Quotes by Nina Simone - Page 3

What I was interested in was conveying an emotional message, which means using everything you've got inside you sometimes to barely make a note, or if you have to strain to sing, you sing.
Nina Simone / Singer
Conveying
Strain
Inside
Barely
Interested
Note
Sing
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I have to be composed; I have to be poised. I have to remember what my first piano teacher told me: 'You do not touch that piano until you are ready and until they are ready to listen to you.
Nina Simone / Singer
Teacher
Ready
Teacher Me Remember
Touch
Composed
Poised
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Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band's lead singer, Eric Burdon. "So you're the honky," she said, "who stole my song and got a hit out of it?
Nina Simone / Singer
Music
Misunderstood
Song
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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 / Singer
Jobs
Singing
Song
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I am particular about the seating of the audience - also about how much money they pay - but most of all where they are seated. If I am going to sing something intimate, who am I going to sing it to?
Nina Simone / Singer
Audience
Intimate
Pay
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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 / Singer
Vibrations
Way
World
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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 / Singer
Pressure
Thinking
Trying
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Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.
Nina Simone / Singer
Music
Play
Thinking
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Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I'm feeling good I'm feeling good
Nina Simone / Singer
Inspirational
Flying High
Sky
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The protest years were over, not just for me but for a whole generation, and in music, just like in politics, many of the greatest talents were dead or in exile, and their place was filled by third-rate imitators.
Nina Simone / Singer
Exile
Filled
Dead
Talents
Generation
Imitators
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There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
Nina Simone / Singer
Done
People
Records
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I was reared in the church from the age of three. I've played piano since I was three. I performed at revivals and for my people around North Carolina for several years. People around town collected money to send me to school.
Nina Simone / Singer
Piano
School
Years
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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 / Singer
Different
Piano
Style
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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 / Singer
Music
Choices
Classic
Heard
Intuitive
People
Pianist
Technique
Music Black People
Concert
Studying
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Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.
Nina Simone / Singer
Art
Attention
World
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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 / Singer
Cutting
Mean
Song
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I applied for a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. I knew I was good enough, but they turned me down. And it took me about six months to realize it was because I was black. I never really got over that jolt of racism at the time.
Nina Simone / Singer
Black
Philadelphia
Racism
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That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die.
Nina Simone / Singer
Aversion
Dying
Effort
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As I got older though I wanted a life of my own. The classical training was very demanding and thorough. It was a very sheltered existence. Even though I heard blues and gospel on the radio sometimes, it was always back to the piano and study and give recitals.
Nina Simone / Singer
Giving
Piano
Training
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As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world.
Nina Simone / Singer
Audience
Conscious
Rights
Blacks
Political World Me
Defend
Helped
Weapon
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This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
Nina Simone / Singer
Dream
Feet
Kissing
Last Year
Married
Nelson
Walks
Years
Anyway
Aside
Bought
Gown
Ground
Mandela
Meet
Shall
Supposed
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The pressure of show business is on all the time and show business is a fickle business. Whatever is popular now - that's all that counts. I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions about what I'm doing and why.
Nina Simone / Singer
Conviction
Fickle
Pressure
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The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.
Nina Simone / Singer
Chance
Attention
Lucky
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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 / Singer
Believe
Song
Writing
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My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.
Nina Simone / Singer
Cat
Jargon
People
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Did you know that the human voice is the only pure instrument? That it has notes no other instrument has? It's like being between the keys of a piano. The notes are there, you can sing them, but they can't be found on any instrument. That's like me. I live in between this. I live in both worlds, the black and white world.
Nina Simone / Singer
Black
Black And White
Found
Human Voice
Notes
Piano
Pure
Voice
White
World
Like
Black And White World Black
Being
Me
Any
Only
Did
Between
Both
Both Worlds
Them
Human
Black And White Black Me
Instrument
Other
Sing
White World
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I do not believe in mixing of the races. You can quote me. I don't believe in it, and I never have. I've never changed. I've never changed my hair. I've never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I've always been. I married a white man one time, but he was a creep
Nina Simone / Singer
Men
Believe
Hair
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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 / Singer
Music
Song
Voice
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As far as piano players are concerned, Oscar Peterson is my very favorite. I also like McCoy Tyner. I think that the big jazz stars, both now and in the past...how shall I say it? These guys are as great as Bach, Beethoven; all of them. People don't know it yet. If jazz survives and is put on a pedestal as an art form, the same as classical music has been through the years, a hundred years from now the kids will know who they were, with that kind of respect.
Nina Simone / Singer
Art
Kids
Stars
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Nina Simone Quotes - Page 3

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