eli5: If a guitar and a flute player wanted to jam, why is the flute players note different than the guitarist?
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It doesn’t have to be, they can both be layered together to play the same phrase if that’s what the composer wants. The reason why often times they play different notes when paired together is because they both have different qualities that allow them to shine in different places. A guitar is extremely versatile and can function more as a rhythmic base to simply create movement (e.g. a guitarist simply strums chords in a specific, constant rhythmic swing) or it can function more melodically by playing one note at a time (this is what the lead guitarist often does). The flute, on the other hand, though it can play chords as well, functions best when used melodically, taking on the same role as a lead guitarist would. The roles can be reversed tho, w/ the flute offering a more harmonic role. For instance, in the intro to stairway to heaven, the guitar is playing the main melody while the recorders (which are very similar to the flute, and in fact in the live versions they would use the Melotron synthesized flute instead of live recorders) plays sustained notes, almost like a baseline, to harmonize the acoustic guitar.
Around 2018-2020, instrumentals w/ this paring (guitar + flute) was HUGE in the hip hop scene. It felt almost like every other song you would hear on a hiphop radio/playlist would have this pairing. In such instrumentals, the guitar would provide that rhythmic base while the flute would function almost like a lead guitar.
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