Episode 009 - The Other Half of Music...

The Thursday Thesis     18/8/2016


“Play Beautiful Silences”

According to most dictionaries, music is “ordered noise, with a rhythm”.
But there’s something vital missing from those definitions - the Other Half of Music.
Silence.
Music – like life - is a complex and ongoing conversation between performer and audience; composer and listener.
When we are first learning to play, we rush to make the sounds of music.
We labour to play notes, chords and riffs - yet we overlook the importance of the spaces between the notes.
In time, we realise that music lives and breathes in the spaces and silences.
We learn that it is in the spaces between the notes or words that the audience makes sense of what we just played, said or sang.
Those spaces are where they anticipate our next note, chord, word or sigh.
And the spaces between the notes are where we shut up and listen for the audience’s response.
Both Great and good musicians play well, but only the Great Musicians remember to craft beautiful silences and sculpt conversations with the audience.
Life is just the same.
Remember to listen to the spaces between the words, between the notes: play beautiful silences.





© Neil Cowmeadow 2016.