"For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being." ~Pablo Casals, Joys and Sorrows

"Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it." ~Madeleine L'Engle

"It is impossible to feign mastery of an instrument, however skillful the impostor may be." ~Andres Segovia, letter to Bernard Gavoty, December 20, 1954

"I remember now that music is vibration, a disturbance in the air. I remember that music is a kind of breathing, an exchange of energy and excitement. I remember that music is physical, not just in the production of sounds, in the instrumentalist's technique, but as an experience. Making music changes my body, eliciting shivers, sobs, or the desire to dance. I become aware of myself, of these sensations that lie dormant until music brings them out. And in an instant the pleasure, the effort, the ambition and intensity of playing grip me and shake me awake. I feel as if I've been wandering aimlessly until now, as if all the time I'm not practicing, I'm a sleepwalker." ~Glenn Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music

"It's easy to get carried away. The grandeur, the depth and beauty of music are always present in the practice room. Holding the guitar, I feel music's power at my fingertips, as if I might pluck a string and change the world. For centuries people believed that music was the force that moved the planets. Looking into the night sky, astronomers saw the harmony of heaven, and philosophers heard the music of the spheres. Musicians were prophets then, and according to Cicero the most talented might gain entry to heaven while still alive simply 'by imitating this harmony on strings instruments.' Every artist must sometimes believe that art is the doorway to the divine. Perhaps it is. But it's dangerous for a musician to philosophize instead of practicing. The grandeur of music, to be heard, must be played. When I hold the guitar, I may aspire to play perfect harmonies. But first I have to play well. ~Glenn Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music

"Practicing is training; practicing is meditation and therapy. But before any of these, practicing is a story you tell yourself, a bildungsroman, a tale of education and self-realization. For the fingers as for the mind, practicing is an imaginative, imaginary arc, a journey, a voyage.... From the outside, practicing may not seem like much of a story. If the family out on the sidewalk were to look in my window, all they would see is me sitting alone in my room playing the guitar. Yet practicing is the fundamental story. Whether as a musician, as an athlete, at your job, or in love, practice gives direction to your longing, gives substance to your labor. Every day you go to the gym or sit down at your desk. The work is not always interesting, not always fun. Sometimes it is tedious. Sometimes it is infuriating. Why do you continue? Why did you start in the first place? You must have an answer that helps you persevere. Maybe you don't have a choice; maybe others depend on your labor. But these too are stories that keep you going, ways of gathering the innumerable little chores of your day into a single compelling task." ~Glenn Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily." ~Zig Ziglar

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." ~Pablo Picasso

"It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play." ~Dizzie Gillespie (1917-93), American trumpeter, composer, and bandleader, and founder of bebop style of jazz

"I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous." ~Pyotr Tchaikovsky, quoted in Schafer, British Composers in Interview (1963)

"We all do 'do, re, mi', but you have to find the other notes yourself." ~Louis Armstrong (1901-71), American trumpeter and jazz musician

"Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God." ~Felix Mendelssohn

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." ~Thomas A. Edison

"You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone." ~Percy Cerutty

"If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it." ~Jascha Heifetz

"Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy." ~Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky

"Inspiration, it is well recognized, rarely comes unless an individual has immersed himself in the subject. He must have a rich background of knowledge and experience in it." ~E. W. Sinnott

"Only when the form grows clear to you, will the spirit become so too." ~Robert Schumann, Advice to Young Musicians (1848)

"Roaming through the jungle of 'oohs' and 'ahs', searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats." Duke Ellington (1899-1974), American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and one of the originators of big-band jazz

"We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavoring to meet it halfway, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination. A few days ago I told you I was working every day without any real inspiration. Had I given way to my disinclination, undoubtedly I should have drifted into a long period of idleness. But my patience and faith did not fail me, and today I felt the inexplicable glow of inspiration of which I told you; thanks to which I know beforehand that whatever I write today will have power to make an impression, and to touch the hearts of those who hear it." ~Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." ~Aristotle

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little." ~Plutarch

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Red Auerbach

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

"Only those who have the patience to do the simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do the difficult things easily." ~Unknown

"There is no top. There are always further heights to reach." ~Jascha Heifetz

"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music." ~Sergei Rachmaninoff

"Art begins where technique ends. There can be no real art development before one's technique is firmly established. And a great deal of technical work has to be done before the great works of violin literature, the sonatas and concertos, may be approached." ~Leopold Auer

"At the bottom of all technique lies the scale. And scale practice is the ladder by means of which all must climb to higher proficiency. Scales, in single tones and intervals, thirds, sixths, octaves, tenths, with the incidental changes of position, are the foundation of technique. They should be practiced slowly, always with the development of tone in mind, and not too long a time at any one session. No one can lay claim to a perfected technique who has not mastered the scale." ~Eddy Brown

"The right kind of practice is not a matter of hours. Practice should represent the utmost concentration of brain. It is better to play with concentration for two hours than to practice eight without. I should say that four hours would be a good maximum practice time—I never ask more of my pupils—and that during each minute of the time the brain be as active as the fingers." ~Leopold Auer

"The serious student, in my opinion, should not practice less than four hours a day, nor need he practice more than five. Other teachers may demand more. Sevcik, I know, insists that his pupils practice eight and ten hours a day. To do so one must have the constitution of an ox, and the results are often not equal to those produced by four hours of concentrated work. As Mr. Kreisler intimated with regard to technic, practice calls for brain power. Concentration in itself is not enough. There is only one way to work and if the pupil can find it he can cover the labor of weeks in an hour." ~Felix Winternitz, contemporary of Fritz Kreisler's, violin teacher at the New England Conservatory of Music

"You must not take Mr. Kreisler too seriously when he lays no stress on his own practicing. During the concert season he has his violin in hand for an hour or so nearly every day. He does not call it practicing, and you and I would consider it playing and great playing at that. But it is a genuine illustration of what I meant when I said that one who knew how could cover the work of weeks in an hour's time." ~Felix Winternitz

"Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me." ~Jascha Heifetz

"If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing." ~Zimbabwe proverb

"I have discovered three things which know no geographical borders—classical music, American jazz, and applause as the sign of the public's favor." ~Jascha Heifetz

"It takes a lot of devotion and work, or maybe I should say play, because if you love it, that's what it amounts to. I haven't found any shortcuts, and I've been looking for a long time." ~Chet Atkins

"There's no such thing beneath the heavens as conditions favorable to art. Art must crash through or perish." ~Sylvia Ashton-Warner

"I am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day." ~Itzhak Perlman

"The faster you go, the longer it takes." ~Chinese saying

"My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit." ~Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971), Poetics of Music

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." ~Henry Miller (1891 - 1980)

"I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down." ~Virgil Thompson

"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent." ~Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

"It's like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something." ~Duke Ellington (1899-1974), American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and one of the originators of big-band jazz

"Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us." ~Unknown