YouSaid · the spoken record

Nicholas McCarthy

lines on the record: 96
first: 2016-07-19
most recent: 2016-07-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That way. I just don't know why I do that actually, but yeah, I would say that's kind of one little adaptation I just do. I almost feel like it's more, it's a bit weird kind of cooking with a forearm. They don't seem quite, even though obviously wash your hands and why I wash my forearm, but it doesn't seem quite as hygienic as cooking with hands. So a little bag over it and work it that way. But yeah, apart from that, I don't, there's nothing really I can't do. I crack eggs with one hand. Yeah, I think I never really struggle with cooking. And I think the more I travel, and obviously my job involves an awful lot of travel. And food is such, I'm such a foodie. I'm such a foodie. Like food, I'm driven by food probably as much as I am by music, which isn't always good for your waistline.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I noticed funny again it's an equally dexterous job I don't know why I was drawn to these two handed jobs all the time I don't know what it is but again I don't really think I adapt anything really I think you know I think one well one thing if I'm cooking for friends for instance I always put because if say I'm slicing an onion So, I will support the onion with my little arm. I'll obviously start with my left hand. But what I do is I put a sandwich bag, you know, like a little bag kind of thing over my little arm.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's my, you know, I'm in my dressing room, this blind man there, and he's kind of feeling my hand and my right arm. And he was like, I still can't believe it. It was lovely. And I said to him, I said, well, it means I'm doing my job right because I'm creating that illusion. And that's what I wanted to do and what I aim to do. So yeah, it was lovely.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was very, very sweet and very, very, I was equally as touched. So usually when I'm playing a concert, I usually do my album signing after the concert. And then there's often people waiting afterwards if they want to speak to me further. And it's very rare in the interval that I ever have people come back at that stage. But there was a knock on my address when my manager said, look, there's someone who really, really wants to speak to you now. Is it all right? I was like, yeah.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My album solo yeah, and I decided that would work well for left hand alone, which it did, so I arranged that for left hand alone, and there's two other of my own arrangements on the album as well. And it's lovely because people come up to my concerts afterwards and say, where can we buy your arrangements? And unfortunately, they're in my head. So I need to actually sit down and get them published properly because there's a demand for them already, which is lovely because I was kind of in my head doing it for when I die. I'm going to be passing on these people, you know, when I'm older. So already it's quite nice that there's a demand for some of my arrangements.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so the difference between composing is someone thinking up of a melody or an idea or something and creating a piece of music. Arranging is where I would take from my album, for instance, I took my favourite piece of music ever, Gershwin Summertime.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So arranging these. So basically, I almost, for me, in every century there's been, since the 19th century, there's been one left hand alone or one armed pianist, if you like, who kind of was making waves in their industry. And in the 21st century, I'm very fortunate enough. It seems to be me. And that's something which I'm hugely proud of and hugely humbled by. And I want to provide as much repertoire, if not more, than that Paul Wittgenstein left for the likes of me to come along and play in the future. So by doing that, I do a lot of commissions. I work with a lot of commissions. Unfortunately, I'm not quite as wealthy as Paul Wittgenstein, so I haven't got a lot of money to be throwing around at these composers. But I do a lot of arranging.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's above the UK salary now. So imagine back then that amount of where you could buy a house for, I don't know, $6,000 or... That figure out the air, but certainly it was an awful lot of money, and it was that that really expanded that left-hand repertoire and really grew it to be, to become, and now most two-handed pianists, if you ask them to print out their repertoire for them, most of them will have at least one or two left-hand piano concertos in their repertoire. Usually Revell's piano concerto for the left-hand, which is probably the most famous piano left-hand piece out there.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To place no war, and during that time, he found some old wooden crates and he turned these crates over and he chalked a piano keyboard onto these crates. And he worked out how to play some of his most favorite two-handed pieces, how he could arrange them for left hand alone. He was then, thanks to his family who were very influential, pulled some strings and got repatriated back to Vienna. And it was here where he decided to use his vast wealth and his, the fact that, you know, everyone knew the Wittgensteins and wanted to be involved with the Wittgenstein. He used his position and his wealth to pay the biggest composers of the day to write pieces for him. So rebel and Prokofiev and Benjamin Britton, Richard Strauss, Hindemit. They all composed left-hand alone pieces for him, and he paid them around the sum of thirty.