Cello quotes:

Send

Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I'd never play them live! -- Dev Hynes
The paintings are more about physicality and gesture than meditation. I'd compare it to playing scales on the Cello - each sound (pitch and intensity) depends on the manner in which you hold and apply the bow. The same goes for the gesture of applying paint to a surface. -- Stephen Beal
When I started learning the cello, I fell in love with the instrument because it seemed like a voice - my voice. -- Mstislav Rostropovich
I was a rebel and I wanted to do something that nobody else did, and nobody else played the cello. Also, I was also a small kid and I liked the fact that it was big. -- Maya Beiser
There are limits to how much sound a cello can make. That's part of the framing of acoustical instruments. Finding what those limits might be, and then trying to suggest perhaps even the illusion of going beyond is part of that kind of effort. -- Yo-Yo Ma
The only weapons I ever had were my cello and my baton. -- Pablo Casals
The cello is such a melancholy instrument, such an isolated, miserable instrument. -- Ritchie Blackmore
Whoever heard of an electric violin, electric cello or, for that matter, an electric singer? -- Andres Segovia
I studied the cello for a long time, from when I was little up through college. -- Lev Grossman
It is an attention-getter. I mean, it's hard to ignore a woman lugging a cello around. -- Lori Singer
I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello. -- Roger Bannister
Because in classical music cello is not regarded as a popular choice, it's always playing the long, boring notes. -- Luka Sulic
It is my aim, my destination in life to make the cello as beloved an instrument as the violin and piano. -- Mstislav Rostropovich
Even in classical music, the cello doesn't get a lot of respect because the piano and the violin get it all. -- Luka Sulic
But you have to give your whole life to a cello. When I realized that, I went back to the guitar and just turned the volume up a bit louder. -- Ritchie Blackmore
I belong to an improv group, I play cello, I have these phases - fencing, tae kwon do, baseball, ice hockey, boogie boarding in the summer, snowboarding in the winter. -- Ty Simpkins
I used to practice cello while watching TV and films. I watched several complete TV series this way, including 'Lost' and 'The Wire.' As a kid, I'd read books while playing. -- Joshua Roman
A cello can sound like so many instruments, but it's only one, you know, like a guitar; it has percussive qualities. It can sing like the violin, you know, like a voice. -- Luka Sulic
The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece. -- Elliott Carter
My mother adores singing and plays piano. My uncle was a phenomenal pianist. My brother John is a double bassist. I used to play the piano, badly, and cello. My brother Peter played violin. -- Fiona Shaw
The cello is a hero because of its register - its tenor voice. It is a masculine instrument, whereas the violin is feminine because of its soprano pitch. When the cello enters in the Dvorak Concerto, it is like a great orator. -- Mstislav Rostropovich
My teacher, my great cello teacher Leonard Rose, was such a great cellist, and nurturing man, very patient. But I grew up not only admiring him, but obviously Casals, Rostrotovich, Jacqueline du Pre, and many others, including many of my peers and contemporaries. -- Yo-Yo Ma
There are a lot of ways to be expressive in life, but I wasn't good at some of them. Music, for instance. I was a distinct failure with the cello. Eventually, my parents sold the cello and bought a vacuum cleaner. The sound in our home improved. -- Sam Abell
I record cello Etudes that are fewer than four minutes long and post them on YouTube. How can one execute fully-formed ideas with utmost perfection, yet stay free enough to allow improvisatory nuance? This has immediate application in almost every area of life, but especially in performance. -- Joshua Roman
The cello is such a versatile instrument. It can rock like the hardest rock guitar, and it can sing like the human voice. We couldn't do what we do without the classical training. It's a hard instrument to play. There are no frets, and it takes finesse and technique to play. -- Luka Sulic
When I was four, we had to choose a musical instrument to play at school, and I chose the cello. I played until I was 18, and although I found it nerve-racking to play solo, I loved playing in an orchestra. When I left school I didn't carry on with it, which I regret. -- Emilia Fox
Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you're flexing a different muscle, but it's beautiful because it is music. -- Jamie Foxx
