Top 184 Saxophone Quotes & Sayings

I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it

[Larry Laurenzano] gave me a junior high school saxophone to take to high school, because I was always taking one of our school horns home to practice and I couldn't afford to buy one. He gave my friend, Tyrone, a tuba and he gave me a junior high saxophone for each of us to use at Performing Arts High School with. My audition piece was selections from Rocky. We were not sophisticated. But we had some spirit about it. We enjoyed it, and it was a way out.

The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music.

I played saxophone and trumpet. Pretty nerdy.

I originally started playing saxophone. I started singing a little bit when I got into middle school, when I realized girls didn't really date the dude with the saxophone.

I play drums, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, french horn, piano.

I was [ on Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition] with Ralph Bowen, and Joel Frahm, Jimmy Greene, John Ellis. You can't play the saxophone better than any of those guys play. So many of those things that those guys could do I wish I could do now, let alone then.

Guitars, there was rock 'n' roll. Saxophone, jazz. Now we have the computer and there's this electronic thing happening in music that is somewhat superhuman.

Nobody played instruments in my family. My father got that bug and said he wants his son to play saxophone.

I practiced saxophone eight hours a day for the first two years I played.

I decided to play the saxophone because it was the most obvious instrument in my family. There were a lot of saxophone players in my family, and there were extra saxophones, so that was an easy one to pick up. It was fun - it was okay - it just wasn't me. It didn't feel like my instrument, so I never followed through.

I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.

My central quest was to have a piece played on the saxophone sound like more than one instrument, exploiting different registers and wide interval leaps.

Charlie Parker is my greatest inspiration as a saxophone player - anything that involves him entails a large amount of respect.

Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.

I tried many sports like football, baseball, and swimming. I even played saxophone and piano.

I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.

Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first.

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

Making a painting is like playing the saxophone. You hit the note and it comes out.

My secret dream has always been to be a jazz musician. I tried the saxophone for a year or two when I was younger, but unfortunately I had to face the fact that I was not really talented!

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone. The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the human voice and when Oliver plays with other sax players, it's like a dialogue.

So I'm looking to the saxophone as a resource which has its own unique set of possibilities. I'm looking to exploit them and develop them and have the fullest range of possibilities of the saxophone be known.

When you play a sax, that saxophone is irreverent. It's noisy; it's a trickster... you cannot hide the saxophone in your hands, so it's a good teacher.

The worst waste of breath, next to playing a saxophone, is advising a son

I played saxophone for a while when I was a kid.

The saxophone is the embodied spirit of beer.

I always wanted to play some kind of instrument - piano, saxophone, whatever. I took it up for a while, then forgot about it because I didn't have the time.

I don't know why, but I like the saxophone.

Switch to piano! No. Really, if you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice. Of course, it would be best if you could actually sing with your own voice. The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. Therefore, the challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument or 'voice' that is outside of your body. I love that challenge and have for over forty-five years. As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

I remember one day sitting in the mirror with a saxophone, just looking at myself, being like, 'I can't do this; this is ridiculous.'

I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.

I played music my whole life - piano, saxophone.

I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players.

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

[Winning the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition]definitely opened some doors.

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.

I have not practiced saxophone since 1980. I mean, not one note. I do not pick it up in my house, and that's the end of it.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

When I was a kid, I always saw these pictures of a man called Bob Gordon with a baritone saxophone, who I understood was my father. Turns out he wasn't. He was my mother's first husband.

I've got a real love-hate thing with the saxophone. I've got to be careful.

Throughout the evening I would be recording these long saxophone delays and about four hours into the concert, if I wanted to take a break I would just play back the saxophone.

That's the beautiful thing about the saxophone. It can peacefully coexist with just about anything - whether it's hip-hop, rap, rock music, pop, R&B or jazz, there's a place for the saxophone in all of those styles.

I love the sound of the saxophone. It became my singing voice, and it sounds so human. The saxophone could carry the words past the border of words. It can carry it a little bit farther.

It's great to hear someone really care for the soprano saxophone.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

Bill Justis was a saxophone player, good musician, arranger, and friend of mine who had a big hit called Raunchy.

I am a saxophone player.

Bill Justis was a saxophone player, good musician, arranger, and friend of mine who had a big hit called 'Raunchy.'

I like to hear melodies that go from one extreme to the next- saxophone to a bell to a whistle, for instance.

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.

I'm just a former saxophone player who got lucky.

Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I'd never play them live!

The saxophone was created to mimic the human voice and I think that's why I gravitated toward the saxophone eventually. I'd loved the clarinet, but there's something about the saxophone that just grabs you.

I loved playing the saxophone.

The drum is the heart of music. The saxophone can play and then rest, as can all of them except the drums; the drummer keeps going - he can't afford to stop.

You can make a saxophone into an electric organ; you can do everything with it.

I can't play any horns. Every time I tried to take saxophone lessons as a kid ... I can't whistle. I don't know if that has anything to do with.