Top 420 Chords Quotes & Sayings

Country music is three chords and the truth.

I knew a lot of chords, but they weren't the chords that came with the melody that came with the idea I had for the song. Melodies are simple things. If you see a train wreck, there's a melody. If you see a little daisy blowing in the breeze, there's a melody.

It's really weird to be playing chords again. Haven't played chords for a long time. I realised I haven't played chord changes since OK Computer and stuff like that.

Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear. Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right.

My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

Even if chords are simple, they should rub. They should have dissonances in them. I've always used a lot of alternate bass lines, suspensions, widely spaced voicings. Dfferent textures to get very warm chords. Sometimes you're setting up strange chords by placing a chord in front of it that's going to set it off like a diamond in a gold band. It's not just finding interesting chords, it's how you sequence them, like stringing together pearls on a string. ... Interesting chords will compel interesting melodies. It's very hard to write a boring melody to an interesting chord sequence.

The chords in 'Light My Fire' are based on [John] Coltrane's version of this song. He just solos over A minor and B minor, which is exactly what we did. Coltrane had played with Miles on Kind of Blue and took the idea of modal soloing over one or two chords farther out than anybody. He was a real pioneer - he just kept evolving, going where no one had ever gone. He could always attain this state of ecstasy when he played. Live, there was so much energy, you couldn't believe it. He would play for hours. It was indescribable.

I don't think I think when I play. I have a photographic memory for chords, and when I'm playing, the right chords appear in my mind like photographs long before I get to them.

I can write hundreds of songs on simple power chords.

The total person sings not just the vocal chords.

Those chords on 'You Won't Change Me' are huge.

I just started off on my own by learning the regular chords then the barre chords. Then I'd lean the notes that would go with them.

I met the pianist Barry Harris when I was about fifteen. He would show me changes, which I had no idea existed. I knew about scales, but I didn't think about chords. I was fortunate in that he lived right around the corner so I'd be at his house almost every day and he showed me about playing melodies over chords. After about three years, I could play some gigs. I worked with drummer Roy Brooks and other guys my age at that time, like trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer. Some of the older guys were Paul Chambers, Doug Watkins and Louis Hayes

If you play more than two chords, you're showing off.

I used to help Viv with the chords and melodies sometimes.

Any quick analysis of a Beatles tune or a Cole Porter tune will reveal often simple but unexpected chords, chords that chromatically shift between keys, or between major and minor.

I think whatever we've done as a band at The Clientele, we've done because it's so natural. Our "old" sound isn't really like any actual bands from old times. We take elements of past music styles and past sounds as a way to... this is going to sound very pretentious and perhaps overly thought-out, but as a way to strike chords of vague nostalgia, and strike chords of, "I've heard this before somewhere." That's what a lot of our music is about in terms of the words and ideas behind it, so we really use old sounds as a way to serve that agenda.

Yeah, I can read music and I know the names of chords.

There are only seven chords, and I believe every song has already been written.

By adding open strings to even the simplest chords, you can create voicings that sound sophisticated, but are really easy (and fun) to play. They're practical, not intimidating, and most certainly don't sound like 'jazz chords.'

All I have is this guitar, these chords and the truth.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

I'm no good with chords. I'm horrible with chords.

I've been used for writing rhythm guitar chords for a long time because it's so easy to play and chords just sound good on it.

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

I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear.

I've had cysts on my vocal chords.

Like a Star' has a very simple melody, and when you play it, it's only about three notes for ages, and it's quite boring. But when you hear the chords, the chords are sort of different than the melody, and it's pulling it around and making it mean something else.

About ten years ago, I knew three chords on the guitar. Now, in 1982, I know three chords on the guitar.

I guess I like minor chords better than major ones, in general.

When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.

The punk rockers said, 'Learn three chords and form a band.' And we thought, 'Why learn any chords?' We wanted to make music like Ford made cars on the industrial belt. Industrial music for industrial people.

I've been playing swing chords for a long time.

I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.

With a track like 'White Christmas,' everybody has done that song in every format you can imagine, so I just looked at the chords at that particular song and what chords would make it work. That's kind of quite a sad song, and I had this idea of someone singing it in the subway, someone who is homeless, old and sad.

I'd definitely like to see less twerking and more power chords.

If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.

I learned five chords; I thought I knew it all.

To charm, to strengthen, and to teach: these are the three great chords of might.

Three chords and the truth - that's what a country song is.

For some reason, the concept of writing with swing chords was intimidating.

All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.

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

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.

I'm not very good at playing piano, so I usually hit chords with my right hand. And those chords came, and I was just singing a little bit.

When I was 12 or 13, my dad taught me a couple of different chords, and once I learned chords, I never learned to read music, but I learned tablature, like a lot of kids do, and I learned songs that had the chords I knew. It took me a long time to understand the upstroke of picking and strumming, but once I did, it all fell into place.

I don't really break into too many solos. But I've never been a super-big solo guy anyway. I like to make the main melody guitar lines of the songs as cool and interesting as possible without just strumming chords. I like to have chords intertwined with riffs here and there, but I'll do the riffs and the solos where the bottom will drop out. Basically, I do everything for the song, I don't do it for the solo glory. Kids aren't really into that anymore for some reason.

A, C, and G are the only chords any honest musician needs.

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

I liken movies to playing a piano: Sometimes you're playing the chords and different notes with unresolved cadences and playing all major chords that are all over the place, and you're enjoying yourself with a great, simple melody.

Ive been playing swing chords for a long time.

There are only so many chords and notes in the world.

Rock music was the death of jazz in a way. I know there's a bunch of people who say jazz isn't dead, but I mean, rock 'n roll, you play three chords to 20,000 people; jazz, you play 20,000 chords to three people.

It's just rock and roll. A lot of times we get criticized for it. A lot of music papers come out with: 'When are they going to stop playing these three chords?' If you believe you shouldn't play just three chords it's pretty silly on their part. To us, the simpler a song is, the better, 'cause it's more in line with what the person on the street is.

Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.

The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.

I love R&B and hard-hitting, slappy, intense music with deep chords and moody chords. But I also have a thing for bubbly lullaby music. Kind of like ice-cream truck rap.

Motherhood is at its best when the tender chords of sympathy have been touched.

I've been diagnosed with what's called vocal tension dysphonia. The muscles around my vocal chords kind of constrict my vocal chords from doing what they should do. It's kinda like being a body builder and you have muscles that are so large that they don't allow you to have flexibility, if that makes sense.

If you don't make those vocal chords work, they'll go dormant on you.