Nellie McKay Quotes

I love to sing. I never had any formal training. My mother is a singer, and I picked up listening to her.

When I was a kid, I played the piano for six years, and all my family are musicians.

And I've played piano since I was little, so I was originally the piano player in the band.

I started playing when I was 5. I'm from a family of musicians.

I think Jerry Lee is sad. As a musician, he was far more talented than Elvis Presley. Everybody down in Memphis knows that. Elvis became a movie star because he was beautiful. Not that Elvis wasn't talented, but Jerry Lee Lewis was incomprehensibly talented as a musician.

I've been playing piano since I was 7. I took 15 years of lessons. I've got a lot of miles on these hands.

I grew up always around music through my father - I would play in music studios with him as I was growing up - and my high school, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.

I've been singing since I could talk. I started playing the piano when I was about 5 or 6. I picked up the guitar on my 20th birthday.

My parents are both into music. My mom sings and my dad plays piano, so there was always music everywhere. I was singing at a very young age, but I actually got my buzz through rapping.

I played in orchestras all through high school and taught myself how to play guitar.

I've been making music since age five.

I play the piano, but I'm not classically trained.

My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.

It seems that a lot of people, who haven't known of me as a pianist, think I've just started off as a comedian. And so for them the piano was something extra. But, of course, playing the piano was something that came before all of what's happened now.

I grew up, I was going I want to be Jerry Lee Lewis. Only I can't play piano and sing that good.

I have been playing the piano for my entire life - since I was three.

I started in high school with a teacher there. I also took lessons at the Conservatory of Music in Detroit. Detroit was very motivating. There were a lot of local people who inspired me like Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, Roy Brooks, Donald Byrd, etc.

I never wanted to get a job of musician. That was kind of my thing. I came from somewhat of a musical family. I had an uncle on Broadway. My dad kind of knows how to play instruments. Although, I always find it annoying when he does play an instrument.

Sometimes when it goes really well, you wonder, "who's that at the piano?"

Adam [Cohen] is a great singer-songwriter in his own right.

I have a theory that there is something abnormal about children who like to practice instruments They are either geniuses or, more often, completely untalented. I certainly did not like to practice, and the teacher who hit me, and the view of the park, did not help to improve my attitude.

I think the most important thing about what musicians do is the music. You can be as big an arsehole as you want but if you're not making good music, you won't get away with it.

I started to find that music was something that really brought a lot of joy into my life, and it was sort of cool because I discovered that I had a gift for it, too. So the stuff I would listen to I could play along, I could sing along.

And I think Taylor Swift is just an exemplary young lady. It's kind of interesting to see what a profound songwriter she is. I don't even think anyone has realized, the long term is going to be the bigger revelation. It's incredible how quickly she writes songs. We've hung out a couple times, we live near each other in Nashville.

Of the One O'Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: "I wish it were mine".