Original YouTube text · Archived 18 October 2026
YouTube showed “3 months ago” when collected.
People often ask what makes a great song.
Is it the melody?
The lyrics?
The singer?
The production?
After spending, what seems like an eternity, immersed in Sessions on the Green®, writing, producing and listening to hundreds of pieces of music, I’ve gradually realised that the answer isn’t quite as simple as any of those.
In fact, one of the biggest discoveries I’ve made surprised me.
The music that moves me most isn’t simply about what note comes next.
It’s about where the next note goes, how it gets there, and the expression it has whilst getting there.
That might sound like a small distinction.
I don’t think it is.
Anyone can play the next note.
Any competent musician can choose a chord that works.
Today’s AI can generate thousands of technically correct melodies.
But music isn’t merely a sequence of correct decisions.
It’s a conversation.
Sometimes the saxophone seems to hesitate for the briefest moment before finding the note it has been searching for.
Sometimes it glides effortlessly into it.
Sometimes it almost cries on the way there.
Sometimes it arrives with quiet confidence.
Sometimes it bursts into the room full of joy.
The destination matters.
But the journey matters just as much.
Perhaps even more.
I’ve realised this is why so much background music leaves me feeling strangely empty.
Everything is technically correct.
The harmony works.
The rhythm works.
Nothing is wrong.
Yet nothing really happens.
The music simply travels from one note to the next by the shortest possible route.
Like driving along a perfectly straight motorway with nothing to discover.
The music I love doesn’t do that.
It takes the scenic road.
It surprises me.
It pauses.
It breathes.
It occasionally makes me wonder where it’s going…
…before arriving somewhere that suddenly feels completely inevitable.
Those are the moments that catch me completely off guard.
Those are the moments that sometimes bring tears to my eyes.
Even in a six-minute instrumental with no words at all.
People occasionally ask why our instrumental music seems to affect them so deeply.
Perhaps this is part of the answer.
A saxophone doesn’t need lyrics to tell a story.
Neither does a cello.
Or a piano.
Or a flugelhorn.
(How many of you are pausing to search Google right now to find out what a flugelhorn is?)
None of them are simply playing notes.
They’re telling stories.
The instrument becomes a voice.
Not a human voice.
But perhaps something even more universal.
It reminds me of photography.
People often think photography is about pointing a camera at something beautiful.
It isn’t.
It’s about deciding where to stand.
What to leave out.
How the light should fall.
Exactly when to press the shutter.
Two photographers can stand side by side.
One records a scene.
The other creates an image that stays in your memory for years.
Music feels remarkably similar.
Two musicians can play exactly the same melody.
Yet one performance will leave you unchanged.
The other might quietly alter your day.
Or bring back someone you’ve loved.
Or remind you of a place you haven’t visited for decades.
Or simply make you sit still for five minutes because, somehow, someone you’ve never met has just expressed something you’ve felt all your life.
Perhaps that’s why music has always fascinated me.
Not because it’s clever.
Not because it’s technically impressive.
But because it reaches places that words sometimes can’t.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my time at Sessions on the Green®, it’s this:
The most memorable music doesn’t merely arrive at the right note.
It makes the journey there unforgettable.
And perhaps that’s true of life as well.
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