Joshua Bell Quotes

Conducting is a strange thing to teach.

- Joshua Bell

Conducting is a strange thing to teach. There are very few great conducting teachers, and most great conductors don't teach. Look at Valery Gergiev - what he does is not teachable. A lot of it is on-the-job training, what works and what doesn't work.

- Joshua Bell

I think it's really important to always kind of stretch your boundaries and your limits and get out of your comfort zone. And for me, that's very important.

- Joshua Bell

In concertos, I stand up, and I conduct with the bow when I'm not playing. During symphonies, I sit, but sometimes I stop playing to conduct. Being seated in a section allows me to feel more like we're playing chamber music, which is how I like to approach it.

- Joshua Bell

When I hear people clapping at the wrong times, I think that's great. We have got a listener that's not used to going to - we have got a new listener.

- Joshua Bell

I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.

- Joshua Bell

So many times, I've seen conductors that, every time they have a thought, they stop the orchestra and say it, and I can see the orchestra rolling their eyes and saying, 'Oh, God, he stopped again.' So there's a technique to rehearsing.

- Joshua Bell

My father was - actually was an Episcopal priest as a young man. Became a psychotherapist, a psychologist. My mother is Jewish, so I grew up in a mixed background. But the common denominator was certainly music, and that was sort of emphasized in my household as music being sort of the spiritual force.

- Joshua Bell

I'm in a position where, theoretically, I could play the same ten concertos and make a very good living bouncing around playing Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Barber, but I really think artists should keep pushing limits and trying new things.

- Joshua Bell

I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms.

- Joshua Bell

Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal - the vision, the structure, the architecture.

- Joshua Bell

Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.

- Joshua Bell

Obviously, I want it to be legally downloaded, and I myself have spent a fortune on iTunes because, for me, that's the easiest way to get music.

- Joshua Bell

No one tells you what to do if you completely flop at the beginning of a performance.

- Joshua Bell

The man on the street, he knows who Beethoven is, he knows who Mozart is.

- Joshua Bell

I kind of alternate between conducting and playing and kind of juggling those things, but I don't use a baton.

- Joshua Bell

Although I hardly ever turn on the TV set unless it's football season, I do watch a lot of TV on my iPad - perfect for long airplane journeys.

- Joshua Bell

I happen to love Saint-Saens in general. I think he's a brilliant composer and sometimes underrated in a way because people like to pass him off as fluffy and not being serious.

- Joshua Bell

I love the outdoor festival feeling. When I'm on stage, it's very gratifying to watch people on the lawns enjoying the music with a glass of wine.

- Joshua Bell

So much of performing is a mind game. You're memorizing thousands of notes, and if you start thinking about it in the wrong way, everything can blow up in your face.

- Joshua Bell

I've been touring for 25 years. I'm used to it, so I love it. Although I feel the tug of home, as I have three little kids, I don't suffer like some artists who constantly complain about how much they hate traveling.

- Joshua Bell

For me, music has been, in a sense, my religion, and it is what brings me closest to God or truth or whatever you want to call it.

- Joshua Bell

Good conductors know when to push and when to lay back. I've known so many great conductors that I'm still doing what I can to learn the craft of this role.

- Joshua Bell

The great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them. But there are conductors that actually inhibit the players from playing with each other properly.

- Joshua Bell

My whole life, I've been watching conductors. I was 7 the first time I played with a conductor. Seeing the ones that do it well, it's an amazing thing.

- Joshua Bell

I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading.

- Joshua Bell

I love celebrating music in different and unique ways.

- Joshua Bell

As far as I'm concerned, I want to do everything because life is short. So, when I did 'The Red Violin' film, I got to go to the Oscars, and I got to meet Samuel Jackson, and I got to do stuff that one wouldn't normally do in my world.

- Joshua Bell

We like to categorize things into showy things and deep things, you know, and things that are high music - important music - and shallow music. And I think that's dangerous, because there's often a mix of both.

- Joshua Bell

The beauty of a Stradivarius is that you can play in Carnegie Hall without any amplification, and it has this - the sound has, inside it, has something that projects, and it has multifaceted sound, something that kind of gets lost when you use amplification anyway.

- Joshua Bell

You don't have to have lots of love affairs to know what love is.

- Joshua Bell

I'm having a blast being the music director at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. It certainly is challenging for me, but I love challenges.

- Joshua Bell

The orchestra confides in me about their music director or their conductor, and I've never seen a conductor that's been liked by everyone.

- Joshua Bell

When Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was premiered, after the second movement, they clapped so much that they had the repeat the second movement and do it again.

- Joshua Bell

The symphonies are the things that, as a soloist, I've not gotten to play. I used to travel the world playing concertos, and then I would sit and listen to the symphony.

- Joshua Bell

It's different for people who have not seen a symphony conductor conduct from a chair. I feel very connected to the orchestra in a way that a conductor sometimes does not feel. I think it's more visceral.

- Joshua Bell

You might think that after 40 years of practice you wouldn't need to practice anymore, but sadly it doesn't work that way. You still have to keep chugging away and perfecting.

