Each day that I have the amazing opportunity to be on this planet, I find more things that astound me. Some things astound me in a good way, some in a bad way. But most things just make me think: "I wish I understood that better". Music is one of those things, and it's what I want to talk about today.
When I was a child, I wanted to be a rock star. I felt damned to have been born so late in history, when so much music had already been written. I was sure that by the time I became old enough to be a rock star, all the combinations of notes would have been used up. There are only 12 notes, don't you know... and not all of them sound good together at the same time. You need to pick little subsets of notes (scales) and if you want to play more than one or two of those notes at a time, it works best if you stick to other little subsets of the scale. (chords) You can stray a bit from the scale by playing foreign notes (accidentals), but if you want to groove for a long time somewhere else, you need to change your scale. (modulation) Damn, this music thing seems pretty limiting!
So, there were these guys in the mid-20th century that decided to unlock new potential in music by breaking these conventions that apparently limit music writers so much, and open doors to a whole other dimension in sound. A parallel sonic universe, if you wish. They called the system of music writing: "12 tone". You could use all the notes at once, without having to worry about those pesky rules about which notes should go with which others. At last, a system of complete freedom and openness! But it really didn't work like that. They imposed their own rules to PREVENT people from doing the things that would seem instinctual, like picking notes that sound good together. Therefore most of this music sounds like shit. Nobody except hoity toity professors at universities really give a damn. So much for that
The first thing I worry about when I write a piece, is whether or not I'm making something that has already been made. Does someone else already have this melody in their song? What about these chords? But when I just let go and write whatever comes out, time after time I end up with pieces that sound surprisingly good, but are not anything I've ever heard before. And I'm older now than I was as a child. A lot more music has been written since my original concerns about the lack of remaining possibilities. And more than that, I've heard a whole lot of music, and still am convinced that I can write new and original music for many more years.
So how come something like music, that on the surface seems so limiting is actually almost limitless? I think it's partly to do with the vast number of combinations available in seemingly simple things. But more than that, it has to do with the fact that the basic notes and chords, that most people think makes a piece of music unique, is such a small part of the finished work. Take a simple example, such as a singer with piano. They happen to be performing a lovely old piece. If you were reading along in the music, you'd be surprised to find that, although good performers of this style will sing and play all the right notes, there is a whole other dimension to the music, which isn't obviously shown on the page at all. It goes beyond the notes and words, and becomes a living, breathing piece of art, love, whatever you want to call it. Where did this extra stuff come from?
Musicians aren't machines. They are living and breathing individuals with complicated lives, ambitions, loves and hates. They interpret music, and either instinctively and/or consciously add their own ideas and interpretations to music on a page. And they read between the lines in the music too, trying to understand what the composer was feeling, and what they were really trying to get across in the piece. Notes and lyrics are only a road map. They just say how to plan the journey. You'll see a lot of things on your way that the map doesn't even capture. It's actually very much like reading a novel. You read more into what the author is saying than the words plainly say, and you draw your own experiences into it as well, painting pictures in your mind and imagining the feelings of the characters.
I was once afraid that music would curl up and die. I thought that with so many people in the world, it would eventually run out and I would be stuck listening to old music for my whole life. On the surface it seems like that would be possible, but music has so many levels of complexity, humanness and potential that the only time it will run out is when we don't have anything left to celebrate or be sad about. I'm very glad that I won't be around when they happens. So keep singing, drumming, composing and strumming!