Chords Quotes - Page 6

• 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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• The very funny thing about "Like A Rolling Stone" is it was a six minute song, there was no music to read from. And there I was playing this unfamiliar instrument. So I would come in on the upbeat of one. I would wait until the band played the chord, and then as quickly as I could come in play the chord.

  Al Kooper

  Song, Funny Things, Play

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• The heart is like a musical instrument of many strings, all the chords of which require putting in harmony.

  Saadi

  Heart, Musical, Harmony

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• Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. You cannot charm, or interest, or please By harping in that minor chord, disease. Say you are well, or all is well with you, And God shall hear your words and make them true.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Disease, Tales, Worn

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• The message of reconciliation, of nation-building, of granting amnesty, indemnity, has struck a powerful, favorable chord. And people can understand that we're here not for purposes of retribution but to forget the past and to build our country.

  Nelson Mandela

  Country, Powerful, Past

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• I think the origin of all this clamour for tonality is not so much the need to sense a relationship to the tonic, as a need for familiar chords: let us be frank and say "for the triad"; and I believe I have good reason to say that just so long as a certain kind of music contains enough such triads, it causes no offence, even if in other ways it most violently clashes with the sacred laws of tonality.

  Alban Berg

  Believe, Thinking, Law

  "Schoenberg: A Critical Biography". Book by Willi Reich, p. 34, 1971.

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• No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul.

  Alexander Cockburn

  Horse, Cheer, Medicine

  "Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy" by Alexander Cockburn, www.counterpunch.org. August 30, 2008.

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• Indeed, there is a moment on the first CD - the electrifying opening to "I Got Loaded," which sounds like an R&B standard but isn't - when you might find yourself asking whether anyone who has ever been smitten by pop music can fail to have his heart stopped by the chords, the swing, and, once again, Steve Berlin's wonderfully greasy sax.

  Nick Hornby

  Heart, Swings, Cds

  Nick Hornby (2003). “Songbook”, p.186, Penguin

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• Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, To the inward ear devout, Touched by light, with heavenly warning Your transporting chords ring out. Every leaf in every nook, Every wave in every brook, Chanting with a solemn voice Minds us of our better choice.

  John Keble

  Morning, Voice, Light

  John Keble (1829). “The Christian year, thoughts in verse for the Sundays and holydays throughout the year [by J. Keble].”, p.52

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• The more melodies and chord changes, the less good it is for the clubs, but the better it is for radio, because it makes it really emotional.

  David Guetta

  Emotional, Clubs, Radio

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Sometimes images may emerge from some chord in my subconscious, the way a dream might. Even in those paintings where an image unconsciously develops, a certain kind of experience is usually necessary in order to perceive it.

  Robert Motherwell

  Dream, Order, Perception

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• Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah

  Leonard Cohen

  Kings, Fall, Secret

  Song: Hallelujah

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• The music comes first, like, 99 percent of the time. I come up with the basic chord structure and the melody first and then I get really obsessed with arranging, adding, and subtracting parts. The last step of the process, for me, is finding words that fit into that structure and figuring out exactly what I want to talk about.

  Mikal Cronin

  Want, Lasts, Firsts

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I still feel like if I can get a song to work with, say, a basic beat, a rhythm, some chord changes, and a melody, a vocal melody - if it works with that, then I feel it's written and there's something there.

  David Byrne

  Song, Beats, Rhythm

  Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. July 17, 2006.

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• Love--what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear, A seventh heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment, What concentrated joy or woe in blest or blighted love! For it is that native poetry springing up indigenous to Mind, The heart's own-country music thrilling all its chords, The story without an end that angels throng to hear, The word, the king of words, carved on Jehovah's heart!

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Love, Country, Kings

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1849). “Proverbial philosophy: a book of thoughts and arguments, originally treated”, p.115, Philadelphia, E. H. Butler & co.

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• How light the touches are that kiss the music from the chords of life!

  Coventry Patmore

  Music, Kissing, Light

  Coventry Patmore (1863). “The betrothal. The espousals”, p.301

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• As an actor, you want as much variety as you can muster up. Otherwise you just keep playing the same chord over and over again.

  Michelle Forbes

  Actors, Want, Muster

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• The way that words mutate reminds me of fashions in music. The word--the note--is a constant. But the setting and chord in which it occurs alters with the mood of a nation from major to minor, from the assertive to the mournful and foreboding.

  Neal Ascherson

  Fashion, Way, Mood

  Neal Ascherson (1988). “Games with Shadows”, Hudson Annex

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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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• Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were so high. On Broadway, people were watching and judging, especially newspaper critics who knew a thousand ways to slice and dice a songwriter for the entertainment of hundreds of thousands of faithful readers. There was no anonymity for the Broadway songwriter. Even the best could find themselves stripped naked the morning after by the tastemakers and their readers.

  Michael Kosser

  Morning, Writing, People

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• I grew up in St. Louis in a tiny house full of large music - Mahalia Jackson and Marian Anderson singing majestically on the stereo, my German-American mother fingering 'The Lost Chord' on the piano as golden light sank through trees, my Palestinian father trilling in Arabic in the shower each dawn.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Mother, Father, Piano

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• Wherever inspiration comes from, it's like I'll hear a melody and chords, almost a rough structure of the whole thing [song]. I'll just hear it and chase what's in my head. The rest comes from jamming with band, improvising, seeing what comes up as well. I'll come up with it off the top of my head, catch it, sing and hum, and if something is missing, just jam, and that's the [songwriting] process.

  Chris Wyse

  Song, Inspiration, Missing

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• I don't like no fancy chords. Just the boogie. The drive. The feeling. A lot of people play fancy but they don't have no style. It's a deep feeling-you just can't stop listening to that sad blues sound. My sound.

  John Lee Hooker

  Play, People, Feelings

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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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• Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what I was described as for a long, long time; you know, people said I only knew three chords when I knew five.

  Leonard Cohen

  Long, People, Giving

  BBC Radio 1FM Interview, 1994.

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