A Quote by Lester Bowie

A chord is just the name of a sound. — © Lester Bowie
A chord is just the name of a sound.
My real name is Chord Overstreet. I actually got my name because my dad is in the music business as a songwriter. I was the third one in my family born, and there are three notes in a chord, so that's how they came up with my name.
There's a difference between the blues of the New Orleans guys and anyone else and the difference is in a chord, but I can't figure the name of it. It's a different chord, and they all make it.
The marvels of God are not brought forth from one's self. Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played. The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather, through the touch of the musician. I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God's kindness.
Then I began to play. Variations on a G major chord, the most wonderful chord known to mankind, infinitely happy. I could live inside a G major chord, with Grace, if she was willing. Everything uncomplicated and good about me could be summed up by that chord.
I've played the guitar since I was 12, and just taught myself songs chord by chord.
As the chord changes go by, I don't so much think about a static chord voicing changing. I just see the notes on the neck change.
I'll just sit at the piano a lot an play like through different chord exercises and kind of just throwing my hands down on the piano from one chord to the next to see what happens.
I grew up with a piano, and my aunt taught me chords. I played with bands in high school and I could do like, C chord, G chord, D chord; really simple, rhythm piano.
When we do reggae, it's normally a one-chord or a two-chord, or whatever it is. With Sting, there'll be chord changes, key changes.
I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound. But I can't find myself in a situation where our band Swans is doing typical chord progressions - it just seems cliché to me. Even changing chords sounds like a cliché sometimes, though it happens occasionally in our music. But you find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.
I know I have patterns and I've always tried hard to avoid them. There are definitely certain things in my music, if I'm looking back, "Well, that was a period where I was experimenting with a certain kind of chord structure or a certain kind of sound." I've tried really hard, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you what that sound, what that tangible sound of "me" is.
When the chord of monotony is stretched to its tightest, it breaks with the sound of a song.
My songs, they have just the one chord, there's none of that fancy stuff you hear now, with lots of chords in one song. If I find another chord I leave it for another song.
Like the ability of all the musicians to end the song at the right time. Or when it's time for a chord change, but nobody knows what the chord should be, and you all, you know, it all just changes, magically, at the same time. It's when you pick up your phone to call someone and that person is calling you.
I was the third one in my family born, and there are three notes in a chord, so that's how they came up with my name.
Universitas in modo citharae sit disposita, in qua diversa genera in modo chordarum sit consonantia. The universe is arranged like a cithera, in which different kinds of things sound together harmoniously, just as they do in a chord.
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