I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five. -- James Taylor
I particularly enjoy cello music because our daughter plays the cello. I have listened to her practice for so many hours that I am familiar with the music written for that instrument. I am also fond of the popular music of the 1930s because my future husband and I danced to it so many Saturday nights when we were in college. -- Beverly Cleary
I played cello in my high school orchestra. -- Eberhard Weber
I want you to play me like a cello. -- Gayle Forman
Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again. -- Pablo Casals
I'm interested in directing attention and focus, explored through playing cello. -- Joshua Roman
I'm always anxious in introducing sounds that don't originate with the cello. -- Julia Kent
A cello was there 400 years ago and will still be here in 400 years. -- Thomas Bangalter
We are so excited to be touring and showing audiences the versatility of the cello. -- Stjepan Hauser
Leala's breath was "like a cello sawing away against the bouncing-bow contrabasses of her heartbeat. -- Ella Leya
If I could play an instrument, it would probably be a cello or an electric guitar. -- Jeff Vandermeer
It is an attention-getter. I mean, its hard to ignore a woman lugging a cello around. -- Lori Singer
No, but a cello is the perfect string bass for an accordion. Works with it beautifully. -- Elizabeth Moon
Playing the cello did feel nicely neolithic, or at least a civilized way to process the primitive. -- Eric Siblin
For my first recital ever, they gave me a cello. And for this one, they gave me you. -- Gayle Forman
I worry about technical details - did I mix the cello half a decibel too high? Things like that. -- Steven Price
People tend to eat through the cello. They tend to take out the things that make it beautifully cello-y sometimes. -- Julia Kent
I want to create endless possibilities with this cello. I become the medium through which the music is being channeled. -- Maya Beiser
The cello is not one of my favourite instruments. It has such a lugubrious sound, like someone reading a will. -- Irene Thomas
If being a gangster were a prerequisite to being a musician, there'd be a lot less cello music, for example. -- Greg Giraldo
Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration? -- Ann Patchett
Electric guitars are an abomination, whoever heard of an electric violin? An electric cello? Or for that matter an electric singer? -- Andres Segovia
I did a film that's on YouTube of me reading hate mail with a woman playing the cello in the background. -- Richard Dawkins
The cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful. -- Pablo Casals
It is the closest instrument to the human voice, and the things you can do on the cello... there are endless possibilities. -- Stjepan Hauser
I often play on the cello-bass side of the orchestra, because I prefer the deep sounds. I can't hear the violins well. -- Evelyn Glennie
My mom says that my dad coerced me into choosing the cello. He says that's not entirely true. I don't remember; I was three. -- Joshua Roman
I would like to learn to play the cello. I would like to paint. I would like to fully understand the concept of pi. -- Julia Roberts
Oh, a man with a guitar is nothing compared to a man with a cello! Girls really like the way that we handle our instruments. -- Eicca Toppinen
I learned the cello , but I would still need a massive amount of practice. But I do play classical music, so I understand where that comes from. -- Alicia Keys
I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of the cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it. -- Sonya Hartnett
I read a lot of autobiographical stories, and I write plays and prose. And I play piano and cello. A lot of my downtime is devoted to that. -- Alexis Dziena
I remember a moment when the Prince went back to his old school, Grammar School in Melbourne, and slightly to his horror his old music teacher produced a cello. -- Anthony Holden
It [Bach's cello suites] is like a great diamond," said [Mischa] Maisky in a thick Russian accent, "with so many different cuts that reflect light in so many different ways. -- Eric Siblin
I used to play cello. My mother kept me out of school a whole year to study music and counterpoint. She thought I had ability, but I was absolutely without talent. -- Ernest Hemingway
I love the cello, I love the physical sense of an instrument that's about the size of your body that vibrates enough that even if you play an open string, you feel it. -- Tod Machover
I don't want to discredit people's opinions of me, but you talk about the violin or the cello or lead guitar where you have to learn tons of chords, that's much more difficult. -- Bonnie Raitt

Send