Chords Quotes - Page 6

I bid the chords sweet music make, And all must follow in my wake.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sweet, Sweet Music

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edgar Alfred BOWRING (1853). “The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres, with a Sketch of Goethe's Life. By E. A. Bowring”, p.160

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The technical history of modern harmony is a history of growth of toleration by the human ear of chords that at first sounded discordant and senseless to the main body of contemporary professional musicians.

George Bernard Shaw

Music, Growth, Ears

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Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Love, Life, Sight

Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron, Alfred Lord Tennyson (2014). “Fifty Poems”, p.114, Cambridge University Press

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This pride of race is a quality which the German, fundamentally, does not possess. The reason for this is that for these last three centuries the country has been torn by internal dissension and religious wars and has been subjected to a variety of foreign influences, to the influence, for example, of Christianity-for Christianity is not a natural religion for the Germans, but a religion that has been imported and which strikes no responsive chord in their hearts and is foreign to the inherent genius of the race. (13th February 1945)

Adolf Hitler

Country, Religious, War

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I just scribbled away and eventually a C-major chord was there. I didn't ever decide I was going to be a composer. It was like being tall. It's what I was. It's what I did.

Richard Rodney Bennett

Composer, Tall, Majors

"A life in music: Richard Rodney Bennett". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. July 22, 2011.

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I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.

M. Ward

Adventure, Guitar, Singing

"M. Ward's Metallica phase". Interview with Steven Hyden, www.avclub.com. May 3, 2007.

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Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion.

Michael Azerrad

Rocks, Sound, Use

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I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.

Andrew Bird

Writing, Fit

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You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it...I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it. That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say. ... I don't like overdubs, never liked them. ... The music business doesn't interest me anymore...Don't the people you're around shape the music, is that what you're saying? Everything does. ... I'm not joking around when I've said occasionally, trying to learn how to play a D chord properly has been a very big thing for me.

Lou Reed

Believe, Play, People

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The healing power of music is vast. Music therapy is in its infancy in Western psychology. If we knew more, we'd be able to do amazing things, and maybe even make permanent changes in the brain's mysterious workings. With a simple song and four chords, you might be able to do something useful, even life-changing. With all the songs you know, you might be a virtual, veritable medicine chest for the right person.

Gary Talley

Song, Life Changing, Healing

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You can find me in the melodies, the chord progressions, the song style and structure. The lyrical places you fine me most are in the lyrics that 'show' more than 'tell.' I like to describe what the listener is seeing and let them make up the middle rather than telling them.

Kristian Bush

Song, Writing, Style

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These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.

Ani DiFranco

Song, Writing, Guitar

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Paul Simon once said that a songwriter's supreme challenge was being complex and simple at the same time-writing songs with lasting depth that are also simple enough to be memorable. Jimmy Van Heusen was a master at this kind of song. His music was complex, with deeply rich chord changes any jazzman can embrace, but also possessed catchy, crystalline melodies of exceeding sing-ability. His songs were meant to be sung, not just listened to, and they were sung by the best, with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby at the top of that list.

Paul Zollo

Song, Memorable, Writing

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It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.

Tayari Jones

Creating, Perfect, Three

Tayari Jones (2012). “Silver Sparrow”, p.45, Algonquin Books

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George Harrison was a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous guitarist, and a wonderful example of what a rock star should be. I totally revered him as an innovator. He was always fresh, daring, magnificently melodic, full of spiritual quality, and totally conscious of the chord structure beneath the solo. And he had the courage to play simple. He never took refuge in effects, or tried to impress with speed. I hope he knew how much we all loved and respected him.

Brian May

Spiritual, Stars, Simple

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What I think I do is to relate any new material to how similar it is to something else. The closest that I can come up with something that's already in my experience, the easier it becomes. All I have to do then is remember where it differs, like relating a chord sequence that comes from some other tune, or several different tunes, or maybe parts of them and then work it from there.

Tal Farlow

Music, Thinking, Tunes

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It’s really strange, but they speak to me — the notes and the chords. So when I hear other people’s music, I can feel the composer. Whoever created that, I can see in their soul.

Yanni

People, Soul, Strange

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Rock & Roll is the physical thing that just comes out of you .. the other stuff you have to sit down and learn .. once you learn scales and chord progressions, you can make up your own versions

Brian Setzer

Music, Rocks, Down And

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I also generally play slide guitar in standard tuning, which enables me to switch back and forth between using the slide and fretting notes and chords conventionally without having to relearn the fretboard, as one must do when playing in an open tuning.

Warren Haynes

Music, Guitar, Play

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...every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great plops into your lap, that's how it was with "Hotel California".. a leased beach house in Malibu ... all the doors wide open on a spectacular July day probably in 1975 ... soaking wet ... thinking the world is a wonderful place to be... with an acoustic 12 string ... those chords just oozed out.

Don Felder

Music, Beach, Thinking

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... We borrowed it all from Coltrane. I started encouraging everybody in the band to listen to John Coltrane - 'Check it out, see what these guys do.' They take one chord, the tonic chord, and just play all over it. 'We can do that too!' I wanted to make our music something really amazing - I wanted it to be jaw-dropping and turn on a dime and do all of those things that I knew music could do, and nobody told us we couldn't do it. I shouldn't say 'I,' though - Jerry Garcia was behind it the whole way.

Phil Lesh

Music, Play, Guy

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You think it's all written, but it's not. There's always another way to twist those three chords around.

Joe Perry

Thinking, Twists, Three

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Then about 12 years ago it dawned on me that folk music - the music of Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs, early Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger - could be as heavy as anything that comes through a Marshall stack. The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue.

Tom Morello

Years, Three, Cash

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The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colors, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music.

Camille Saint-Saens

Beautiful, Art, Color

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People listen to the music and sense what it is about. Sometimes they know exactly what the songs are about, sometimes they interpret their own meaning to the music, and thats great when this happens because it shows its striking a chord.

Enya

Music, Song, People

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