What is a Musician? I’ve been thinking lately about the pervasive misconceptions of what qualifies one as A Musician. Poker and pool are said to be sports, so was Minnesota Fats and athlete? They do arts and crafts in kindergarten, so is Billy, who holds his crayon in his fist and only uses green for army guys and red for the blood, an artist? Level I: So, I guess that elementarily, a “musician” could be anyone who makes music - including the baker who’s scraping of a bowl which creates pitch and rhythm. Next on the rung would be the ukelele player... just jokin!... next would be a cat walking across a piano. Here we make the leap to the intentional musician, beginning with a child’s first encounter with a piano, every decision she makes to go up or down or loud or soft or fast or slow, any intentional combinations of notes, including the popular palm-smash. Before we move up to talent and knowledge, let’s include in this subterranean lot the hearty but tone-deaf shower singer and the rhythm-devoid steering-wheel drummer. Level II: Fine, if you can mash four of your fingers in proper position on guitar frets in three combinations, allowing for thousands of pop songs, at some level or another, so I guess you could be considered a musician, but on a lower plane than the clarinet player in many ways, (although it’s way cooler in that you can play chords and can sing to it right off the bat). To graduate this level however, one would need to be able to make music - play at least a short piece, within a rough rhythmic frame, on at least rough pitch - french horn, banjo, what ever. (I do not include vocalists at this level because there is too little craft involved - almost everybody can sing a song because we’ve already learned to use our vocal instrument.) Level III: The electric guitarist who knows how to get good sounds, has strumming skills and picking skills, knows at least a dozen chords, can improvise, played some with a band; OR an intermediate classical pianist; OR a singer who really has some special creative talent and has developed many vocal tools and overall skills; OR an instrumentalist who can read music at the intermediate level; OR the Ozark Mountain hillbilly mandolin player who’s never taken a lesson or seen a piece of music in his life, but picks at his back porch some of the best music ever to hit the air. Level IV: Is an advanced instrumentalist or vocalist and can sightread advanced music, knows advanced music theory, plays all styles; OR an incredible by-ear player who can play any style and replicate most any radio-level song. Level V: Major symphony player with college graduate level music theory/harmony/composition/appreciation/history; OR a world-class virtuoso by-ear player; OR what I call a TRUE, well-rounded MUSICIAN: has major skills on vocals or instrument, knows college level theory/harmony/composition/appreciation/history, reads, improvises, plays some other instrument(s). This is just a rough start. I’m thinking of adding something like this to my Music Made Simple fb page, and I’d sure like if any of you musicians out there has any input for me. I’m sure I’m missing some stuff.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 23:55:38 +0000
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