What is Music?

Joni Mitchell

In an interview Joni Mitchell answered the question “What is music?”:

I can't speak in general, but I can tell you what it is to me. Chords are colors that depict the current state of your emotionality – speaking as a a composer, ok let's put it into that context – as a composer at the moment that I sit down with the intention of composing, you know, I fritter across the piano or I strum across the strings until I find the chords that make me go “Oh!” at that moment. But most of music – pop music – they get this formula chords, well all the people like these chords, so they play them ad nauseam. So I think that's “ik”, music is when you pull the chords from your inner core, whether they sound weird to people or not and anyone adventuresome is doing that.

As she was saying, most people do not make music “from their inner core” but they recycle patterns that have been used over and over again. It's possible to make music like that and even to have “success”, if you can tweak the recipe well enough so it matches the expectations of the masses.

But this has very little to do with creativity and with you as person and musician. If you want to express your own feelings then you can't follow standards, but you have to work it out from the inside, looking for sounds and chords that touch a nerve in your own soul.

Music is not about fulfilling expectations but about expressing your feelings. If you follow the advice of Joni Mitchell you can find a new world waiting behind the door of expectations, a world beyond of what the world considers to be proper and improper.

There you can go your own way and find your own feelings, originality and expression.