Jazz is not about playing the right notes, but it’s about creating something new and innovative between the notes

Jazz is an art form that’s all about freedom. Jazz musicians improvise, creating music on the spot, which sometimes makes it impossible to practice ahead of time. But jazz isn’t just a style of music; it can be applied to any creative process— creating a storyline for your novel or screenplay, writing free verse poetry…you get the idea! You can apply this classic jazz concept to anything in life if you keep one thing in mind: the real magic happens in between elements, as in music.

Jazz isn’t about the notes you play

Jazz isn’t about the notes you play, but what’s in between them. It’s about the connection between you and your audience and how that connection grows over time as you share stories through sound.

The technique is important; culture is important; intuition is most important. Jazz takes years to master, but mastering technique alone won’t make you a great musician. You have to understand the culture behind jazz music—and by extension, all art forms—to truly appreciate it as an art form itself. And while technique will help you shift into higher gear when necessary (like when playing in front of an audience), we must remember that we should never lose sight of our individual intuitiveness while performing on stage and off-stage with our fellow musicians.

Technique, culture and intuition: jazz is what happen between notes

Generally speaking, three (or more) things separate good musicians from outstanding ones. The first is their technique. Indeed, this makes sense — after all, mastery of the mechanics of their instrument is required to reach a professional level of musicianship.

The second is culture and history. Good musicians have a deep and solid understanding of where their instrument came from and what their predecessors did to help develop it. They also understand that being able to play “perfectly” does not make them a great musician. This is critical to stand on the shoulders of giants and reach heights they couldn’t fathom.

And the third? Feel and intuition. Jazz is about doing something the right way, not just playing as many notes as possible but finding ways to connect the performance with an emotional response from the audience. Speaking about intuition, it’s important to know that there are two kinds of music: art and entertainment. Art has no boundaries—it explores everything from technical proficiency to emotional expression, while entertainment focuses solely on entertaining an audience by pleasing them with catchy melodies and familiar structures. It’s not unusual for art and entertainment to go together to create a unique experience, and jazz is no exception.

Jazz is a beautiful and amazing genre that can be enjoyed by everyone. It’s not just the notes you play but also what happens between them that makes it a great combination of thoughts and feelings!