I’m going to be blunt in this short article. It is about appreciation for music. Some people may say that beauty is in the eye (or ears in this case) of the beholder. I wish to refute that, at least in this context of music.
I contend that there are criteria by which music can be considered good. For it is an art, and any art that is beautiful wasn’t made so by delusion or accident. There are conditions by which something will be considered beautiful by a group [1].
If you think you will be offended in any way, I advise that you stop reading now. If not, read on.
Musical Roots of our Ancestors
I don’t think that it was a fluke that rhythmic patterns and music arose spontaneously in basically every single human culture around the world. From the bongo drums of Africa to the pipes of the church organ, we find that there are only so few rhythmic patterns that really arise.
Tune in to any pop station, and I bet you will hear some form of the standard 4 beat rhythm in the background in at least 99.99% of the songs.
My point is that these things don’t arise randomly; there is an underlying mechanism governing what we term as good music.
Appreciating Musical Theory
Because of this, we can actually dissect and try to explain why things sound that way. Out of this was born music theory.
As a few basic examples, a major scale sounds different from a minor scale, the former may sound brighter and more cheery. To take it a little further, various cadences make different sounds, for example a 2nd inversion perfect 5th chord to a 1st inversion root chord will sound like your classical ending chords in classical music.
You can even say that there are certain ways to distinguish different styles, of music. For example, Jazz players often like various diminished scales, and will be using a C7 instead of a C chord. Or they may do some improvisations on pentatonic scales, whereas classical players may prefer the Mixolydian minor scales. [2]
Pardon the more technical jargon of the previous two paragraphs, but let me make a point that the Mixolydian mode was first describe in Ancient Greece, used by some classical musicians, and is also the mode by which some modern guitarists use to write their songs. The Song ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ is one of those.
What I am saying is that this theory is Universally applicable. If you had all the musical knowledge at your fingertips, and could think of each scale in terms of the way certain frequencies of notes blend together, then you could make any sort of music that you wanted to make.
After all, the reason why we think some combinations of notes sound ‘wrong’ together is simply because of the innate dissonance of putting two or more non-complementing frequencies of notes together. Yes, music is math, and math is always perfect.
What distinguishes the Musicians from the Laymen
A layman with no musical education can easily appreciate music for its emotionally stimulating qualities. However, he/she will not see the musical structure behind the playing past the basic rhythms.
The experienced musician who has been exposed to this sort of theory understands how and why each note sounds and the way they interact with each other, both as a creator and listener. This is not dependent upon whether or not they had a formal education (and therefore know the theory formally), for the experience of creating music is the thing that leaves the impression upon the guitarist. Sooner or later, he/she will start to appreciate the patterns that are in music.
Because of this, things which sound completely indistinguishable to the layman becomes clear to the musician. A fast guitar solo may just be a long string of musical orgasm to the layman, but it is a clearly and precisely put together piece of musical progression to the musician. That in itself means that the musician is capable of appreciating something which the layman cannot.
Finally, there is the numinous quality to music which only the musician can appreciate. It’s that sort of feeling that leaves you wondering, “how the hell did he/she do that?” It arises because we have some knowledge of how, but yet could not comprehend how much further the art could be taken.
It was the same sort of feeling that many people got when they got their first ipod. The elegance blew them away, because it shows us the wonder that can arise from design principles which we recognise but cannot duplicate ourselves. It is the reason why we are particularly attracted to various arrangement of words like, “No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.” It is the same feeling which scientists get when they discover some new truth and then realise that there is so much more to be found.
That ‘so much more to be found’ is the essence of why we are blown away by some things. Any step towards that elusive state of transcendence simply excites the bearer of such knowledge. That is precisely the kind of appreciation for music that musicians can get. We as musicians simply ‘feel it’, regardless of whether we know how to describe it (I don’t think I fully know how to either).
Concluding Remarks
I must say that there are two main implications for what I have said. The first is that the more you know about something the more you want to know, and the more you can appreciate it. I believe this is true across all fields.
The final implication is that there are also going to be set rules by which one goes about composing music. But that is a topic for another day.
For now, do respect that if you have never created music, you will never appreciate it to its fullest. [3]
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Notes:
[1] There may be individual nuances, but for something to be considered beautiful by something like say, 10,000 people (like there are in a small music niche), there must certainly be some key defining characteristics.
[2] This is a very big generalisation, yes. But I simply wanted to point out a scale not often used in Jazz.
[3] In this case, I do not refer to the current value by which one can derive from music. The powerlifter getting psyched up for a max lift, the yoga practitioner seeking inner calm, all can rely very fruitfully on the emotional rewards of music. That is an indispensable and very important part of the musical experience in my opinion.
At the same time, let us not forget the other side, which I say again, is largely inaccessible to those who have never created music.
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