Workin' Out My Chord
/My imagining of what Wayne meant led me to imagine music - visually.
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My friend Wayne is a very good guitar player. He's a musician. and the son of a musician. He knows about music. When he plays, he always shows respect for the music: beat; meter; melody; and harmonization. He's spent a good deal of time playing with bands. He understands the problems and opportunities that come when playing with other musicians. He also knows that whatever is played must sound good with whatever the other musicians are playing.
A bit like what teachers used to write on report cards, "Plays well with others".
It's the first rule of ensemble performance. When everyone follows the rule, the result sounds natural, sometimes inevitable. Listeners often think musicians spontaneously play a personal interpretation of the song. Few think about the effort that went into making the ensemble sound effortless.
Listeners, if they think about the matter at all, fuzzily assume "Musicians just naturally play together". "Every musician can play any song". "It's just natural". "Same for playing with other musicians". "They don't need to practice". "They have natural talent".
The only thing natural about music is the desire to hear it, and for some, the desire to play it. Would-be players are often disappointed to discover how much work is needed to play naturally. No more so than would-be guitar players - "I thought all I had to do was strum the strings"? Learning chords and how to strum them is the main concern of most beginners. Not many get much past strumming. Strumming is enough for many who play guitar. I've no argument with that, but the simpleness of strumming made me wonder why my friend Wayne, who is a sophisticated musician, would concern himself with something as prosaic as strumming.
I asked him once about a new tune he was developing. He said, "Workin' out my chord". I didn't say anything about it at the time. Since then, I've wondered what he meant.
Now, I think I understand. He can tell me if I've got it right after he reads this essay.
Wayne meant more than simply strumming a chord. He was using the phrase broadly, to describe a rhythmic plan of the: struck, unstruck, and how-struck notes, he intended to play within the chord progression of the new tune.
Notes are not described in this pattern. The pattern is about sequence and motion; a matter of how picked, plucked, or strummed. The exact notes being, picked, plucked and strummed, vary with each chord.
The rhythmic pattern cycles the same for nearly any chord. The tones played can be single notes, intervals, whole chords, and silence alike. The precisely metered plan unites it all.
That's what I imagined Wayne meant by, "Workin' out my chord".
My imagining of what Wayne meant led me to imagine music - visually.
I imagined music as an unfolding tapestry of frames, each frame stitched to the next, much like the Bayeux Tapestry. One picture (frame) follows another, with the content of each picture (frame) similarly structured and with each sonically (meaningfully) attached to the frame before and the frame after. I imagine the sound produced as a dance of color-shapes choreographed according to the pattern of the matrix. The color-shapes are emotional; the metered matrix is unemotional.
Does anyone else think of music quite this way - as a visual tapestry?
I've no idea. I don't know if it even makes sense.
It makes sense to me.
Since wondering about what Wayne meant by, "Workin' out my chord", I've listened and played music differently. I now no longer think only of chords and notes. Now, I think about how sound and meter is inextricably entangled. Bad music is as entangled as good music. Good music is entangled beautifully. Woven, says it better - good music is woven into an unfolding tapestry of metered sound.
None of which means I play better now than I did before I thought of all this. No, that's not true. I do play better now. Now, when I fumble some part, I recognize what I did wrong which makes it easier to get it right next time.
I think I got it right about, "Workin' out my chord"
Only Wayne can say for sure.
Wayne's Response: Wayne didn't remember ever saying, "Workin' out my chord". He did think it possible he might sometime have said something similar. Wayne added that he didn't think of musical visually. I didn't think he would; that's my own oddness. He did see my visual model as corresponding to his aural understanding.
The musical relationships I saw visually, he heard aurally. The fundamental structure stays the same - whether conceived aurally or visually. That's satisfying.
Wayne said he was honored by being featured in the essay. I'm honored by Wayne's bemused concurrence with my funny visualization of aural reality.
By K. L. Shipley
Website: https://www.eclecticessays.com