Tenor Quotes

Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child;

it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

A tenor is not a man but a disease.

The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor.

This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony.

Opera is when a tenor and soprano want to make love, but are prevented from doing so by a baritone.

When I was very young, I started trying to sing like the great tenor Mario Lanza; my family used to play his records. We all learn best by imitating others.

Eventually, if you're lucky in life, you find someone with the same chemical imbalance you have.

I'm a farmer with a mandolin and a high tenor voice.

America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.

Scottish bagpipe has two tenors and one bass - three drone pipes - and then the one chanter. If you put bagpipes together, it creates such a fine sound.

I play saxophone, I play tenor sax.

You have to make a choice when you start to sing and decide whether you want to service the music, and be at the top of your art, or if you want to be a very popular tenor.

Tenors get women by the score.

By learning to control the tenor and flow of your electromagnetic energy, you are learning to take control of your destiny.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player.

He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

A superb tenor voice, like a silver trumpet muffled in silk.

O no, thy love though much, is not so great, It is my love that keeps mine eye awake, Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake. For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near.

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.

The question Who ought to be boss? is like as Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet? Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.

There is not many tenors in the male category and that makes me stick out.

When I was a young man, I was a baritone, very far from possessing the whole range of the tenor then.

I spent five years, at least, working with Miles.

Together, we recorded ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer -- and I can tell you; each of these albums instantly became jazz classics. Hey, we had Wayne Shorter playing tenor sax, Ron [Carter] on bass, Tony Williams played drums. That was great band we had.

I will sing whatever I'm given to sing.

Growing up, I would sing anything that I was given. If the choir needed a first tenor, I would sing first tenor. If they needed a bass, I would sing bass. Throughout my life, I just figured out ways to hit notes I needed to hit.

By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.

I am a tenor buff. I hear myself.

I don't have that kind of voice, the big baritone or rousing tenor sound.

My wheelhouse was in the frothier pieces. So my appreciation for those older musicals and revivals grew.

In high school, I was Mr. Choir Boy. I had solos, I was helping out the tenors with their parts and our choir teacher would ask me what songs we should do.

Even in today's opera world, the position of the black tenor is problematic.

My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God.

There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of.

You got to play the flute as a flute, like that.

You can't play like a tenor concept on soprano; it sounds wrong. But some guys do it, and they think it's O.K., but not so!

Then, of course, I played alto and tenor, wherever there were jobs.