Music touches our minds in ways that are still mostly a mystery for us to understand. I view it as a massage for the brain, stimulating different centers that are inaccessible to us from the rational part of the brain. Rhythm helps to generate repetitive patterns of brainwaves that causes effects in our mood that can last for hours. Sometimes a tune echoes for the remainder of the day – you just can’t get it out of your head.

Looking at the way music is created and then produced, we find different steps involved. First someone conceives the theme and constructs a piece – this is the composer. In old times they were sitting in front of an instrument scribbling down what they were hearing in their heads, playing fragments, trying, retrying, tweaking and printing.

Then there’s the question of arranging the piece, filling the melody with different instruments, voices and sounds. This part can have a very profound impact on how the brain conceives the music. In today’s pop music, which is rather simplistic by construction, the arrangement makes up a huge part of how a piece is perceived. For example, I can arrange the same melody with a Dixie Ensemble, Jazz combo, classical orchestra or a Techno synthesizer. If I change the rhythm group along with the style, you would end up with very different sounding pieces, despite their common composition.

Lastly the artist interprets the piece that was composed and arranged by different people. You can find huge differences in interpretation of pieces – this is quite apparent in the realm of classical music. Listening to different piano interpretations of Chopin or Debussy can be quite surprising. It’s even eye opening at times, when you hear someone else playing a piece on the piano differently from how you interpreted it, when playing it yourself. It sometimes sounds like a completely different piece! And that is with the identical composition and arrangement. You also see vast differences in pianists maturity playing the same pieces. Attend some of the pianist competitions with the latest wonder child performing Chopin. You’ll be amazed by their physical abilities to hit the keys, but nothing beats 60 years of experience – listen to the same piece performed by a pianist veteran and you’ll be blown away – mostly by the level of sophistication that comes from the musical emotional maturity. It’s that experience that lets the pianist’s interpretation shine.

There are also vast cultural differences in interpreting music. Asien trained artists, used to different scales and harmonies produce very different performances from western trained artists. This was quite a stunning discovery when I realized this. And there’s no right or wrong, it’s just different. We don’t want to limit ourselves to the interpretations of the original artist/composer – in fact many composers invite different interpretations of their work.

I’m starting to explore arranging music themes in different styles on my synthesizer and sometimes am amazed at how different they sound. Taken to the extreme, at times it’s hard to recognize the common underlying composition. I’m thinking that in modern pop music, arrangement is more important than composition – the right beat and set of instruments and effects will go a long way covering for a mediocre tune… it’s fascinating. And as other’s have said before for artists: you don’t need a good voice, but  a distinctive one that defines your own style. It’s more like building a brand than showing off versatility. Brands can be repetitive and boring, yet people flock to it for familiarity. As long as they’re interested in the little newness the latest iteration brings.

Next I need to figure out how to post music….