The second note: where music begins
Think about it. The pondering musician. Sitting over an unplayed guitar or an untouched keyboard, desperate to partake in their art but overthinking how they should start. G? Too light, overplayed. Em? Too sombre. A? Too glam rock, not the sound they’re going for. And so it goes on and on and on. However, musicians often don’t realise that overthinking the first note is pointless, as music doesn’t begin until the second.
In his recent book, Dilla Time, Dan Charnas writes about the life and work of hip-hop producer J Dilla. He discusses multiple aspects of rhythm, its origin, and how the innovative producer twisted it. In doing so, he discussed the starting point of all music and subsequently dispelled a problem that the majority of musicians likely have: the first note.
He writes: “One sound – whether the bang of a drum or a note struck on a piano or a bird’s chirp – doesn’t become music until a second sound occurs; either at the same time, called harmony; or another moment in time, called melody; the ordered spacing of those sounds in time called rhythm.”
“Thus,” Charnas continues, “All music begins with the second event. The indivisible number of rhythm is two, for the space between the first and second beat sets our musical expectations and tells us when to expect the third, and so on.”
We hear sounds all day, every day, and unless you’re watching a musical, you don’t associate those sounds with music. Only when that sound is placed against another does a rhythm form, and until that rhythm has been established, we don’t believe that we are listening to any form of music. In that sense, whenever anyone is writing a song, the best way for them to start is just to start, as they aren’t going to understand the direction that their track will be going in until the second note has been played.
Generally speaking, the formation of rhythm and music is counted in multiples of two or three. These are usually counted in ‘measures’ or ‘bars’ of four: one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four; imagine a standard metronome. Then, within those measures, the back and forth between the one, the two, three and four remain relatively well-defined. That becomes the standard measure for many pop and rock songs, but those measures can be moved around and manipulated to create more experimental and multi-genre music.
Before a song can begin to take shape, the second note must be played, and as such, musicians should stop worrying so much about the first. With music becoming more layered and the lines between genres blurred, there is no limit on when that second note can occur, regardless of the sound you are trying to achieve. It just needs to be written, and once the song has officially started, it can be shaped however you want.
In trying to describe the sporadic rhythm of one musician, Dan Charnas has dismantled a psychological hurdle that most will likely face. When sitting over an empty page with nothing written, the best way to start is just by starting; what happens next is the actual creative process.
