Before we dive into things lie music notation, chords, scale systems and the likes, we should understand the basic nature of music. When does a tone become a musical tone? The answer: When we perceive a sound as a regular, smooth pitch.

Let me demonstrate:

Below, you can see the waves produced by a slamming door.

Such graphs are seen in many places all the time, but even I had a hard time explaining what it actually shows! There are three things you can read from such a graph:

1. Amplitude: How big is each wave? in the example, amplitude decreases towards the right, indicating that the sound is getting quiter.
2. Frequency: How often does the wave swing? The more “swings”, technically called “nodes”, the higher the pitch.
3. Period: How much real time does one node take to complete?

A physics major will tell you there’s lot more to see here, but we’ll stick to these basics for now. The x-axis is time, while the y-axis is loudness, that’s why the higher a node is plotted on the graph, the louder a sound is. The more nodes per second, the higher the sound. With me here?

In the example of a door slamming, the nodes are irregular, sudden, and thus aren’t perceived as a single tone by our ears and brains. The frequency varies wildly, which doesn’t allow us to catch a certain tone.

Here’s the plucking of a guitar string:

Notice the uniform frequency that hardly changes. The amplitude drops with time, but that is just the fading away of the sound.

One more thing: When a wave goes below the x-axis, it doesn’t become “quieter”, in fact, silence is only existent when the wave touches 0 on the y-axis. If it goes below, it is exactly as loud as when it goes above the x-axis. We’ll explore more of this later.

So now I hope you have a basic understanding of why somethings are called “music” and other’s aren’t. Keep playing!

Post from: The Good Musician

In future posts, I will explore each area deeper and try to size up digestible chunks that will join you on your career to a good musician.

1. Know Your Instrument

Every musician makes music using an instrument. Even our voice is an entire instrument by itself. When playing, we should be aware of what we are doing. We should try to learn as much about the instrument as we can gather, it’s history, it’s uses, it’s cousins, and we should develop our relationship to the instrument, why are we playing the instrument we play?.

2. Know your Music Theory

Britney Spears probably doesn’t know much about music theory, but as a self-made musician free from producers and American Idol, we should indulge in music theory. Music is a science, but an art form as well. That makes it very special, and thus we should attempt to grasp it as much as we can, which the scientific approach allows us to do easily. The artistic side of music is much more obscure and free. Many musicians fail trying to climb that high wall before getting familiar with the subject matter.

In subsequent posts, I will bring in lessons of music theory, and try to present it in a way that it’s understandable, and most of all, show the use of it, and answer that all-mighty question of “Why?”.

3. Brand Yourself

Whether you’re a classical interpret or member of a death metal band, you have to define yourself and place yourself among others. You have to develop your own uniqueness, and this is where the music ends and business begins, but it’s a part of being a musician. Even if just for your personal life, you should put a lot of thought into what you want to be as a musician, and what you can be as a musician.

Draw that mental picture of yourself you’re comfortable with and ask, what makes me so special? You’ll find a lot of things that make you unique, you just have to play them out.

4. Listen to music

Being a musician means making music, but it also means immersing yourself in music that others create. Listening to music shouldn’t only be something you do on the bus, while surfing or in the car. Listening should at times be an active process in which you slice up the music and study it. There’s so much out there, and once you develop an ear for it, there’s an equal amount to learn! Imagine if you can combine all that knowledge and create something new & wonderful!

5. Practice & Criticize

You suck. That’s what you might try pounding into your head every time you force a tortured note out of your instrument, whether a beginner or a wannabe-Hendrix. Well, the truth is: You really do suck. Everyone does. Paul McCartney sucks. Even I do. But the good part is, we can change that. With practice and constant self-evaluation done the right way, we can reduce our suckiness and create something beautiful. Remember, nothing is perfect, but with a little help, you can come a long, long, really long way.

In future posts you will be able to explore each area further, and we’ll finally get down to work. I’m sure we can learn a lot from each other, and if you think you want to join me, be sure to subscribe!

Post from: The Good Musician