Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Some non-musicians view the making of music (and sometimes other art forms, such as painting) in that way; they could never do it, they think — it’s “beyond them” — and thus, it’s something mystical, or magical — or ungrokkable, as Robert Heinlein may have put it. But others, in a less romantical way (as Anne with an E would say), reduce music to a paint-by-numbers formula, summing up music with the phrase: “Music is math.”
Music is so much more than math, though. Music has mathematical elements to it, but saying music is (simply) math is like saying pizza is cheese.
Granted, though, math is involved in the making of music (that’s what the drummer is doing, in a sense, counting: 1,2,3,4; 1,2,3,4; etc. — hitting the bass drum[s] on the odd beats and the snare drum on the even beats — to use the “common time” of 4/4 as an example which is, of course, an oversimplification, but is usually the case, hence being referred to as “common time”).
Math is not magic, though, and a type of magic can exist within music. Or you might refer to the “magic” as a series of miracles— incorporated in the creative aspect which manifests itself in the writing of songs or composing of music; but we’ll put that on the shelf for now.
What does it take to produce music? Three things: Head, Hands, and Heart. True, in some cases, in a literal sense, feet are involved, too, and even lips (drums and piano being the two most common examples of using feet, with saxophones and trumpets and such requiring lip action), but we will use “hands” to represent all the body parts used to create music.
But what, exactly, is meant by head, hands, and heart when it comes to making music?
The head, or brain, represents the knowledge of what to play, which includes some familiarity with music theory (keys and scales and harmony and such), and either the ability to read music (traditional treble and/or bass clef or tablature) or, barring that (no pun intended), being endowed with perfect pitch and therefore being able to say, “I don’t need no stinkin’ sheet music!” (apologies to those who have not seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre or UHF). But only about one person in 10,000 possesses perfect pitch, so we can pretty much ignore that. So, the head represents knowing what to play; mental effort and an investment of time studying and meditating are required for the head to play its role in the making of music.
The hands represent the physical ability, the dexterity or agility, to play the notes and, in the case of some instruments, chords (an assemblage of harmonious notes). This takes practice. And practice. And more practice. Hours of training the muscles to hit the right key or string/fret combination or what-have-you are necessary for this physical part of the picture to come into focus.
Finally, the heart represents the emotional aspect of making music — the desire to express your feelings, to reach a “place” where your very soul, as it were, is attuned to the mood of the music you are playing. At its most intense manifestation, you can almost feel at one with the music and be in a “zone,” a sort of euphoria of melding with the music, where it’s in you and you’re in it and you can’t quite tell where you leave off and the music begins. Not to be too metaphysical about it.
So, why are all three (head, hands, and heart) necessary to make music? Let’s examine what happens if one or more of these elements is missing:
No head, no hands, no heart — With no knowledge of what to play, no ability to play the notes on the key- or fretboard, and no urge whatsoever to do so, you’re completely adrift. You’re as unmusical as a government accountant’s spreadsheet.
Head + Hands (no Heart) — The understanding of what to play is present, the ability to play the notes (and, possibly, chords) is there, but without heart, the emotional aspect, the “music” will sound robotic, like “elevator music.” You can usually tell when somebody is just playing for a paycheck and when they really mean it — when their heart’s in it, and when it’s not. As an example of that, more often than not, when a songwriter is performing his or her own songs, you can really tell their heart is in it. They know why they wrote the songs and what they’re really about. Someone may do an excellent job of covering a song of theirs and make it sound good, sonically, and may even be a better singer and have better musicians backing them up on the track, but the raw power, sincerity, and intensity of songwriters performing their own creations is hard to ignore or resist. There are exceptions (where the songwriter is a truly godawful singer, for example), but for the most part, the original recording of a song is the “gold standard” quality-wise, all things considered. You’ve gotta have heart.
I saw/heard an example of this (lack of heart) once. I was listening to a lcoal band practice (in the now defunct “Grubstake Village” on Highway 49 between Angels Camp and San Andreas, California, in the 1970s), and soon became annoyed with the bassist, who continually whined about how boring it was to play his instrument. He claimed that, when playing the bass, you always play the same thing in every song. And sure enough, that’s what he did: the slouching malcontent played the root and then the fifth, the root and then the fifth, every time, over and over. Now there are many bass players who are very inventive, from the Zombies’ Chris White to James Jamerson, Larry Graham, Carole Kaye, Paul McCartney, et al, so it’s certainly not the case that you have to always and only play 1-5, 1-5 all the time on the bass. But he did, so for him, yes, playing the bass was boring. No wonder. It was boring listening to him play it, too. He was lacking perhaps a bit in the head department, but his heart was definitely not in it. Creativity was at a low ebb, to be sure; on a scale from one to ten, his creativity ranked -17. Don’t be that guy!
