When do you become a musician?

Subject: RE: When do you become a musician?
From: Dug
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 08:03 AM

Poppagator- I agree with what you just said.   (Whatever it was-I can't find it now, but I remember thinking- I must tell him I agree with what he said. So there, I've said it.)

Yours agreeably.

Subject: RE: When do you become a musician?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 07:10 AM

s&r I think it was raised the point that its not so much about being 'a musician' as being a GOOD musician ! A far more important difference ! and one which , in my Not At All Humble opinion has remarkably little to do with Technical ability or knowledge of musical theory.

Subject: RE: When do you become a musician?
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 11:37 AM

Would it clarify the concept if we asked When do you become an artist? When do you become a carpenter? When do you become a parent? What is folk music?

Subject: RE: When do you become a musician?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 12:11 PM

Dug, I *knew* we'd come to an agreement!

One of the best things to come out of this whole discussion, I believe, is that singers and percusssionists who may have been reluctant to think of themselves as full-fledged "musicians" have gotten a lot of reassurance.

I certainly wish I had felt that same reassurance years ago when I was a much younger semi-pro performer. Then, as now, I was a much more versatile and creative musician as a vocalist than as a guitar player, but I felt that my musicianly "status" was determined by my limited level of instrumental technique.

In more recent years, as a much older guy, I've had a few opportunities to sing with a band (in both "front" and backup roles), without an instrument, and it has always been not only a liberating experience, but a real opporunity to break new musical ground, to improvise more freely and effectively than I ever could as an instrumentalist. I've surely been more of a "musician" in those situations than I ever have been as a picker or even as a self-accompanied singer.

Subject: RE: When do you become a musician?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 05:09 AM

Wandering minstrel,

Yeah, I can relate to that.

That tiny, hear a pin drop, pause before a wave of applause makes my head spin. If that happens on the first song, you've got the audience's attention, and you play out of your socks for the rest of the session.

That's when you find out you have something worth sharing with others, and that's when you know you are a musician.

God, it feels good.

Don T.