Quote:

He did go out on a limb regarding the question of how much skill is required before one passes the mysterious threshold to be called "musician"; but we'll never settle that because it is a subjective evaluation, and he is entitled to an opinion that is different from anyone else's.




And that line seems to be directly related to the level of experience/education as the one making a judgement. Someone who has studied music is at a different plane that someone who has not. I know amazing players that can't find middle C on a keyboard or tell me what note is on the middle line of a sheet of staff paper. That doesn't make them any less of a human being, it just means they never studied that subject in school. I never took woodworking in shop class but with a miter saw I can make 45 degree cuts.... Does that make me a carpenter?

I find is sad that a lot of players don't know enough theory to know that if we are playing in D and I hold up 4 fingers that they don't know the 4th of D is G. That doesn't make them less of a player. However, I AM of the school of thought that there is a difference between a musician and someone who knows how to play an instrument. A player can tell you how the chords fit. A musician can tell you why. Yet if "why" doesn't interest you, so what? "Why" interests me. When I go to see The Cleveland Orchestra play at the big outdoor venue near my home I take the score of the featured piece with me and spread it out on the lawn and follow along. I did it this July 4th. Of the 10 or so people sitting around me, 9 thought I was a mental case. But one said "You really know what that means? How do you know that?" And I explained "Listen to how the notes go up in pitch and down in pitch and follow my finger along the page. Note that the dots go up and down with the pitch." And she said "That is more than I have never learned about music in that last 30 seconds." She called me recently to tell me she was taking piano lessons.

So there is no "line" for where musician starts for the general public. That line moves depending on who is making the perceptive judgement.

Edited to correct tense from present to past.