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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ELi5: You know how some things taste good on pizza and some things don’t? Music is like that too. After you’ve had pepperoni pizza a lot of times, you know what it’s going to taste like before you take a bite. You can probably even imagine what it tastes like without taking a bite. And you know putting apple sauce on pizza is probably going to taste bad.
If you have a pizza party and say “we’re having pepperoni pizza” your friends that have had it before will know what it is without taking a bite, just like you.
Music is like that too. After you’ve listened to and played music a lot of times, you know what music sounds good together and what doesn’t, just like pizza and apple sauce. When you get together with your friends to make music sometimes it’s like the pizza party. If you say, “we’re making up a new song that sounds like baby shark” they’ll already know what to play because they know what baby shark sounds like.
ELi not 5: Music theory is the study of what notes work well together according to our brains. What note patterns, what beat and tempo patterns, how to transition from one pattern to another without it sounding like a train wreck. Patterns and transitions might even be completely different in different parts of the world (but that’s a whole nother fascinating discussion about language and our brains).
Most musicians pick up on those patterns intuitively without formal training. They find the patterns and learn what to expect since most music within genres follow the same patterns.
Without rehearsal, experienced musicians can often come together and improvise within genres because they know where the music is most likely going to go. There’s also an aspect of non verbal communication involved to indicate things like slowing down, stopping, hanging on a hook, repeating a section, etc…
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