For the piano and me it is always a blind date! I meet different pianos every single day. I can't take my piano with me like a bassist can take his instrument. So whenever I arrive I am a bit nervous to see what kind of piano is waiting for me.
I am really not a speedcuber. My best time when I was practicing was about a minute. Usually people say if you can create a piano, you must be a good piano player, but it is not true. They are different type of human activities and need different capabilities.
I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.
I learned to play piano on my own and my parents thought "Oh it would be a good thing for you take piano lessons. That's the way you really need to learn to play the piano."
Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn't hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.
Once I started playing the piano, after my first small competition, I realized that the piano was the right instrument for me.
Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents' passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It's no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
For me, the keyboard is always an additional sound to the piano. Piano is the main instrument; I can't go anywhere without acoustic piano. It's been my best friend since I was 6 years old.
As a kid, I took piano lessons, and I didn't like it. It wasn't cool. I was into Duran Duran and rock music. I didn't have any interest in piano. I did it for three years, and because of piano, I learned percussion. I learned scales. I learned how to sing. Piano gives you all of the basics of those things.
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.
My mother gave me a choice. She said, 'Would you like to take singing lessons or piano.' I'm glad I chose piano.
I can play piano, and I write everything on piano, but I don't really feel like a piano player, necessarily.
As a young composer I had a particular fondness for Liszt's Beethoven Symphony arrangements for the piano, and to this day I enjoy playing non-piano music at the piano.
I took piano lessons as a kid, and my daughter's played piano since before she started kindergarten, so classical piano is something I really love.
I bought a piano once because I had the dream of playing As Time Goes By as some girl's leaning on it drinking a martini. Great image. But none of it worked out. I can't even play Chopsticks. But I've got a nice piano at my house!
I enjoy the challenge of taking something which was not meant for the piano, distilling its essence and writing or improvising it for/at the piano, but having the listener forget that he or she is listening to a piano.