- Joshua Bell

Music is such an incredible tool for kids in general. They learn discipline; they learn how to express themselves. You learn math. You learn language. It's the ideal teaching tool, and that's why it's mind-boggling when any school superintendent decides that music is something we can kind of do without.

- Joshua Bell

It's very hard to find a pianist that's willing to play the so-called accompanist role on part of the program and yet be capable of being a great solo pianist that you would want for the big sonatas.

- Joshua Bell

I always have loved the Stradivarius. My teacher, Josef Gingold, he had a Stradivarius. As a treat, he would put it under my chin and let me play a few notes, and I remember that feeling of the overtones, the complexity of the sound. It's like a great wine.

- Joshua Bell

I think music should be the basis of an education, not just something you do once a week.

- Joshua Bell

I know how to deal with jet lag, and I know just how much rest I need and when I need to take naps. When you walk on stage, you need your brain working at its highest and most fully-functioning, so it's not always easy, but I sort of figure it out.

- Joshua Bell

Being a director or a conductor is a balance of many things. And to do it right is a very difficult tightrope to walk. I've come to the conclusion that there's really no way to be one hundred percent popular as conductor.

- Joshua Bell

I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.

- Joshua Bell

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a conductor say, 'Play softer,' as they're waving their hands in huge gestures.

- Joshua Bell

A conductor can do wild things which can feel forced, but if you're directing from within the orchestra, you can't do that, things have to feel natural.

- Joshua Bell

As far as doing TV, I do think there's a big audience out there that could enjoy classical music, but they don't know how to find it, and sometimes by doing different things... crossover things probably make up about 5% of what I do.

- Joshua Bell

The one thing in my contract that they have backstage for me is bananas. And usually my assistant will go and get me chicken broth.

- Joshua Bell

In 1987, I had no idea who Steven Isserlis was. We met at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. It was originally just an Italian summer festival, but for the past 14 years, there's also been a spring festival in America.

- Joshua Bell

I don't want to portray myself as a daredevil. I'm not at all.

- Joshua Bell

When you play for ticket-holders, you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted.

- Joshua Bell

For some reason I can't explain, artist and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what you're doing and keep your imagination open. That's a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age.

- Joshua Bell

If I read every comment on my YouTube videos, I'd go crazy with people that are saying negative things.

- Joshua Bell

We live in a very chaotic world that sometimes we - it just seems like a mess. One of the reasons why we listen to music, and to great classical music in particular, is that everything is in an order and in a place and has a beauty that you see in nature, that you see and that people look for when they look for God.

- Joshua Bell

As far as I'm concerned, the stakes are always very high. Whether it's playing at the White House or playing for a group in my own house - you know, one of those soirees I play in. Once I start playing, the stakes are somehow higher, in a way, than any of the context.

- Joshua Bell

In those projects with Sting and Josh Groban and people like that, I see a very interesting effect: their fans coming to my classical concerts, people who've never been to a classical show at all.

- Joshua Bell

When you hear extraneous noise, they are bored in some way, so it makes me upset. Even coughing, I find, is passive-aggressive, usually.

- Joshua Bell

My teacher, Josef Gingold, a student of the French school, always loved the music of Saint-Saens and Henri Vieuxtemps and all the French repertoire.

- Joshua Bell

It's interesting about classical music that the more you hear something, the more you get to know a piece, the better and better it gets, period, which is just an interesting thing on it.

- Joshua Bell

Anyone who knows classical music and loves classical music has heard the Beethoven Seventh hundreds of times probably in their life.

- Joshua Bell

When I do things, like, with Josh Grobin, or he has so many fans, and I get people after my concerts, classical concerts, all the time coming back and saying, 'Never heard of you until I heard the song with Josh Grobin.' Then they're now classical music fans, which is something I think we need to reach a wider audience.

- Joshua Bell

In art and music, particularly in the 20th century, there was a big period there where for something to be called profound you had to not be able to understand it.

- Joshua Bell

I grew up in a musical environment. My parents played music and had it playing on the radio. They brought me to a concert at the age of 5, the same age I started violin lessons.

- Joshua Bell

I started directing chamber orchestras, then adding bigger pieces, adding winds, adding small symphonies. I've always loved chamber music, and I've done a lot.

- Joshua Bell

What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do. You want to push boundaries, to not always be in your comfort zone. If you don't, you get stale. So you have to find areas of growth.

- Joshua Bell

Everyone's definition of what God means can vary. But music is something that really takes you to that - 'sublime' is a great word. That thing that is greater than we are. The beauty, the magic of the universe.

- Joshua Bell

Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.

- Joshua Bell

Music is a continual learning process. One finds new insights all the time. For me, it began at a very early age; from the beginning, there was something besides the notes.

- Joshua Bell

What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do.

- Joshua Bell

When you start reading a piece together, you get a sense of someone's basic philosophy of music without saying a word. You realize the other person's approach, how they express themselves, the kind of restraint they show, all those things.

- Joshua Bell

When I was 12, that's when I went to college. All my friends were 20, 21, and I was 12. It didn't even occur to me that that was strange.

- Joshua Bell

I think you can appreciate different interpretations. Art is not a contest. I can even appreciate hearing someone play something in a way that I wouldn't.

