Silence, The Points Between The Notes

0:44 Love music more, love music more.What's good, everybody?Welcome back to Love Music More.I am Scoobert Doobert today.We wanna talk about the silence.The silence between the notes.Music is the silence between the notes.I don't actually know who said that.I was doing some research for the show,Debussy, Mozart, Miles Davis.But still, the idea, the idea is true.And we should talk about Mr. John Cage.

1:20 So there's a great moment in musical historycalled 4'33".And the point is that the music,you know, what you come to the concert to seecan sometimes distract you from the music of the audience.That the points in between the notes,the places where somebody coughs or clears their throat,shifts in their seat,that's part of the performance as well.And one of the things that he wrotethat I thought was so cool,

1:53 try as we may to make a silence we cannot.And so making a piece of musicthat is simply the ensemble standing on stage,sitting on stage for four minutes and 33 seconds.It's one of those things that like is very polarizing.Like all modern art,like going to a modern art museumor looking at something, a Jackson Pollock, and he goes,but then a lot of what the thing that it's trying to do

2:28 is make you think and feel and considerthings that you never considered.You go to the concert to hear the music,not become the music, it's directional.But the idea of you cannot make a silenceno matter what you try.And the silence is what helps the rhythm exist.The silence allows us to have musical phrasesjust like the sentences that I'm using right now.You stop, you breathe.

3:00 It's one of the things I love about wind instruments.You have to breathe into it.Therefore, it is bound by your ability to breathe.Therefore, you have phrasing.Just because you're human.On a guitar, you can just kind of keep goingand just noodle away.And one of the big moments I thinkin a lot of guitarists' livesis when they start transcribing horn playersand trying to figure out how do they solo?

3:26 Because then you start to internalize itonto your own instrument that doesn't have to takea breath, the idea of taking a breath.Music is pleasing not only because of the soundbut because of the silence that is in it, Thomas Merton.It's a nice little quote.But that silence, it isn't the absence,just like John Cage is saying,it isn't just the absence of music.It's the moment that you can reflect

4:00 on the music that you just heard.You can internalize it.It's almost like sleep.I was watching a great TED talk by Elizabeth Margulisand it was talking about dreams.It was talking about music.And I thought it was a beautiful thingwhere she said, a rest carries the ghostof the previous phrase and the suspense of the next one.Isn't that such a fascinating thing to say

4:25 that the brain doesn't just notice that sound stopped?Silence is a moment.It is a note.And it is a moment to have a dream.You know, like have a dream, like a dreamless night.You still have dreams if you wake up in the middle.And those dreams are your brain, probably,processing all the things that happened that day,clearing out all junk and trying to form memories.And these little gaps in the music

4:52 are what allow us to do that.And I think that connects to the feelingof a song being stuck in your head.Like there was a paper that I was looking at nature.I did a bunch of research for this onebecause it's such an interesting subjectbecause it's like such an easy thing to say, right?Music is the science between the notes.But what does that actually mean?Let's look at science.

5:19 The sound of silence activates the auditory cortex.So actually in your brain,when the song stops, the ears can be quiet,but your auditory system is still going.Just like how you can picture something.Most people can picture somethingor dream about somethingor have a song stuck in your head.It's that phantom, that hangover, that ghost.But I also like to think about how this connects to groove.

5:47 I love thinking about groovebecause it highlights the time-based nature of musicthat we begin and we end.There's something that connects to us in that momentas also time-based creatures.We do not just look at a snapshot and stay in that moment.We're evolving as we're looking at a paintingor a snapshot.We're evolving as we're listening to music.And the groove is all about the little dynamic changes.

6:10 When you listen to somebody playing a really funky hi-hat,it's because it's imperfect.It's moving back and forthslightly where it should be in time.It's moving up and downslightly where it necessarily should beif it was a drum machine in terms of dynamic and volume.And then the space in between is extending and contracting.So like J Dilla, even on the electronic side,

6:33 this doesn't just have to be the groove of a human.This can be a human playing a machineor a machine doing its own thing, emulating humans.But there is a time dilation thingthat a lot of really cool modern music will dowhere it intentionally stretches out a barand then catches up a little bitand then stretches out the next barand catches up a little bit so the music is breathing,even if it's electronic music.

7:00 And so much of this with groove,even with melody like going out of the silence bitlike the actual notes,not the silence between the notes.So much of what we have a dopamine response tois anticipation.Like here comes the drop,here comes the chorus,here comes the payoff.And a lot of times the best wayto make that payoff really hit is a moment,a beat and then a rival.You'll hear this in song after song after song

7:32 or even a drop in dynamicor an opening up of a groove.Like when you're playing a really complicated rhythm,and then all of a sudden that rhythm gets very simpleor like you have a bunch of notes,a bunch of subdivisions,tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic.And then it breaks into a tic, tic, tic, tic, tic.Bam, you're in.Those kind of feelings where the subdivision

7:55 that you're doing of the blank page of the silence,you can decide how intricate,how many notes you jam in between those momentsof repetition and the more silence you createwithin that can create more anticipationbecause you know something's comingor something's coming to an end.It's a great way to end a song.So it's not just about the groove that you're deciding,you're also deciding like the emotional register.

8:24 So in short, the silence is real,the silence moves us forward,but it's also fake because we fidget, we cough,we change, there's a noise.Digital silence is possible,but it can be unsettling.There's a reason why sometimes people liketo have a little hiss, a little tapethat smooths out those moments where nothing exists.That can be very unsettling,but it can also be really exciting.So use it wisely.

8:54 Just crazy to think that you,we put so much emphasis in like playing faster,learning more notes, working on your scales,but so much of it is the placement and the absencethat makes them funky, makes it groove,makes people want to hear more.They want to anticipate and get the rewardof the next phrase.And it also roots you in your own body.We have a limited amount of breath.Your fingers do not,

9:25 but your fingers should emulate on a fretted instrument,on whatever instrument you're playing, keyboards.Your fingers should rememberthat they need to take the time to breathe.They need to give the audience the moment to reflectand they need to respect the silence.If you enjoyed this podcast,I'd like to invite you to check out my silenceat scoobertdoobert.pizza.And I've actually been doing

9:50 some crazy stuff to that website.So let me know what you think.You can drop me a line at scoobertdoobert.pizza if you like itor if you have any ideas.But I'm trying to make like a little weirdvideo game on there.So yeah, go check that out on desktop.The video game stuff doesn't work as well on mobile.The website still works on mobile,but the video game stuff is really, really fun.

10:11 It's almost like a PlayStation one game on desktop.So go check that out.I'd like to invite you to rate this five stars,share it with your friends.Got a great guest episode coming up next weekand I hope you'll stick around for it.