Space / Rests

Space is more than the time you are not playing. Space allows the listener time to get ready to hear what is coming next. When speaking, we often pause to allow the listener time respond, to think about what has been said, or to give special emphasis on the next thing we say. When we speak loud, fast, and continuously, it often comes off as annoying or boring. We tune people out when they speak this way, and don't listen to what they are trying to communicate. The same holds with music.

Ex1 - Dropping Notes

This exercise helps you to get comfortable with space in general. It can also be an effective way to add variation and interest to repeated phrases. This can especially be useful if you are playing an instrumental lead to a part that is normally sung by a vocalist

Approach

This is another exercise where it may be useful to record and listen back objectively. Play a known melody over a track that you can loop. As you get to the top of the loop, repeat the melody, but replace some of the notes with rests. Observe the feeling as your ear fills in the rest.

Victor Wooten likes to show this by using the song "Pop Goes the Weasel". When the melody comes around to "Pop!", he plays the note as a rest. Now, he's used the rest as an effective transition to whatever he wants to play next.

Another application of a rest is to start a phrase late, then build the phrase by later adding to the base melody. This prepares the listener to hunger for the phrase that is coming next

Ex2 - Rests as Scales

This exercise helps you to utilize space in a free form solo. It helps you to get over the feeling of "having to play". By not peppering the listener with notes, you can allow them to develop a hunger for what you are going to play next.

Approach

This is like the previous exercise. Rather than a known melody, improvise a free-form solo. As you progress through the solo, progressively add space. See how much space you can put into your solo before the urge to play is overwhelming. Then, progressively remove space until you feel you've achieved a nice balance of notes and space.

The concept of playing a scale is progressively increasing or decreasing pitch. We can apply that concept to other 2-10 elements.

Next Steps

Just as we can apply the concept of scales to rests, we can also apply the concept of modes to rests. When we apply the concept of modes to a set of notes, we start and end at different notes within the same scale. You can repeat exercise one (Dropping Notes), but this time deliberately move where rests are played in the melody. Observe the feeling that rests give in different places in the melody

.