I've got a Friday night to get on with, so go ahead and burn me in effigy or whatever it is that gets your impish rocks off.

Toodle-loo, fuckheads.

good point.

awe, did we hurt yr feelings? come back, i'm sorry! i love you!

This started out as a cool thread.

Hmmm.

Anyways. What defines a musician? His ability to play music on a musical instrument. Chords, sight-reading, whatever, if he can play music on a musical instrument, why the fuck can't he be a musician?

I also believe there is some hidden internal skill that you feel you have reached when you start calling yourself a musician. Not skill like, "I can fret the F# phrygian mode hammering three out of every four notes." But like, "That was good music. I can do that consistently." skill.

No sane person would dare calling himself a musician if he could hit guitar strings with his hands without actually playing anything. So once he's able to reach the point where he switches from a D3rd to a G7th easily and pleasantly, or gets awesome feed back and drone pulses, he may have the balls to call himself a musician. And damn, if people will dig it, why the fuck is he not a musician?

Whatever. Don't listen to me.

Well, in most societies, one thing and one thing only tends to classify one as a true professional musician. If one has been paid for the musical work they do, then it is then generally accepted that they are a musician. That is the primary criterion.

Okay, I really got to get going now.

i am most definately not a musician, i just like making weird sounds come out of my guitar.

Sure.

Not to disagree with you, I just feel that if a guy is in a completely different profession... say... burger flipping at a local joint, but has played piano for the past 18 years and has written many pieces, he's a musician if he wants to call himself that.

But yes, you are correct.

Nah dude - you might articulate yourself differently, but I would suggest from your response here (cf. what Drone posted) that you're interested in some things that are not 'conventional' modes of playing the guitar.

If anyone would forgive me the diversion of the thread - I'm currently quite fascinated with the idea that a great many kiddies at the moment (apologies if that seem patronising) seem to have grown up with music like SY and your Wolf Eyes or Throbbing Gristle and such that allude to your Rowes, Baileys, Takayanagis who, in turn, support themselves with your Scelsis, Xenakises and particularly Cages or Takemitsus. The point being that there's people who have little appreciation of tonal music who are interested in the 'pure texture' [non-sequiter] as technique or practice of whose precursors/ narratives they are unaware.

Now, the question is how to constitute, formally, qualias for such a 'pure texture' music if it is absolved of its tonal roots (which Xenakis et al met by extension of Schoenberg, not by 'pure' intuition).

I can elaborate, if I can be fucked, tomorrow. Having said that, it's much more likely none of you fuckers care.

By your criteria I'm a professional musician. So is, by my reckoning, Everyneurotic, Atsonicpark, Sherrif Rhys Chatham and Savage Clone... doubtless countless others. Doesn't stop my audiences walking out in less than 10 minutes, and doesn't make me a better musician than my mate Andy who's a fucking genius who's never been paid to play live (and, more importantly, doesn't care). Perhaps most importantly of all, it doesn't make me a worthwhile or valid artist just because I can twat a bit of wood and have the temerity to ask for money for it.

i agree kind sir, thank you.

Now this is a bit of a fascinating question, and probably the crux of this, and other, threads.

I'll start this off with a graph, and while it may not be a true or accurate example of the history of how atonal or experimental music turned from traditional serious music to "noise" for me it's a decent start (and I don't mean to insult any band or style in this post):

Schoenberg->Cage->Velvet Underground->Sonic Youth-Wolf Eyes->?

Schoenberg was a classically trained musician who opened up the scale with the 12 tone method, whereas (I'm assuming, please correct me if I'm wrong) Wolf Eyes is just seeing what can be done when you hold an instrument a certain way, classical sensiblities be damned.

I'm probably just as guilty as avantgarde1, I guess. I'm not all that interested in making a guitar sound like a guitar. Like the a/c unit outside, yes; like a guitar, no.

I like the theories of John Cage more than the music, and perhaps Glice that is where this modern "noise" movement started: "Hey I like Cage's use of sound and silence, but instead of notating it I can create a sound, wait, wait some more, and then hit the back of my guitar again."

Another theory on that: A few years back (early '00s perhaps) Spin magazine had a feature of the "Post SY" bands (Hair Police, Wolf Eyes, etc), and if I remember correctly it pointed out that it was a generation that didn't see further back than SY, in terms of soundscapists (or music in general, for that matter), but noise still did something for them.

Just a few theories.

You know, you're all behaving like a bunch of jackals.

All I wrote was that society in general deems someone a musician when they have been paid for their work. The same applies to art and the artist.

If you'll please take care to note, what I wrote is the primary definition of the word.

mu·si·cian [myoo-zish-uhn]
–noun
1. a person who makes music a profession, esp. as a performer of music.
2. any person, whether professional or not, skilled in music.

Like yourselves, in many respects I tend to agree personally with the secondary meaning of the word.

So again, all I ever wrote before is that from the point of view of society, the first meaning applies the most as the primary definition.


And much as I figured, you vultures couldn't leave it alone.

I hardly see how I can be corrected outright for stating something that is merely common sense.

