Percussion Quotes

Percussion is physical, as most instruments are. The body must function well in order to play the instruments well. Last year I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

When I lost the use of my hi-hat and bass drum legs, I became basically a singer. I was a drummer who did a bit of singing, and then I became a singer who did a bit of percussion.

I play a percussion instrument, not a musical saw; it needs no amplification. Where it's needed, they put a microphone in front of the bass drum. But, I don't think it's necessary to play that way every night.

I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion.

I was able to interpret the difference between the sharp, quick sound and the slow, deep sound of percussion and manipulate it, get a third sound out of things, if the beats were rapid enough.

I love the percussion. It's a right brain, left brain thing. There are different beats, but cooperating together. It's your whole body doing it, you're doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You're this whole motion machine.

A large part of my work has been collaborating with composers; I think we've commissioned about 140 pieces now, a lot of them percussion concertos.

Percussion is the most adaptable family of instruments. The biggest challenge is to project percussion in a lyrical way.

When I was 12, I happened to see a schoolmate playing percussion, and it looked interesting. I asked for lessons, and it felt right.

And, you know, I think the original recording of Ravel's Bolero, probably whoever played percussion on that, will never have It played better than that.

I mean, I can sit down with a guitar, and in fact, we do two, three songs with just guitar and percussion.

My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he's also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion.

I've been down there 6 times and there's nothing like Brazilian percussion.

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.

The thing about playing percussion is that you can create all these emotions that can be sometimes beautiful, sometimes really ugly, or sometimes sweet, sometimes as big as King Kong and so on. And so there can be a real riot out there, or it can be so refined.

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

I think I can only help to expose percussion to all sorts of people. The balance between the lighter and more serious side is important.

I can't get that live and I don't have the time to take the tape, after I've finished recording it, into a little studio somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion sound.

I played in the percussion section 4th grade through high school - snare and timpani mostly.

For me, the most difficult thing is that I am learning melodies on guitar from some songs whose melodies were not meant to be played on guitar. Ever. They were intended mostly for keyboards or melodic percussion.

I played djembe, percussion, keyboards and I sang.

I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.

I really just wanted to play the drum set and match that. I was never really into the percussion thing.