Here is How Music Works

Life continues to zip along. I can’t believe how well things are going. ALMOST can’t believe. I am careful to avoid saying things like “can’t believe,” “unbelievable,” “incredible,” and “fantastic,” because they all imply unbelief.

I’ve learned some remarkable things about music.

Sometimes I’m shocked at the density of the human race. Every so often, I realize there is something we should have realized ages ago, yet which we somehow managed to miss. For example, we’ve done things to make trash bags easier to tie. We put cinching loops in the mouths, or we put ears on the bags so we can tie them in knots. That took decades. Why didn’t someone do it within months of the debut of plastic trash bags? It’s so obvious, it should have happened much sooner.

Now that I’m starting to understand written music, I’m stunned at how bad teachers are. I worked with a classical pianist for several years, and he never told me important things I needed to know.

First of all, rhythm is much, much more important than pitch. The correct pitches, without rhythm, are noise. The correct rhythm, with random pitches, is music. When you compose, the ability to write rhythms is crucial. If you can write a rhythm down, even if the pitches are wrong, you can easily fix the pitches later. If you can’t get the rhythms right, you’re incompetent and helpless.

Second, written music is like English. It’s broken up into short rhythmic patterns which are homologous to words. If you practice reading rhythms, without changing the pitch, you start to recognize these patterns, and you begin hearing them in your head before you play them. You no longer have to count out the beats, which is impossible at performance tempos.

Third, you should take this language-like quality into account when you write music. An experienced musician will be looking for familiar patterns, just as a reader looks for words, not random letters. If you write familiar patterns, the musician will be better able to play fluently, and your ideas will be clearer to him. They will also be clearer to you, as you work with them.

I use various methods to get this stuff into my head. My Musition software has been incredibly useful. I guess I can say “incredibly” in that context. I can program it to throw up one rhythm pattern after another. It plays a metronome for me, and I tap out the rhythms. Then it tells me how I did. I can program it to repeat things I’m having trouble with, or I can simply progress from one pre-programmed level to the next.

I also take my studies to the keyboard. I have a book of awful classical pieces. They’re simple. I put it on the music rest, and I use one finger to tap out the bass rhythms and one finger to tap out the treble rhythms. This helps me to work the hands independently.

I’m still using my Note Play software to learn note reading. I can’t believe how effective it is. It has levels of increasing difficulty. As I’ve improved, I’ve started to get into things like octaves and playing melodies with both hands. If I can get reasonably fluent, the jump to actual sheet music will be very manageable.

I’ve had some trouble with triplets. I can play triplets over eighth notes on the piano, regardless of whether the triplets are written in sixteenth, eighth, or quarter notes. But doing it from sight… that’s a pain. The short notes aren’t bad, but quarter notes are hard, because they’re so slow. The feel is hard to get into your mind.

I looked at all my software and all of my books, and there were no good answers. I scoured the Internet. No luck. Today I decided to visit my music teacher, and of course, he had the solution on tap, instantly.

He told me I needed to tap out “Carol of the Bells” with my hands and feet. One limb plays triplets, and the other plays duplets. You switch hands. You change things up. Eventually, you get to where you have a sure feel for the rhythms. Then you’re in business.

Now I practice this exercise. I feel stupid doing it, but I know it will work, and as he said, you can do it anywhere. In the car. Wherever. In a few days, I should have a much better grip on triplets. I can read eighth-note triplets very well, but the software says I’m going to have to learn to read quarter-note and eighth-note triplets in the same measure, and that’s tricky. I don’t want to barely get by. I want to nail it, every time. Now I know how to get there.

Once I get fairly sure of my timing, I’ll be able to devote more time to pitch and harmony, but with a simple cell phone and a knowledge of timing, I’ll be able to write tunes anywhere. The phone will let me check pitches, so if I can write the rhythms down, I’ll be ready to go.

Today my teacher told me the stuff I’m doing typically shows up a year or two into a method. I’ve been doing this for what? Two months? I should have been doing it from the start. He said it was insane to put other things before this, and I agree. I’m learning exactly what I wanted to learn when I first took an interest in the piano. If I had continued doing it the other way, I would have died musically illiterate.

I’m obsessive with this stuff now, because I’m sure there is a point after which things get much easier, and I want to reach that point ASAP.

There are a lot of software-based approaches to teaching music, but most of them stink. With the two tools I’m using now, I’m learning quickly and without a lot of frustration. It’s very sad that software companies aren’t doing a better job. It should not be that hard to come up with a good program. And here’s something amazing: Note Play isn’t available any more. They replaced it with something fancier which isn’t as good. Note Play is so small it fits on a floppy, and it’s a breeze to use. I’m amazed it didn’t become popular.

People criticize computer-based music training, claiming it ruins you for real music, but that’s stupid. It does not happen. If you can play with a beat or other aids which are supplied by electronics, you can play when they’re turned off. I had an ear for music before I started, and it’s not going to disappear just because a machine helped me become literate. I know there are some people who practice with metronomes until they sound like machines, but in all likelihood, those people never had soul to begin with, and they never had much of a chance of understanding music. I doubt that the metronome ruins musicians. I think it’s more likely that it permits people with no talent to play music by mimicry, with no depth or understanding. I think this explains a lot of the bad Asian musicians who have incredible technique. There is much more to music than pushing the keys at the right times.

The closer I get to God, the better things get. I come closer and closer to seeing my dreams realized. Stress is leaving me. Things that used to be impossible are working out. Within the next few months, I expect to be able to move to another level in composition. The music won’t necessarily be much better, but it will be much, much easier to write. And I may actually be able to play some things.

If that’s not a good testimony, I don’t know what is.

Keep praying in the Spirit, every day, and remember, the promises of Malachi 3 apply to this, more than they do to money.