Guitar Basics, chapter 6

By Darrin Koltow

• Music: a working definition
• How we recognize music
• Two Five One: a specific starting point

In this episode of Guitar Basics, we're going to explore another basic obstacle we sometimes encounter in playing guitar: feeling like you're not making music.

This obstacle is ideal for us to tackle, because it helps us get past another obstacle: lack of desire. When you feel like you're making music that has meaning for you, your desire to play increases. Play meaningless music and exercises, and your desire decreases. Also, keep this in mind: if you want to do something deeply enough, you'll find a way to do it, unless your goal is to sell lint for fun and profit.

So not making music as you practice cuts into your desire to play. You hear yourself making sounds, but they just don't sound "right," and you're not sure why. What can you do about this?

To answer this question, it helps to have a working definition of music. So, if the problem is expressed as "I'm not making music," my response is "How will you *know* when you're making music? What does the word 'music' mean to you?"

Music: a working definition

You might shrug your shoulders at first, and try out a couple of different definitions. After you mention each one of these, you immediately realize it's incorrect or incomplete in some way. Here are some first attempts:

Music is:

- a collection of twelve notes, repeated in different octaves
- a melody and chords mixed together
- a song
- sonic therapy
- a means of expression you use when words don't say what you want
- vibrations of air that make you feel good when you hear them
- do re mi fa sol la ti do
- a way of wooing someone from the gender of your choice

After offering each of these to me as a definition of "music," I say, "nope, nope, nope. But you have a good start." And then we look at a couple of examples of sounds and ask ourselves "Is this music?" Ask yourself that question as you play this first example:

http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/star1.mid

Is this music? I hear your hesitation. You say, "well...." If you have to *think* about it, it's not music yet. "So, what's missing?" I ask.

"It's got no *chords*, man."

So, I play this example for you:

http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/star2.mid

I ask you, "Is it music yet?"

You say, "Nope. Still not music."

Then I say, "Let's have another go."

http://www.MaximumMusician.com/PairFiles/star3.mid

And you say, okay, now we have music.

How we recognize music

It's not so easy to define music in words, but we know it when we hear it, right? But, how do we explain to somebody else that this is music we're hearing? What makes one collection of sounds music and another meaningless noise? Is music just the set of chords we used? No. We still haven't gotten at what the ingredients of music are. But our picture of music is a little clearer after playing the last example. Here are some things we can extract from the When You Wish upon a Star example:

- Music involves chords and melody *changing.* Repeating a melody note for four measures, or doing the same with a chord, is less likely going to be heard as music than a melody that does change.

- Music involves not just a melody and not just a set of chords, but a blending of both. And these two ingredients must be combined with one other essential element:

- rhythm. More accurately, a *heartbeat*. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty darn near certain that the reason we like hearing a rhythmic pulse in most kinds of music, classical included, is because we recognize a human heartbeat in there. Every time we tune up the ZZ Top and Iggy Pop tunes, the Steven Curtis Chapman songs, or a Mozart or Chopin etude, we are putting our wee baby ears up to mommy's tummy once again. It's a mammal thing -- but also so much more.

If I were to play the notes of a song without any rhythmic pulse, and so scatter the notes using all different time intervals, you'd kick me out the door. You wouldn't be hearing music. Some people even argue that a pulse is the *only* thing you need to create some kind of music. And not all such people are drummers.

All these guidelines are just that: *general* tendencies, not specific, concrete rules that can't be broken. Musical "rules" have the same flexibility as "socially acceptable" behavior, which is another way of saying "different strokes for different blokes."

Back to the problem

Reading these previous notes on a working definition of music might not directly help you overcome the problem of feeling you're not making music when you play. But think of these notes as a starting point for a strategy to overcome this problem.

Once you realize that music does have some specific characteristics and tendencies, you can begin a search to find out what those tendencies are. Part of this search involves listening -- listening in different ways. You already know how to listen as a casual listener, for enjoyment. But you'll listen to music differently as a musician. You'll focus your attention on different parts of a piece of music, such as the bass or melody, or the interplay of a saxophone and synth. Another part of discovering the tendencies, or structure of music involves making music, and yet another part involves reading material on "music theory."

Two Five One: a specific starting point

All of this foregoing material is important as a backdrop, or as a kind of seedbed to plant your own guitar education curriculum. But we need some actual seeds, man. I mean, all of this talk about ideas and concepts is great, but what do you in the day-to-day? What do you practice to resolve any doubt that you're making music?

You can start in many places, but I suggest a small but powerful chord progression, and the arpeggios that you can flow over it: the ii-V-I progression. I've written about it lots and in many ways, because I've seen over and over how prevalent, common, and *musical* this progression is. You know you're making music when you play a dm followed by a G7, followed by a C major. It sounds like music and it is. And it's only three chords long. You can flesh it out with another One at the beginning: I-ii-V-I.

So, the next time you're feeling like an exercise you're working with doesn't sound like music, learn to adapt it to the ii-V-I progression. This could be as simple as recording a C-Dm-G7-C (if you're working in C major), and playing back over it.

Do a search on Google.com for "most common chord progressions" to give yourself another sign of how often the ii-V-I is used.

That's the end of this episode of guitar basics. Look for more here.

Guitar Chords (GC) builds your chops and helps you identify the most important chords by ear. GC shows you how to substitute and combine chords; play Jazz, Rock and Blues progressions; transpose songs; put chords to a melody; apply fingerpicking, alternating bass, arpeggios, and much more.