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Wittgenstein family was a very wealthy, very well respected society family of the time. And Paul, well, in those days, being a concept pianist in those kind of families or being any kind of performer was very much looked down upon. So Paul's father, absolutely forbidden him to perform, to be a conceptianist, even though that was always Paul's lifelong ambition. When Paul's dad died, he went out and gave his concert debut. And to very favourable reviews and by the look of things, he had a very promising career as a good two-handed pianist ahead of him. Then the First World War happened and within six months he was in battle. And within eight months of his concert debut, he lost his right arm in battle. So talk about Steely determination. He was taken”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So they would play these amazing virtuoso displays at the piano, which is where they left hand and it would absolutely send the crowd wild. And then let's fast forward in history. The First World War happened. There was a man named Paul Wittgenstein, brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So Paul Wittgenstein basically I'll tell you a brief potted history of Lieutenant Repertoire. Left hand alone repertoire started in the nineteenth century where a lot of the time Consepinus and as you mentioned earlier most people in the world are right handed. So Concipianus would and they bear in mind Tim they were rock stars of their day. You know I'm in the wrong century here. They were celebrities forget these reality stars. They were the celebrities of the day. They would sell out in minutes like Madonna does. And back then they would close some of them, obviously not all of them. Some of them would close their concerts and as an encore they would perform something with left hand alone. And the reason left hand alone is because you're left hand is your naturally weaker hand. So it's almost a sense of irony. Like you thought I was good with two hands. You wait and see what I can do with my weak hand.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even think to suggest, well, yes, I would like to audition you, but I'd like you to learn two left hand alone pieces first before, you know, she didn't even think of that. And that surprises me a lot. Now I'm just so thankful because by that part and that series of events, it took me to a better school. It took me to London, which was, you know, it's just more, the standard was much higher.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I only have one hand. And yeah, it was fine. It was just slightly awkward. But I played and I was offered a place. And so I was so pleased that I listened to, and I had that little chat with myself on the way home from school that day where I thought I'm not going to let this one woman tell me I can't become a pianist. And you know what interests me even now, the fact that she was, she must have been in her late 60s, early 70s being in the classical industry all of her life. She didn't even think about left-hand repertoire.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unique about Add a Junior because obviously I was only going on Saturdays, it's the Guild Hall School of Music and Drama in London. So it's where Orlando Bloom studied acting. It's where there's lots of big names on the acting side of it and also big names on the classical side of it went too. And so I auditioned for them. I didn't say about my disability in the application form. Moment when I turned up for the audition, and it was kind of this X Factor style audition with a big grand piano and three judges at the back of the room and I had to walk in and say.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“letting like how many billions of people around the world do you know the figure I don't even know the figure but however many billions of people are in this world I'm letting one person who hasn't even seen me play the piano I'm letting one person stop me from achieving my dream and I thought well that's it I'm going to audition for a better music school so I did I auditioned for the junior guild school in music and drama in London”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not the same. It wasn't the best thing. So she hung up a phone on this 16 year old one-armed boy, which I didn't think was nice with her. And I was deeply upset by this, as you could probably imagine, because you know what it's like at that age, or maybe you didn't, Tim. This is, you know, but for me, I felt at that age that that was it. That was my one path. That was my one path of becoming a concept pianist and that path is now ended because this woman has stopped it. Now I'm an adult. Obviously, I know there's many, many paths that people take throughout their lives to success, whatever they want to do. Whereas at the time, as a youngster, I just felt that that one path has now been finished and that's it. I can't do anything more. So for two weeks, I was really quite down and didn't play the piano at all. And then I don't know why I was just, you know, walking home from school one day and I thought to myself, why am I?”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I must have been sixteen. Yeah, about 16. And she said, oh yes, I've heard of you because of one of my faculty and because of Hanako. But unfortunately, I haven't got any time to see you or audition you because to be honest, I just don't know how you can possibly be a pianist. And I don't really know how you could possibly play scales. And I was quite the cocky 16 year old at the time. I said, well, I don't really want to play scales. I want to play music.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, she was just very old school, very traditional in her teaching in everything, you know. And it turns out she wasn't like my other teacher where she wasn't thinking outside the box. And the phone call went something like this. I said, I introduced myself and said, I'm a friend of Hanako's. And I was born without my right hand. And she said, oh yes, yes, I've heard of you. I know who you are from Hanako. I'd already had a lesson with one of the school's teachers. I purposely went and had a private lesson with one of the school's teachers almost as a little inroad into the school. And this teacher gave me her blessing and said, I would love to teach you at the school. You need to go and audition for the school. So she kind of gave me the green light for that.