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
Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets. — Ambrose Bierce
Violin playing is a physical art with great traditions behind it. — Vanessa Mae
Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos. — Gustav Mahler
I play drums, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, french horn, piano. — Norman Wisdom
Play the flute of felicity! You, yourself, are the melody. — Rumi
A violin should be played with love, or not at all. — Joseph Wechsberg
The piano is an orchestra with 88...... things, you know — Vladimir Horowitz
The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach the baritone in intensity. — Steve Lacy
Short Cello Quotes
Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms. — Anne Stevenson
The cello is such a melancholy instrument, such an isolated, miserable instrument. — Ritchie Blackmore
Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again. — Pablo Casals
The only weapons I ever had were my cello and my baton. — Pablo Casals
No, but a cello is the perfect string bass for an accordion. Works with it beautifully. — Elizabeth Moon
I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello. — Roger Bannister
Whoever heard of an electric violin, electric cello or, for that matter, an electric singer? — Andres Segovia
I'm always anxious in introducing sounds that don't originate with the cello. — Julia Kent
I worry about technical details - did I mix the cello half a decibel too high? Things like that. — Steven Price
I'm interested in directing attention and focus, explored through playing cello. — Joshua Roman
Electric guitars are an abomination, whoever heard of an electric violin? An electric cello? Or for that matter an electric singer? — Andres Segovia
Women play cellos and violins in symphony orchestras. They're playing Beethoven and Bach. What do you mean they can't play rock and roll? — Joan Jett
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
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
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
I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs. — Lou Reed
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 want to create endless possibilities with this cello. I become the medium through which the music is being channeled. — Maya Beiser
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
And then Adam Wilde shows up at Carnegie Hall on the biggest night of my career, and it felt like more than a coincidence. It felt like a gift. From them. For my first recital ever, they gave me a cello. And for this one, they gave me you. — Gayle Forman
With that incredible voice that he [Alan Rickman] could play like a sort of wonderful instrument, like a cello or something. He played his voice, and he could be the most subtle of actors. And he could also be quite a big actor. He could do the grandiose performances as well. — Helen Mirren
I don't want somebody who writes like me [in my writing staff]. Because I can write like me. I know what I'm capable of and what my limitations are. If you're going to build an orchestra, you don't want all tubas - you want a violin and you want a cello and you want a drum set. — Tom Fontana
How could anybody think of Bach as 'cold' when these [cello] suites seem to shine with the most glittering kind of poetry," Casals said. "As I got on with the study I discovered a new world of space and beauty... the feelings I experienced were among the purest and most intense in my artistic life! — Pablo Casals
The cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful. — Pau (Pablo) Casals
Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list. — John Berger
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
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
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 think I'll always feel a little in awe whenever I see someone in their 20s or 30s carrying a cello or violin case - because I know, if they're doing it professionally, how many years of practice have gone into being able to make music with them. And the sounds they can make just hit me very hard, and feel full of limitless complexity. — Jonny Greenwood
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
I think a double bass for me would be too much effort. But the cello, you're really engaged and the sound is kind of right here. So, it feels like being merged, married to an instrument. — Tod Machover
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'd studied piano first and switched over to cello when I was about seven. I played mostly chamber and solo classical music. I got really involved with rock music when I was a teenager. I wired up my cello. — Tod Machover
People tend to eat through the cello. They tend to take out the things that make it beautifully cello-y sometimes. — Julia Kent
The reason I make art is because I get to make a choice about who I am, what I do, and what I put out into the world, the footsteps I leave behind. It's a cliché for a reason - we all kind of work our own paths through the woods. There are not a lot of paths through the woods for someone who sings, plays the cello, and wants to tour on a human scale and create change in the world. I'm on my own path. It's pretty awesome. — Ben Sollee
I started to play noise on my cello because I felt a deep personal connection to it. I mean, I still love all the beautiful sounds of the cello as much as anybody but it's only when I play certain sounds I know that the cello really presents who I am; not my emotions but who I am as a person. — Okkyung Lee
I guess I'm interested in pushing the boundaries of the cello without giving up on the idea of playing the cello, if that makes any sense. I have no real interest in putting the cello through different effects to make it sound like a guitar or other instruments. — Okkyung Lee
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
The cello looks like a woman to me. And, you know, the curves. And so I am in a way, and it's funny to admit this, I am sexually attracted to the cello, the curves really get me. So as I watched him play, you know, Yo Yo Ma is sort of making love to a beautiful woman. — Sherman Alexie
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
If being a gangster were a prerequisite to being a musician, there'd be a lot less cello music, for example. — Greg Giraldo
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
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
If I were to run around the world playing just the cello concertos - and believe me, I love playing them - I would be counting my entire repertoire from year to year on my two hands. — David Finckel
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of cello quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about cello to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of cello quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
