Musical Rehearsal Quotes

I formed my first band when I was going to Valley Torah High School in Los Angeles.

Another picture I hope to be remembered by is this one of the drum major rehearsing at the University of Michigan. It was early in this morning, and I saw a little boy running after him, all the faculty children in the playing field ran after the boy, and I ran after them. This is a completely spontaneous, unstaged picture.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

When Seymour saw me seated at the piano at that first rehearsal, he shouted: 'What's that kid doing here? Call your piano player and let's get started.'

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 think it's important for a young musician to stick with a band for a while and really work with a band and stay focused.

I have a buddy of mine who's a musician, and I play guitar and sing quite a bit with him.

I do like playing music with other people.

My dad was a bass player in a Latino band when I was growing up. So we always had musical instruments in our basement.

The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.

Throughout my whole life, as a performer, I've never played with a band. I've always played alone, so I was never required to stay in rhythm or anything. So it was a real different experience for me to start playing with a band. There were so many basic things for me to learn.

Sometimes I think the choir gets a little ticked with me because I haven't sung in a long time and I can sing.

With these big Wagner pieces, if I haven't started three years before, I'm screwed. You need time to look at the piece again and again and again, and then, like some fantastic casserole or spaghetti sauce, put it back in the fridge and let the flavours get together.

Kids talk to me and say they want to do musicals again because they've studied the tapes of the old films. We didn't have that. We thought once we had made it, even on film, it was gone except for the archives.

I was a harpsichordist in my teens, and there was a bunch of us in Liverpool who got together every week to play Bach.

I loved Chiara Mastroianni voice, her talent, her generosity. We rehearsed for two months...She's a workaholic and perfectionist, like Vincent [Paronnaud] and myself.

Your band members? Your band members don't want to be tied to a machine. They want to be playing. That's what the Beatles did. And the Beatles' stuff is timeless. That's what I would suggest. Just get back to sweating, playing hard, hammering, and having a blast.

We really practice music and work really hard. Sometimes we'll leave at six in the morning, and we started at three the day before.

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.

I'm having a blast being the music director at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. It certainly is challenging for me, but I love challenges.

No, I never sing in the bath. In fact, I've never even practised singing. I would only ever sing indoors if I had to learn a song with my pianist.

I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.

Conducting 'Tristan' is like floating in amniotic fluid, but having worked on it for three months, I now know why people who go near it go so strange.

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

I am just the band leader, and I just keep everything in tune.