Creating "Emotional Spaces"

It’s not uncommon to hear great jazz players say that what a musician does not play is as important as what he does. In fact, one of the foundational principles of the craft of songwriting, music interpretation, and music production is that the spaces between notes should receive concentrated artistic attention. And why should silent moments be given so much value? Because—just as in normal conversation—silent moments are able carry extraordinary emotional meaning and power. One could even argue that the notes in a musical composition should be organized around the spaces between them and not the other way around. Because of the crucial role that silent moments play in music, it stands to reason that notes and silence must be understood as of equal value, and seen as two sides of the same musical coin. Listen to Miles Davis’ Flamenco Sketches for a wonderful example of a performance in which the spaces between the notes speak with equal power as
the notes themselves.

The best singers not only sing beautiful notes and compose inspiring melody lines; they also have the communicative power to “play” with, or otherwise alter, the timing of a song to create pregnant silence in their interpretations— however subtle or pronounced. In music parlance, changing the tempo of the song for purposes of interpretation is called tempo rubato (Italian for stolen time). A singer—or any musician—that spends time in “the spaces between the notes” serves another purpose besides permitting unsung feelings, moods, and thoughts to charm the listener: it also sets up emotionally the notes and melody line that immediately follow—giving them more emotional expressiveness.

A singer opening up space for silence to speak is a subtle interpretative device, one that—if done properly—is never self-consciously heard by the listener, but only felt! Listen to any of the many masterpieces performed by Ella Fitzgerald for lessons in the fine art of creating emotional spaces. Although it may seem easier to create them in ballads, it’s actually more emotionally challenging because of the exposed nature of ballad singing. That being said, creating emotional spaces is essential to all forms and genres of singing and always stands as one of the singer’s most difficult artistic tests. Without being able to create emotional spaces, artistic singing is impossible.

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