And I can't really envision why I would willingly continue to expose myself to such nonsense and ridicule anymore.

i still love you atari! will you marry me?

wow! you musicians/non musicians are a touchy bunch!!!!!

i play guitar badly, i play bass a little better but i wouldnt call myself a musician as i am niot technical proficient enough to actually hold a melody for a while but i have rhythm!!!

as for the stupid stupid egocentric thread..... why is everyone on ataris case, the fucker is 100% correct!!!!!

as for people not being called a musician if they cant sight read or if they cant read tablature... that is total and utter pompus self centred bullcrap! thats the main reason why there are 2 types of stores i hate, hardware stores and music (instrument) stores. you can get reasily ridiculed by jerks who thin k they are higher than thou just because you dont own a bottle of wd-40 or dont know the exact tab to the opening of kashmir......

im glad i am not a musician, im glad im just a music fan who can get up on stage and play music from an instrument ,with others, to people and enjoy it and still have the dignity not to look down on the folk with the non chin stroking teeshirts and crap fringes....

bollocks to popular culture, ballocks to starway to heaven, take yr dimished 5ths and stick em up yr capo where the hammer-ons doont tremelo!

I can't "properly" play guitar; i.e. I can't read musical notation, I don't know any real chords, etc. But I'm probably actually at least as good as the dudes from Polvo or something. Uh... I can usually play songs by ear pretty well.. and of course I can read tabs.. and I'm very rhythmic and ambidextrious. I dunno. You can listen to scissor shock and tell me if I'm any good. I think I'm okay, but I dunno if I can really answer, yes, I play a musical instrument.

Real chords are for lamers. I make up my chords, and refer to them by what song they are in or what they sound like.

I know some music theory though. If I can play something easy on guitar, I can play it on piano too. I can usually tell you what interval I'm playing, et cetera.

I play piano.

i've fucked myself over musically...i've been playing other people's music for so long that it's impossible to compose anything.

reading music is one thing i am good at. i'm at the point where i can play pretty much anything, its just a matter of proficiency.

I play acoustic guitar. Have since 1971 or so. I can play a lot of stuff. I'm familar enough with the instrument that it's mostly intuitive by now, although I'm certainly not a "solo" guitar/lead guitar type. Mostly rhythm, riffs, a few familiar lead guitar patterns. I can play in various tunings, too.

Guitar: 16 years
Plus bass a bit (I'm planning on buying one - when I finally have the money).

i can play the violin and piano. and a bit on the guitar

I've been playing guitar for 2 1/2 years (so I can play bass too), I've had singing lessons for more than a year, and I recently taught myself how to play organ/piano. And I can sort of play harmonica.
When composing my own music, I usually play with my own alternate tunings, after realising the possibilities of alternate tunings.
I usually use tab (like most people seem to), but I can sort of read musical notation.

This reads like something I'd post when I first joined the forum.

I don't consider myself a guitarist per se just because I lack a ton of knowledge and it sounds cooler to say I destroy guitars one note at a time.

yeah i play guitar...but 'musically', not so much

here's what I've been playing all day, every day. I play classical guitar too, but not as much since I got the Korg KP3

damn i want one of those. ive got a KP2. but i havent used it. i keep playing guitar lately

Keyboards, piano, recorder and the guitar a bit. The only instruments that I have been practising for 15 years are the keyboards and the recorder. I like playing the harmonica too and I can write a song as conventionally as you like, even if it's a shit one. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a virtuoso like some of you boys and girls, but I am fine with what I do. On the other hand, I would really like to improve my singing. There aren't many good singers anymore. I am also good (or so I'm told) at creating and working on sound sources that are not necessarily for musical purposes (i.e. radio jingles, field recordings etc).

I play guitar, big whoop.

You play a soup bowl and Heineken? Interesting....

I've had guitars for about three years now, but can't play for fuck. I have no Idea what chords I'm playing, no ear for notes, no motoric skills to play the notes properly and not a clue about music theory.

Guitar is more of a toy to dabble around with. I might get a keyboard soon though.

I played clarinet since the 4th grade. I stopped in mid high school. I've been playing guitar for about 2 yrs now.

Do you even know what sight-reading is?

Sight reading isn't hard at all if you can read music. I remember concert band from high school; we used to go to competitions. There was a sight-reading part where the entire band went into a room with a judge and were given a random piece of music to sight-read. We were pretty good.

I mean, yeah, sight-reading is hard if the piece is insanely difficult (black notes up the ass) but even so, one can still tell tell what the notes, rhytms, time signatures, etc are (i.e., read it). It's just a matter of getting your brain to tell your fingers and/or mouth to do what you see on the page; But one can still read the piece, just not do it physically right off the start.

Sorry if this post sounded a bit harsh. I didn't notice until just reading it. Just trying to say that sight-reading isn't as hard as you make it out to be, atari.

may i remind you folks that just because you can play guitar doesn't mean you can play bass.

selftaught piano. i'm pretty good i think

alto saxophone. i've been playing for 7 years now but i'm stuck at a very intermediate level. that's how i learned how to read sheet music though.

tap dance for 8 years. i know this isn't an instruemtn, but i make music with my feet, and it's probably what i'm best at. i guess you could say it's percussion

It takes serious talent to tap dance, so hat off to you for that. On the subject of unusual talents, I think that whistling well is even more difficult than singing well.

yes, yes it does. it's a 4 string guitar is all... and in this day and age, pretty obsolete to be honest.. 1,000 leaves is a perfect example.

Leadbelly used to tapdance during songs.

I play Sytrus, Morphine, Absynth, Z3ta, Vanguard, impOSCar and Pentagon I

Ace.

I'd have sex with you right now.

i'm unsure who that sex offer's to. but yeah tap dancing is sweet and i love it. i was stuck at an okay stage for a few years, then got loads better last year and this year cause i joined a company that really pushed me.