Charlie Siem Quotes

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

I've figured out what to do with my hands... onstage. I'm a percussion player, so I grab a tambourine as much as I can.

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I'm a natural musician.

I was really conscious of that when I went in because I felt that I was pretty solid on the first one, but I didn't have the groove exactly where I wanted it.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

I can sit on a chair with a score and give myself a wonderful performance.

I read and write classical piano and percussion, also guitar.

To have everything written for you... It's not really creating. That's why I think symphony drummers are so limited. They 're limited to exactly what was played a hundred years before them by a thousand other drummers.

I can't read music. That's not where I come from musically. I come strictly from feeling, and that feeling comes from rock & roll.

I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.

I don't have a very disciplined approach to practicing or anything, but I do tend to have a guitar around most of the time, which I strum on most of the day.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

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

I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.

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

I'm a natural piano player. So all the practicing I do at this point is in my head. If I don't play for a year, my chops aren't going to get any worse. I've spent my time playing scales, and I don't necessarily want to play any faster than I play. So everything I do at this point is more philosophical.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

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

You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use.

I don't think so, in so far as I always aspired to play the way I do now but just couldn't get the sounds out always due to technical limitations - now I can pretty much play what I hear in realtime.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I never learned to verbalize an abstract musical concept. No thank you. The whole point of being a serious musician is to avoid verbalization whenever you can.

I remember learning how to play 'The Fool On The Hill' on piano when I was in maybe fifth grade.