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and she went to a specialist piano school and it wasn't that far from me. And so obviously in my head I was thinking how wonderful, you know, me and Hanako can go to school together. It's on Saturdays. This school was held on Saturdays. And so we went to our normal school in the week. And then on Saturdays you'd go to this and they did concerts in London and they did concert tours to Europe and all sorts of things, you know, really high level school. And so I think how perfect would that be? Me and my friend can go together. And, you know, they already know me at the school because I'd been to see a couple of competitions with my friend who my friend was in. So I rang up the headmistress of this school one day after I'd finished school. I come in and I rang her. And she was a very, do you know what I mean by an old school headmistress?”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Up quite a lot of money, you know, to do that, especially as someone her age. And yet she did that for me. So I'm eternally grateful for them. So my friend who inspired me at the age of 14, she went to a”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's where it kind of started getting slightly more difficult for me. This wonderful piano teacher who I first started with, as I mentioned earlier, the local piano teacher, she was lovely. She was young. I really responded to her. She was really, really, she was a think outside the box kind of girl, you know. And she very admirably said to me and my parents, look, Nicholas has become more advanced than I am as a player. And she felt she was doing me a disservice by continuing to teach me. She felt that I needed to go and study properly, you know, in London with a proper concept pianist to further my career because as I was very, very explicit with everyone, I didn't just want to learn the piano. I wanted to become a concertist. So I always think she was so admirable for that because she was giving”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would probably say so. I do know a couple of very well-known two-handed pianists who are actually left-handed naturally and in day-to-day life. I think obviously when you're honing your craft at the level that we are honing our crafts to as concert performers, it doesn't matter what hand is dominant. And I'm speaking for someone with one hand, as you know, so I can't be the authoritative figure on this, but I would say that, you know, because it's like a sports person, you're rehearsing, you're practicing so, so much that even if that left hand is more naturally dominant, because the right hand is the way the music's written, you're having to do these right hand technical difficulties. And if you can't do it, then you can't play the piece, then I think it's just something that as two-handed pianists would just get over. They just have to work at.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me and an acoustic piano. And it's because their ears are tricking them, or I'm creating that illusion where it doesn't look at, you know, the sound is a lot fuller than it looks that I'm playing.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right hand is the soloist. Exactly. Not obviously at a property, there's so many pieces of classical musical music. So that doesn't apply to everything, of course. But usually I'm saying generally, generally speaking, the right hand is doing all the flashy virtuoso, big stuff that you're seeing and carries that melody line. And the left hand also, you know, in two-handed repertoire does a lot of very difficult things and virtuosic things, but it's the supporting harmony usually. With left-hand repertoire, that turns everything on its head. So me as a left-hand pianist, I have to create to you, the listener or you, the audience, that there's in fact two or even three hands playing this piano, whereas in fact there's only just one. So the amount of times I've had people come up to me and say, so do you play with an overdub? Do you record pre-record stuff and then play along with it? I'm saying, well, no, it's just.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not want to be, I'm going to be the first boy out of all of my group of friends to ride my bike without training wheels. And I did. And I remember all the parents standing at their front porches looking and some of the women were crying with kind of admiration and things like that, which of course I loved as well. I mean, I remember being very, very pleased with myself at that age. And I must have, I don't know how old I was, but I was young. I remember that. And that is just, that is what I've been. I've always been like that since with anything. Just like I said to you earlier, just not with academia, because I just didn't care. I just didn't, you know, academic stuff, it just wasn't my bag. It just didn't, I didn't feel that burning desire to prove anything with that.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do you have any siblings? No, I'm an only child. And I think probably that contributes to it as well. And I think the fact of my disability and being born with one hand, that contributes to it. I mean, I'll give you an example. When I was younger, you know, I lived in a very small street with lots and lots of kids my age. So we're all friends. We all used to play out in the street together and things. I remember one of the parents said to my mum and she, this was not in a militious way at all. This was in a, you know, a kind of, I don't know what way she meant it, but she said it's such a shame that, you know, Nicholas won't really be able to learn to ride his bike with the other boys. And my mum said, oh, I'm sure he'll find a way. And I overheard this conversation. So in my head, we were all quite young and we all had our training wheels on our bike. And I had told, remember even hearing my inner voice in my head saying to myself, I want to be the first.