Ten Relationships at the Heart of Good Music

Everything's relative!

1. Teacher and student

The effectiveness of music lessons is dependent on the relationship between teacher and student, not merely on the information being conveyed. According to This is Your Brain on Music, studies of great musicians have shown that their first music teachers shared one special ability, and it was not always a good technical foundation — it was their ability to convey a love of playing music. Some teachers do this naturally; others find it difficult or feel trapped in a pedagogy that may seem heartless but necessary. Although I’ve always taught in person, I also created an online site for learners of fiddle music, aware that without personal relationships, learning online can be lonely and thankless. My approach was to allow people space to learn on their own at their own pace, while also figuring out a way to offer live online workshops where participants could talk with each other and the instructor. I also have made myself available for people’s questions, suggestions, and even online private lessons as short as 15 minutes to help someone address a specific problem. For me, an impersonal site was not worth the time and effort.

2. Musician and music

A musician’s relationship to a tune affects how well they play it, how enjoyable and enriching it is to listen to them, and whether they like performing it or are afflicted with stagefright. This relationship to a tune requires context — the background story, access to performances of the tune or within the style, a live class or teaching video that reveals the instructor’s personal take on playing the tune. This way, learners can develop their own connection to the tunes they learn, and have something musical to say with them.

3. Notes and chords

Music theory is only meaningful in terms of the relationships between notes and between harmonic ideas as they progress through a musical piece. Reading a book about music theory will mean little to someone unless they can hear and feel these relationships. The difference between a major and minor key, for example, can be reduced to the relationship of the third note of the scale to the root note. Cultural differences in musical style depend in part on relationships between notes, whether half step, whole step, step-and-a-half, or microtonal, as they are arranged in scales, modes, and chords that convey distinct moods.

Chord progressions are not defined by any single chord but by their relationships to each other. A chord will feel very different depending on the chords around it, just as a green will appear one way when placed next to dark red and another way when it’s next to cobalt blue.

4. Note Lengths

The length of a note — whole, half, quarter, eighth, etc. — is only meaningful in relation to the note that follows. Playing a note gives us the beginning of the note. Starting the second note tells us when the first note ended.

There’s a joke about this. A violist said to a violinist, “Did you know I can play as fast as you?” The violinist said, “Great, let’s hear you play 128th notes.” So the violist played her one.

5. Pickup and beat notes

The impact of a beat note depends on its relationship to the pickup notes or breath that introduced it. If a magician makes a rabbit appear out of a hat and says “ta-DAHHH!” it will feel very different than if he says “Tah … Dah.” A conductor’s downbeat is only clear because of the upbeat that preceded it.

6. Expression and Contrast

The expression of a musical idea is effected by changes in volume, speed, or quality of sound within a phrase. It’s not about how any particular note is played on its own.

The sense of excitement or calm of one section of music depends upon its relationship to the previous one. Playing a bunch of fast tunes is not nearly as exciting as building up to them from slower ones. A slower tune can feel sad, cautious, draggy, or contemplative, depending on what mood came before.

Beat one of each measure is predictable. If there’s a tempo change, it depends entirely on the relationship of the second beat to the first.

7. Between musicians

A good musical group, whether duo, ensemble, or jam session, is distinguished by the relationship of the players and whether they play together in the same rhythmic groove. Good ensemble is about communication between musicians, not about getting all the notes right or playing correctly in a prescribed form or tempo. In music, it’s better to be together than to be correct! For example, a player who rushes pickup notes will throw others off the tempo, because even if he plays the beat notes as precisely as a metronome, his rushed pickup notes imply that the beat is going to come early. Good musicians tune in to each other. Melody players feel the beat. Rhythm players feel the melody. It’s not enough to play all the notes at the “right” time.

8. Bow speed and pressure

Quality sound on a stringed instrument is based on the relationship between speed and pressure on the bow. A smooth bow change depends on the relationship between the upbow and downbow on either side of the change of direction. If speed and pressure are the same, the change will sound totally smooth. Hard to do but good to aim for!

9. Intonation

Good intonation is based on the relationships of notes to each other, not on the correctness of their frequencies as determined by a well-tempered gadget like an electronic tuner. Sometimes pitches lean one way or another because they sound better to our ears — an F# in the key of D is higher than an F# in the key of E minor. Finger placement on a fiddle is based on patterns — relationships of scales and arpeggios, and the proximity of fingers to each other. Depending on the interval needed, fingers on a string will either touch or remain a finger’s width apart, sometimes feeling stretched, sometimes squeezed. These physical relationships mean more to our muscle memory (which is how we play in tune) than whether a note is technically correct. (More about intonation next week!)

10. Practice sessions

The value of a practice session can be measured by its relationship to the previous one. I like to put it this way: “You don’t get good, you just get better.”