Why should we focus on rehearsing details most audience members might not notice?
I am aware that cinematographers carefully choose lenses, camera positions and angles, zooms, pans, moves, and much more to help tell the story. Like music, if the cinematography is done properly, it communicates directly to our brains without having to tell us anything.
I almost never notice it. I just can’t see it! I know they’re doing these things, and I know I’m being affected by them, but to my conscious brain they simply don’t exist.
I can’t see them, but I do experience them, and they do affect my experience.
(I know that with study and training I could learn to see these things. I suppose it tells a lot about my own interests that I haven’t explored the language of filmmaking.)
Of course, the same is true for music making. From phrasing to tempo to harmonic shifts to melodic choices to balance and blend to diction to programming: there are countless ways that we enhance the emotional experience of our audiences. And for the most part, they do not consciously comprehend many of the musical details we obsess over – just like me with cinematography.
A naive music-maker might ask why we focus on details that the typical audience member might not notice. The answer should be clear – because even though they don’t notice them, they do experience them. And the more discerning we are about these details, the more compelling our music will be to an audience. The details are heard, even if they are not noticed.