We know – through experience and often instinctively – some things fit together, others don’t.
Would the taste of the pizza change much if I added more pizza base? Or more tomato sauce?
Sure, the ratios are important.
Too much of something and it starts to dominate the taste.
But just adding a drop of tomato sauce won’t have much if any impact.
These are things we can all understand, right?
Things we all feel, without thinking really.
Sure, an expert cook – a chef – will be able to taste the most subtle details where others fail. That’s cooking’s ‘musicality.’ But – at least in theory – anyone can improve their tasting skills.
Paint
I could have used painting as an example instead of cooking.
Painting a blue dot on a blue background won’t have much impact.
A yellow dot would. If most of the canvas is blue, blue dominates.
And if the blue paint is still wet, the yellow will likely mix with it to form green.
Still with me? Understandable? Ok, let’s move on. Let’s slowly start to move towards music!
Recipe
The pizza example is an excellent metaphor for the ‘music recipe’. The most popular recipe is a base, some topping and a touch of spice.
In food, the base is some form of carbs (rice for example), the topping fibers, vitamins and minerals (meat, soy, vegetables) and the spice herbs and spices.
Key
This happens to be the most popular recipe for just about anything. That has to do with our taste. The way we prefer things to be. Let’s examine this first before we get to the music part.
After all, the key to mastering improvisation is understanding the underlying principles.
Once you do, improvising is easy. If you don’t, it’s hard. Simple.
