Anat Cohen Quotes

To play the trumpet, you must train your lips for a long time. When I was twelve or thirteen I was a good player, but I lost the skill and now I play very badly. I do it every day even so. The reason is that I want to return to my childhood. For me, the trumpet is evidence of the sort of young man I was.

When I'm playing live, I'll rip out a ballad from my album, and I'll play that solo on the piano, which feels really good because it kind of takes me back to when I was younger.

It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.

If you are speaking about my own songs, I would think so because we were talking about that particular era and I was singing one of my songs that I recorded 50 years ago.

I do not consider my self as having mastered the flute, but I get a real kick out of trying.

My first concert makes me sound like a real old man. My very first concert was Jackie Wilson.

I know I get a real kick, an emotional charge, out of playing a song I haven't played for 10 years. It just takes you back to that point in your life.

The piano is the instrument I can play the most.

There's nothing that can lock a memory in your mind more distinctly than with a piece of music. It's so easy to remember something so vividly and so perfectly when you score it to something.

I still love 'All Right Now,' strangely enough. But then that's probably because I didn't play it for some twenty years.

It's hard to remember my childhood without remembering music.

I feel like I'm playing the washboard more than the guitar.

I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn't mean I'm a cellist, you know?

I can hear the youthfulness of my playing on, say, 'Hold The Line.'

There's a lot of older musicians who say your whole life making music, you're really trying to get back to that first couple of things you liked when you were a kid. And as much as you might like to think you're not, you really are.

Where are the songs I used to know, Where are the notes I used to sing? I have forgotten everything I used to know so long ago. ("The Key-Note")

Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.

Pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday / And I get on my knees and pray.

I had to sing 'Snowbird' a lot. But I never tired of it, ever.

I don't really admire musicianship per se - as is obvious from my own playing.

Listening to my dad playing guitar along to 'Sleepwalk' by the Shadows was probably the first time I discovered emotion in music.

Besides, the bass isn't a difficult instrument to play. It's like one step up from the kazoo, isn't it?

I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.

And I'm moved, it's so beautiful. Not what I wrote, but to have it given back like this. To have her remember the words and the tune. To hear it in her voice.

Things like guitars and ukuleles, you should never part with it, because there will probably be good, healthy times spent, just playing and writing.