What Makes Good Music

What Makes Good Music

• Predictability If music is too predictable, it becomes boring, but if it is too unpredictable it becomes confusing. Good music should fall somewhere between total predictability and complete chaos. Tunes are repeated and can become much more predictable than improvised sections, but even so, musicians should consider ways to make a well known tune less predictable, but more interesting, without becoming too weird.

  Surprise Some tunes can benefit from the insertion of a short surprise. These can be in the form of a quote or a pretty phrase that was worked out ready to be dropped in.

  Wonder Listeners love to hear the band suddenly come in together with clarity at a surprising point. This can be achieved by prearrangement or by agreed signals.

• Form There are quite a few interesting ways that a tune can be structured. Two of the most common are AABA and 12-bar blues forms. Composers are free to structure their creations in any way they choose.
• Chorus Improvisation over choruses Avoid
  1. Too much monster mash thrashing.
  2. Too many choruses. Two choruses is a common band limit, but one each can be more interesting and there are ways to split choruses, other than the usual "Lets play 8s with the drummer"
  3. Shorter
• Sound When a musician speaks about sound, they usually mean the quality of the sound. Can you produce a good tone on your instrument. Practicing long notes is often recommended as a way of concentrating on the actual tone of the sound you make. A good tone is more important than playing the right notes in key!
• Melody is sometimes given to us in the sense of "Play that tune", but there are times when we have to create melodic ideas ourselves. These improvided phrases may only be 3 bars followed by a rest on the 4th bar, but it's a good idea to come armed with a few ideas based on the main melody of the tune.
• Rhythm is also given to us in the form of the written tune, but we do have a certain amount of leeway. We can choose to play it "straight" or we can add a bit of "swing" here and there, whatever that is. It's a matter of feel and experience.