from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old. Every time I would go from one end of the house to the other, I would pass the piano and play a few notes.
When I was a kid, three years old, I couldn't walk by the piano without reaching up and trying to play a few notes on it. There are kids who are just drawn to listening to music and dancing to it and trying to conduct.
I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, 'Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.'
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