Thomas Beecham Quotes

...I got to try the bagpipes. It was like trying to blow an octopus.

My favorite instrument is the snare drum. In Scotland, the snare drum is very prominent in Highland bands. The Scottish style of playing is in my blood. It's a very powerful instrument, but it can also be soothing, like velvet. It's a real challenge for composers.

One cannot imagine Scots music and song without the contribution of Burns.

I do a mean mouth trumpet.

I actually find prank CDs pretty annoying.

There are two instruments worse than a clarinet - two clarinets.

I'd just play 'til my hands fell off. My parents would yell at me to stop because they couldn't stand the noise any more! I was terrible! It must have been hard for them to listen to me as a beginning drummer.

Quit shouting those rerun songs at me.

Twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion.

I'm into sounds, man.

'Black Watch' has taken its place in the canon of Scottish theatre, and that's fantastic. It's a very particular kind of theatre. It's about the music, the movement, the whole 'event' of it.

The piano is such a timeless instrument.

I really got into Gaelic music and the whole sound of it, and I got to go to Scotland.

The guitar is the most beautiful of all instruments.

There's something about the pipes that just connects with Scots, they go mental for it - it's in our DNA somehow.

The world is full of sounds. We just don't usually hear them as music.

Clarinet is an incredible instrument. It's a great, expressive instrument.

If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.

It (the double-clarinet in India) was primarily used for snake charming, since the snake would do almost anything to get the Indians to stop playing it.

I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning, and it's there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.

Sound is the vocabulary of nature... noises are as well articulated as the words in a dictionary... Opposing the world of sound is the world of music.

Finally Beiderbecke came out with a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying 'yes'.

Music is the noise that surrounds the stillness of the art form.

Music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken.

I never thought people would be mortally offended by the sounds I was making.