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I've always been both of those things. I think I've always been through, if I look back through my childhood, I've always been one of those really headstrong people who you tell me I can't do something and I will do everything in my power, even if I've lost interest in it by that point. I'll still go ahead and do it because I need to prove that person wrong.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Email or a And I've had that for years, and I'm a big fan of the show. I love it. I'm one of their viewers. But for me, it's just not for me because those doors I've tried to hold open the classical music world and to try and spread my message in the least gimmicky way I can. I've worked so hard to do that. If as soon as I kind of sold out and did one of these shows, all of the classical music draws would close on me and I'd never be able to reopen them again. Yes, I'd have a bigger fan base, I'm sure, but I'm looking at the long term, and I always have been ever since I was young. So, yeah, there's various different things.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About then, you know, it was all the start of like, you know, Britain's got talent and all that kind of thing. I'm so pleased I took her advice because I would have just been that gimmick who would have maybe made a quick buck over two years but certainly wouldn't have had the respect that I have now as a pianist and certainly wouldn't have had the career that I've had to date and that I look forward to continuing until I'm in my 60s. classical musicians do have long careers we're not we don't burn out you know we don't you can carry on playing until until you want to start and I think if I went down that route of the gimmicky route and believe me tim I've said in the papers over here and I've said it in various interviews every year I did even if I didn't own a calendar I would be able to tell you the month because every year I get well my manager gets now but I used to get before I had management”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I had no, I didn't want to play it. I was so in love with the repertoire that I'd learned, you know, Mozart and Rakmanoff and Mendelssohn and all these composers, which I'd grown to know and love, to then be told at the age of 17 after working so hard. And by this point, having gained a place at a London music school, I was then told that I had to kind of wave goodbye to that repertoire and say hello to this left-hand repertoire, which I knew nothing about. And I had no intention of it. And actually, I think as well, my attitude at the time being a very headstrong 17-year-old was that, well, no, I don't want to play left-hand reptile because I can do this. I can play two-handed repertoire with my little arm and left hand. Why do I want to specialise in left-hand repertoire? And it was my teacher at the time said, you don't want to become a gimmick. And especially with all the TV talent shows, which were just coming.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Note melody lines, for instance, and quite a complicated left hand, and I would play those. And that's how I actually did my grade exams, and I did that. And I didn't discover left-hand repertoire. I didn't even know it existed. And no one along the way told me it existed until I was 17. And that was exciting and deeply, deeply frustrating for me at that time.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Funny enough, a lot of people don't know this even in the UK because I just tend not to speak about it because it's not what I do now. But I started the piano playing what I affectionately call my little arm, which is my arm, which I haven't got. So I was born, as you know, without my right hand. I haven't got my right hand, my right wrist, and about three quarters of my forearm. But I have got my elbow. So, and I've got my elbow in a very short part of my forearm. And with that, I can actually play on the piano a single note. So I started learning two-handed pieces, if you like, and playing it as it was written. So I'd play the left-hand part as was written. And with my little arm, I would play a single note in the right hand. So obviously repertoire choices, I wouldn't be playing something with two massive big chords in each hand because I didn't have two hands to do that. So I would find pieces which had one.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The next minute mum and dad were at my door, and they're like, Do you want piano lessons? Of Plance was, yes, and that's how kind of I transitioned from becoming a kind of self-starter, if you like, to then having semi-formal lessons because she was a local piano teacher and she was quite young. So it was all quite relaxed. It wasn't as if, you know, straight away I was sent to this special teacher in Vienna or somewhere. It wasn't like that. It was just a local piano teacher. But she certainly was how I started.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“we go um so you know i was like a sponge i literally was kind of you know searching for recordings listening to to the radio listening just absolutely trying to listen to as much stuff as i could to find out what i liked you know to find out you know when you hadn't really heard of any of these pieces like with you i've just explained to who who list was you never know he might now when you go and listen to him and i encourage you to go and listen to some of his works you might absolutely fall in love with it you know you just don't know these things so I was like that I was kind of you know exploring all this stuff whilst actually putting it into practice you know myself just me and my my little keyboard up in my bedroom you know just just working out for myself and there was one moment which really changed that which I remember very very clearly as I used to listen to so much music all the time there was one time my dad shouted up the stairs to me and just said Nick turn the radio”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“List, yeah, Fran's list is one of the kind of great romantic composers of piano literature. And he was really held as the super virtuoso of the 19th century.