How playing non-musical series of repeating intervals directly stimulates musical creativity

Instead of trying to learn music theory in order to change from within the areas I disagreed with, I decided to do without theory altogether, and to study music using the 'interval method'. Playing by ear is what I really wanted. And to play by ear, it seemed to me, you need to be able to jump from any one note to any other note, any ordinary distance or interval away. The ultimate goal is to fuse with your instrument.

My instrument was the guitar back then, which contains six strings, each string being itself a musical instrument. The piano would be a simpler and better instrument to learn to play using intervals, I thought.

That plan was put into action in 1997 twenty years ago. The method initially was to play a single repetitive interval, starting from any one of the twelve notes in an octave, going up and down all the notes in the instrument. Then repeating the series starting with each of the other eleven notes in the octave in turn. The interval could be any number of semitones, but the most practical range was from 1 to 7 semitones. Working 8 to 12 semitones is more difficult and would come later. So would repeating interval pairs and triplets or more.

If you dare playing single intervals on your instrument, you will discover that the level of difficulty varies quite a lot. Nonetheless, repeating a single interval is hard mental work for all intervals, and the brain tires quickly. Repeating +/- 0 5 5 5 5 ... semitones even one minute soon becomes unbearable, and impossible to continue without making mistake after mistake. The parts of the brain which execute this particular sequence become exhausted rapidly.

The mind, in order to rest, presents you with a tune to play. Even a difficult tune is much easier to play than the repeating interval at this point. You eagerly play the tune until you've had enough. It could be several minutes' worth. Rest properly.

You then go back to repeating the interval, or a different interval. The brain tires again quickly enough, and you play the new tune, or other musical task it provides you with, as best you can until rested.

This can be repeated five six or more times in one music workout, which for me normally lasts about one hour. Until you run out of musical energy.

What happens about the 3rd or 4rth try is that the musical brain loosens up. And before you know it, you're not only playing the tune, but you're playing 'with' the tune. You modify it, extend it, take off from it... All these are easier to play than to repeat intervals.

When the brain is warmed up, you can find yourself improvising, creating your own parts of tunes. Even as a beginner. You do need some rest, but you can be creating for ten or fifteen minutes during your workout of one hour.

The link between repeating non-musical intervals and musical creativity was evident from nearly the beginning. It was unexpected, and can be considered a bonus, a sign that the interval method is the right path to be on.

The link to creativity requires a thorough non-musical and musical workout, followed by a period of complete mental digestion, which can last many weeks.

Digestion lasts until you feel the urge, or the signal that it is time, to 'play the piano' again, or whatever instrument you play. The signal for me is itchy finger tips.

The method developed slowly because I could only do a strong workout one hour every six weeks or so on average at the beginning. This period shortened slowly. The urge to play did not really return till then. The need to finish other tasks often prevented musical play. A musical workout then became a reward for getting a job done.

I 'touched the piano' only for a few minutes often enough. When a tune popped into my mind, for instance, which I just had to try out. This showed me if I had enough musical energy to do an interval workout. Usually No, because I needed full reserves to do such intense work. My normal musical digestion period required several weeks. That was my natural rythm. Other people with more musical energy and more nimble minds could probably digest their workouts significantly faster. To each their own pace.

Overall, I worked with the interval method about 25 to 30 hours per year, which is not much. Every time I returned to the piano, I felt many small improvements, which encouraged me to keep on at this slow but natural pace. This first period lasted 13 years, totalling around 300 to 400 hours of work.

A second period began in 2010, seven years ago, when I discovered that each interval series, that was played until the initial note was repeated, had its very own pattern on the piano keyboard. Some of these patterns had practical implications for the organization and playing of music.

The method devised to learn to play by ear and do without musical theory altogether revealed patterns that show how music theory can be organized using all twelve semitones in the octave. Their application to theory revealed two paths or guides that could be followed to play by sight alone, with absolute precision. Their partial implementation in turn made learning to play by ear using the interval method much simpler, easier, and far less tiring.

The interval method is not fully developed or implemented yet. So we don't know all of its merits, or how far it can go.

In the next story, I will show how each interval was explored starting with interval 1 semitone, going up to interval 12 semitones. Then will come the analysis of the pattern created by interval 7 semitones, and the patterns created by interval 2 semitones which were understood later, and their practical results for music theory.