Music Happens Between the Notes

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My guitar teacher said this to me yesterday when we had our third lesson: music happens between the notes. It's not an original observation, but I think it's very true, nonetheless. The notes are kind of a blueprint or an outline or a framework. It's up to the listener to connect the dots that are the notes, to fill in what's missing, to complete the picture, to give it meaning.

Thinking about music in this way frees the mind to stop dwelling excessively on precision, correctness, pitch, rhythm--the dots in the score. Putting the parts together perfectly does not a piece of music make. Only the perception of what those parts together create is music.

So playing the notes, even if perfectly, is only part of what is needed. The rest must come from the musician's sense that she is making something out of those dots. Being aware of that makes playing more profound for me. I plan to use it when I practice. We'll see what happens.