Head + Heart (no Hands) — The know-how is there, the want-to is there, but if there’s no technical prowess whatsoever, the music will be herky-jerky, hesitant, probably in and out of time (arrhythmic), and perhaps even off-key. Before “taking their show on the road,” the musician in question needs to get back in the woodshed, sharpen their ax, and hone their chops.
Hands + Heart (no Head) — A person may be able to hit all the notes cleanly and quickly and be a virtuoso in that way, but without the knowledge of what to play (and, correspondingly and even more vitally, what not to play), there will be a lot of bland music pouring forth from their instrument, and there might even be an abundance of teeth-grittingly sour notes and off-putting dissonance. Technical skill and desire are not enough.
Many people possess two of the three elements, but, despite what Meat Loaf sang, two out of three is not “not bad”; just having two of the three is, indeed, bad, music-wise. So, then:
Head, Hands, and Heart — Now you’re making music. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough in all three aspects so that you, at least, enjoy it and, most importantly, are “feeling it.”
This leads to the final (bonus) bit— the magic, or miracle. This has to do with creativity.
In classical music, a musician doesn’t necessarily have to be all that creative (assuming they are not a composer or arranger) — they simply play what’s on the sheet: the right notes, at the right time, for the prescribed duration of time, with the desired technique, and played at the required volume.
Other forms of music, though, require more creativity on the part of the musicians. For example, when a songwriter plays his new piece for his band, he doesn’t usually tell them exactly what to play on their instruments — they come up with something suitable to the song themselves.
Where does the creativity to do that come from? The head is involved (knowing which notes are available to use for a song in this key or when this chord is being played), and of course, the hands are involved, too, and it helps to like the song so that their heart will also be involved. All three elements initially discussed are involved to at least some degree, but creativity is somewhat magical in that it’s impossible to know just how people come up with the musical lines and passages they do. And it’s undeniable (right?) that some people are more creative than others.
That’s where the magic/miracles come in. Somehow, some way, a person comes up with a bass line such as Carole Kaye’s work on the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, or what Wilton Felder played on The Jackson 5’s I Want You Back, or whoever it was on Randy Newman’s Monsters Inc and America’s Sister Golden Hair, or a guitar solo such as Don (not a near relative of Wilton’s) Felder’s on the Eagles’ One of These Nights, or the oft-maligned Martin Barre’s soaring solo on Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, or the one Ritchie Blackmore laid on us as recorded on Deep Purple’s Lazy, or what Carlos Santana wowed us with on Black Magic Woman, or the drum solo on Iron Butterfly’s classic In-A-Gadda-da-Vida, and so forth. We don’t know how they did it, and they probably don’t, either. And if you’re not familiar with those examples or are but aren’t overly impressed by them, think of your own favorites instead and hear them in your mind’s ear.
In stark contrast to classical music, jazz is all about improvisation (creativity). The jazz cats are not only coming up with their own musical figures “all the time,” but in real time — as they are on stage, in response to what the other cats are playing, how they are feeling at the time, what they are thinking about, and so forth. Jazz is a free-form, free-flowing, egalitarian conversation carried on and out by a group of musical raconteurs.
And what about songwriters? Not all musicians are songwriters. Most would like to be, no doubt, but again, some people are more creative than others. It’s magic; it’s a miracle that somebody could write (or compose, in the case of classical music) Lean On Me or Pancho and Lefty or Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina or Sleepers Awake or I Feel the Earth Move or Operator or American Pie or ... on and on the list could go.
You can learn the mental (head) part of music through book study, and you can train your hands to fulfill the physical (hands) requirement of making music, but the emotional part (the heart element) must come from an attitude within you, and the creative part, to the extent present, wells up from an inner illumination that is, at least to some extent, a “gift.”
Do you want to make music? If so, you’ve already got the heart part down. Build up your head and your hands, and who knows: you may find that you have a creative gift to unleash.
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