Movement is Music
“You can play it loud, or you can play it soft…but when you play it soft - don’t lose the intensity of the beat. Once you lose the intensity all is lost.”
That’s a quote from the famous jazz drummer, Art Blakey, that’s stuck with me this week due to it’s seemingly contradictory nature.
How do you maintain intensity whilst playing softly?
Is intensity not dictated by volume itself?
What is intensity?
These are questions that can lead to a deeper understanding of not only drumming, but movement too.
For me, intensity is what moves you.
You can listen to a loud piece of music and feel nothing, just as you can listen to something quiet and feel everything.
Amplitude does not move us, feeling does.
So what creates feeling? Whilst amplitude does contribute, it’s more about the intangibles:
Timing
Rhythm
Accuracy
Coordination
Flow
Intent
Emotion
The components that are hard to see as they blend into the whole.
Let’s think of an example. Take a huge soundsystem and plonk it in the desert (I’m thinking ‘Sirat’ style - if you haven’t seen the movie, you should watch it). Turn that soundsystem up to the max and blare out just a constant stream of constant bass. What happens? You’re probably going to feel something, sure. You’ll feel your lungs vibrating in your rib cage and maybe even a small amount of fear. But is it going to make you dance? Probably not. Now pulse the base at 120bpm. Add in some flowing synth sounds and suddenly you’re going to be two stepping in the dirt.
The intensity of music - how you feel - is determined by the complex interaction of sound and silence.
I’ve found this in my writing recently too. When I write poetry or short fiction, I have the tendency to make every sentence loud. My imagination runs wild, and before I know it I’ve written a paragraph of constant noise. A piece of music that no one could dance to, as they’d be too stunned to move (my imagination can get weird lol), much like the bass example above. Instead, what I am now practicing is restraint. Learning that to make the loud sentences hit harder, you have to also write quietly. Reducing the volume in places does not reduce the intensity of the piece. In fact, it often increases it.
For me, these concepts about intensity in music also apply directly to movement.
The amplitude of sound is the same as the amplitude of force. Producing more force does not increase the intensity of your movement. It doesn’t make it feel better.
It’s the balance of both larger and smaller forces, and no force at all, applied in the right directions and at the right times that makes movement feel good. Yes, train to get stronger, but also to move with better rhythm, coordination, accuracy, flow, intent, and yeah…even emotion.
Treat your brain as an audience of one who’s come to watch you perform. How you choose to convey your own emotions whilst you play music has a large impact on how audience members feel. If your body language says that you’re scared whilst you walk, that’s how your brain (and you) are going to feel.
If you want to feel better whilst you move, you have to learn to play your instrument better - not just louder. And you have to learn how to keep the intensity, even whilst you play softly.
Movement is not just biomechanics. Movement is music.