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When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
Nina Simone
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Nina Simone
Age: 75 †
Born: 1933
Born: February 21
Died: 2008
Died: April 21
Composer
Jazz Pianist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Tryon
North Carolina
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
High Priestess of Soul
Studying
Choices
Classical
Known
Concerts
Black
Classic
Become
Weren
Pianists
Music
Technique
Pianist
People
Study
Concert
Intuitive
Heard
More quotes by Nina Simone
I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.
Nina Simone
There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
Nina Simone
Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
Nina Simone
I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I've done my whole life, without thought.
Nina Simone
Many times I feel different like a different person.
Nina Simone
Desegregation is a joke.
Nina Simone
You can't be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I'm very thankful for that. I'm very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.
Nina Simone
I know I'm different, but I don't think about it.
Nina Simone
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
Nina Simone
I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat - a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
Nina Simone
I don't like to go to strange places.
Nina Simone
Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways - it's infinite. It's like God... you know?
Nina Simone
My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.
Nina Simone
I believe the time will come when the whole definition of pop music will change. It will get to the point where a song will not be a good song until it has a high level of creativity in writing and performance. In other words, in order to be popular, songs will have to meet these high standards.
Nina Simone
Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
Nina Simone
I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
Nina Simone
It is difficult to retain your standards with the pressure of trying to make money, which always has its rules...It's hard to walk the tightrope of doing what you think is your best and making money at it.
Nina Simone
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
Nina Simone
I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don't think the black people are going to rise at all I think most of them are going to die.
Nina Simone
Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
Nina Simone