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, no, this could be a very quick passing fad. We'll get you a keyboard, which was also very generous of them to do. So they bought me a middle of the run kind of keyboard. And that's what I started to learn on. So I started teaching myself to read music, teaching myself the keys on the piano because obviously I didn't know any of this at that stage. I don't really teach that in school, in England like they used to. So, you know, I didn't really know. I kind of knew where middle C was on a piano, but that was it. So I was kind of working things out. I started, bearing in mind, as I mentioned, I come from a non-musical family. So for me, I hadn't heard of Chopin's music. I've never heard of a piece of list before. I'd never really heard Rakmanoff.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it wasn't ever as formal as sitting down with mum and dad. You know, my mum and dad are both non musicians. They're both salespeople for a living. They're just hardworking, normal people. They've got no particular interest in classical music at all, apart from the odd favorites that you hear on adverts and things. So for me, I just went home and I just said, mum and dad, I want to be a concertist. And I can't really remember their faces, but I'd love to see their faces. When they're one armed son comes up to me, I want to be a concert pianist. Really? Are you sure? Are you really sure? So yeah, it was fine. And mum and dad just said, okay, well, what do we need to do? What do you want to do? I said, well, I need, you know, can I have a piano? The answer was very quickly no, of course, as if they're cheap instruments.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As if it's an easy career choice, you know, it was like, okay, yeah, I'm going to go and do that. And that is how it went. That is how it went. That immediatecy either side of that performance.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With probably again that teenage, what's the word where you know you're a bit flat as a teenager as well sometimes, even though I said earlier we've got that teenage invincibility, you're almost sometimes a bit like...”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were all quiet, we were all in assembly. We sat down on our chairs and obviously we all knew that my friend could play the piano. She'd played in school a lot. But I hadn't seen her play in this capacity before. I hadn't seen her play on the big piano in our hall. It wasn't like, so we were quite in anticipation, but just normal. We were just kind of waiting for this performance to happen, like you do in school. You just get told to do something, you do it, don't you? Go and sit down. So we were all just waiting. And I didn't realize that that moment and that, you know, 10 minutes. Would affect my entire life and my entire career and everything about Me, you know, I didn't realize that obviously at the time. Afterwards, again.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Piano bug and I loved everything about the instrument the way it looked on stage the sound that was coming out of this instrument the possibilities of what it was what it was like and you remember what it was like when you were a teenager you've got that teenage invincibility you know that that kind of thing where you know anything is possible and it's fine and I loved that and so for me looking back I didn't even think about the fact I only had one hand I just in my head that is what I was going to be I was going to be a conception it's not just play the piano but I was going to earn my living from playing the piano”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was very non academic, should I say, at school. I was very average. Academia didn't interest me. I wouldn't go and study for hours because I wanted to. I had to. I just wouldn't. I wasn't like that. So I kind of didn't really discover anything throughout my life where I was really good at it, you know, until 14 when I discovered the piano. And what happened, a friend of mine, I'm still friends with today, a very accomplished pianist, she played one of Beethoven's late piano sonatas, the Beltstein sonata. And she played that in my school assembly. And I just had one of those moments that you see in movies, that you see on TV, you know, you hear people talk about. I had one of those moments where I was just completely transported, completely bitten by.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was very late actually. It was when I was 14, which for most people who go into music as their full-time career, they usually have started at the age of three or four, you know, on average, even younger sometimes. And usually by that they've kind of played their first public concert by the time they're five or six and maybe played with their first orchestra by seven or eight, you know, when I'm talking about these kind of professional concert pianists that were concert violinists or whatever you want to say. So for me to start at 14, again, I was already streaming upstream for one very clear reason, but that also exasperated that really.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's my little Pomeranian binny, who is very good and she's quiet unless a dog walks past the front of my house and then she senses they're there and likes to say hello. So I'm sorry if that happens, listeners.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I am sat in my lounge at my home where I haven't been for about three weeks because I've been on tour. So it's quite nice. It's nice to be chatting to you from my house for once.”
2016-07-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT