For example: we had some guests over while my dad was playing guitar, one of the guests just picked up a spare guitar and started playing with him.
Or [that one video of the two sax players.](https://youtu.be/1_9IMZcbKHQ)
They hadn’t spoke before and they just started making music with each other.
I’m sorry I’m not very good at describing it but how can a musician just start a duet without talking. It seems like magic.
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Music is not a universal language. There are many different languages, and you need to be fluent in the particular language being used in order to jump in. I can jam in jazz, but not in bluegrass or Indian Carnatic music.
Music is a language. Like a conversation has sentence structure, cadence, a back and forth, and a purpose – music has those same scaffolds. Once you know a song’s key (like the topic of a conversation) you can work within that framework as a musician. Certain notes/chords work, where others don’t
Music is a language, so it’s sort of like asking how to ELI5 how a person can just go and speak to someone they don’t know. The answer is incredibly complex, yet we all (with some exceptions yes) just intrinsically experience it as a part of being human.
Music is decorating time with sound.
Playing an instrument is very similar to verbal communication. In example, if you meet someone that speaks the same dialect as you, it’s likely you can communicate fluidly. Music works in the same way, like it’s very own language.
Music’s foundation is rhythm and harmony. Rhythm is the beat of a song (keeps your foot tapping along) and harmony is the flow of notes that gives music its emotional context (maybe it sounds pleasing, tense, happy, sad, etc.)
When you internalize those concepts and train your ear to it, you can become fluid in this form of communication. Making it easy to walk up to anyone playing an instrument or singing and know exactly what to play with them in real time.
Every musician starts out with the very basics. Chords, scales, even fingering holds. You practice these until you can play complex music, but at the end of the day, two musicians both know the same basic chords, rhythms, and probably some songs. When one person plays, the other can match their rhythm and general sound because they know enough similarities to do so.
It’s a lot like a rapper asking for a beat: one person beatboxes and the other feels the rhythm and joins in.
Are you able to have random conversations with people without planning? Its the same. Us musicians play like we speak… notes are like words. We know how to use them together and in sequence to speak to and with eachother… you listen to the rythm and the key and watch the other artist for physical cues that changes are coming and there you have it. Music.
If it is simply jamming, either both musicians know the same piece/song (all musicians have a repertoir, and many songs/pieces are canonnical for a given instrument), or they meet somewhere in the middle, usually one playing a rithmic pattern and another one playing lead over it. Musicians study harmony, essentially patterns that sound harmoniously when played together (for example both players playing on the same scale) and apply their intuition and style to adapt to others. Obviously they will also need to keep in tempo and on create a global coherent rithm.
Some of the skills needed you already have, like keeping beat and recognising when phrases and sections end.
Then there’s matching the current chords. If you can figure out what repeating chord sequence they’re playing, then you can figure out/already know the notes that fit harmonically. Then you just put them together. A lot of time you can just put pretty much any notes in, as long as you understand what groups of notes fit.
Like in the video, one guy was playing the more bassy ‘foundation’ while the other guy was playing a higher melody and following along.
Alot of it just comes without thinking once you’ve just played enough. You ‘remember’ where your fingers can go next just because you’ve played them enough in sequence. With enough practice, some sequences just ‘feel’ right.
> with little to no pre planning
No, there are years of preparation that goes into this, same as with language, sports, construction. Generally, you learn how to handle your own instrument, then you learn how to play in time and in tune with others, then you come to understand how popular music is structured, and how far you can wander while still remaining inside the framework.
There’s plenty of room for improvisation given just a key signature (which notes are considered in-key or out-of-key), tempo and time signature (underlying rhythm). There are also plenty of well-known songs to start from: anthems, jazz standards, carols, etc.
It’s just like balancing on a wire—easy to stay in place, easy to fall off entirely, but challenging to move about, play, and recover while remaining aloft.
You can improvise music kind of like a comedy group can perform improv. There’s some basic ideas and templates that you can follow. In music they’re called chord progressions. Think of it like a template that everyone follows.
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