- Joshua Bell

I love the outdoor festival feeling.

- Joshua Bell

I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.

- Joshua Bell

Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people.

- Joshua Bell

It's been very exciting for me to start directing and conducting, exploring the symphonic repertoire, which I've always loved.

- Joshua Bell

Music teaches people to work together, which is maybe one of the most important skills.

- Joshua Bell

I hate YouTube sometimes because people put up things of mine that were never meant for consumption and also because of some of the comments people write about my videos.

- Joshua Bell

I never had any real expectations about what sort of success I would have or all the publicity.

- Joshua Bell

The real architecture happens within the works themselves, and that was done by the composer. That's where the real skill is. In putting together a program, you're more a curator, but that's important as well. And then the interpreting of it is where our big job is.

- Joshua Bell

In a way, the highest praise you could give to a composer like Bach was to take and make your own arrangement; it was sort of an homage to that composer and to his work, so it wasn't considered sacrilegious to do something like that.

- Joshua Bell

I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.

- Joshua Bell

I love pressure in a different sort of way; I enjoy the pressure of getting out and performing for the public. Being compared and judged doesn't seem quite right to me.

- Joshua Bell

I'm happy if my music is being downloaded, whether it's legally or illegally.

- Joshua Bell

I write arrangements. I'm sort of a wannabe composer.

- Joshua Bell

For me, I'm sort of a wanna-be composer, and I love being involved with the arrangements.

- Joshua Bell

I learned early on how to make best use of my time. You know, quality is more important than quantity when it comes to practice time. And unfortunately, I still need to practice a lot.

- Joshua Bell

I associate music with fun and joy.

- Joshua Bell

Stradivarius, in particular, was the most amazing craftsman and one of the great artists and scientists that ever lived because he figured out something with the sound and the science of acoustics that we still don't understand it completely.

- Joshua Bell

People wrote the most beautiful things during the ugliest times.

- Joshua Bell

After every concert, I greet young people in the lobbies. And I see a huge surge of young people playing music.

- Joshua Bell

Bach's music is really some of the greatest. I think, in some ways, Bach is the most profound composer of all.

- Joshua Bell

I'm addicted to the adrenaline of performing, and I think when you're used to having that high, you look for it in other things.

- Joshua Bell

Hamburgers are my favorite thing to eat, period.

- Joshua Bell

Art and music is part of what it means to be a human being. And if you're neglecting that, you're basically ignoring a huge side of the brain and a huge side of what it means to be human.

- Joshua Bell

I like blackjack. I like the psychology of poker.

- Joshua Bell

There was a time, early on in my career, when it was very important for me to be liked by everyone. It meant that I was musically less honest with myself.

- Joshua Bell

I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.

- Joshua Bell

You're a constant student, as a musician.

- Joshua Bell

I think - I'm always interested in reaching people in different ways, not by - not by just standing on a - randomly on a subway platform.

- Joshua Bell

I use Facebook quite a lot to keep up with my friends, although I had to delete 'Words With Friends' from my phone because it was wasting too much of my time.

- Joshua Bell

I'm not a businessman, so I don't know how to solve the problems of the recording industry.

- Joshua Bell

As my career has gone on, I guess I've become more well known. I'm playing to fuller halls in general, which is a nice feeling. When you're doing that, you're going to have a certain number of people who are not just the hardcore classical fanatics, and this makes me very happy.

- Joshua Bell

I like trying things, I am kind of adventurous and I like thrill seeking.

- Joshua Bell

Someone who directs a film, they have to see the overall picture, and they have to get the best performances out of the actors.

- Joshua Bell

I want to do everything. That's my problem. Life is short, and I hate the idea of turning down anything. You never know what interesting experience might happen.

- Joshua Bell

Great music was written by the great geniuses, and you want to do it justice.

- Joshua Bell

When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story.

- Joshua Bell

Criticism is always hard to take - we musicians are sensitive. It's always hard when someone says something negative - but you try to learn to just let it roll off and not worry about it.

- Joshua Bell

Over the years, I've collected a lot of musical friends.

- Joshua Bell

I can't play on a full stomach, so I save my eating for after the concert.

- Joshua Bell

The violin sings.

- Joshua Bell

I hope I will always have the chance to play the violin.

- Joshua Bell

I think, as an artist, it's very important to continue to be challenged and feel challenged all the time.

- Joshua Bell

You're really looking for the truth of what the piece is about. And that's going to be different for different people.

- Joshua Bell

I was lucky enough to have parents who started me on music very early, but most kids don't get that kind of exposure.

- Joshua Bell

The best way to refine an interpretation is by getting out and performing.

- Joshua Bell

We live in the least ugly time in history.

- Joshua Bell

At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off.

- Joshua Bell

So much of performing is a mind game.

- Joshua Bell

You only live once, so I try to say yes to everything.

- Joshua Bell

It's endless, the amount of things that music touches on that can help kids grow that are very, very practical.

- Joshua Bell

Music - you need the give and take from the audience, the feeling of attention. It's not about me: it's about the music itself.

- Joshua Bell