Anton Seidl Quotes

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

Composers are not all good conductors.

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.

I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.

When I started, I'd never had a conducting lesson in my life; I could just do it.

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.

I've been writing and composing songs since I was 5 years old.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

I'm not musically inclined. It blows my mind that people can write music. I don't have that talent; I look up to the people that do.

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.

Whoever hired me might've just heard 'Refugee.' Well, I'm not the secret to 'Refugee.' The secret to 'Refugee' is the song. But if somebody really good calls me up to play on something because they like the way I played on 'Refugee,' then I wind up playing on another really good song.

Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.

There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well.

Most writers can write, most rock 'n rollers cannot.

Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.

I do love using keyboards and I love writing keyboard parts, but I am not a player in the true sense of the word.

All the conductor has to do is stand back and try not to get in the way. Mozart is doing all the work.

I am an interpreter of music rather than a composer of it.

I never thought of myself as being a good songwriter. There are a ton of other people that are good songwriters, but I don't think I'm in the club. What I do well is perform, sometimes sing pretty good, and accompany myself well and arrange fairly well.

I grew up playing classical piano and percussion.

I like to create the music I hear in my interior. As a conductor, you have the ability to squeeze the sounds and interpretation you asked for from 50 to 80 people.

I had a musician friend once tell me that it's not in the orchestra that you get the true test of the musicians but in the little trios and quintets where you really get to see if they've got the stuff. And the composer.

Great musicians are great musicians, whether they're playing a trombone or an electric guitar or a xylophone.

Most of the time, I'll be conducting the orchestra, but there will be some pieces that I'll be playing an instrument as well, just because I love playing. There's pieces where I want to grab an instrument and play with the rest of the group, like 'The Light of the Seven,' for example; I would love to play the piano for that.

I can't play an instrument to save my life. But when I'm creating, and when I'm making music, I feel like I'm the head of the orchestra, and I'm just waving my wand, and something is created.