I am going to toss a log on the fire and wait for the flames.

I believe, and I have always believed, that there is a huge difference between "a musician" and "somebody who knows how to play an instrument". And here's where I draw that line in the sand.

Here you have a guy who can go out and play the hell out of his guitar and rip the blues licks until people stand on their chairs and cheer.

And there you have a guy who takes his guitar out to the little coffee shops and plays songwriter showcase and open mic night, and because he is playing for bozos who don't know good from bad, he meets a lukewarm, polite response.

I call "There" a musician. I call "Here" a guy who knows how to play an instrument. Musicians know music. Guys who can play an instrument know songs. Musicians have the skill and creativity to write lyrics and put them to music. The other group does not.

I also know WAY too many people who think they are musicians just because that's all they do. They sit around either their parents house or the house where they mooch lodging from their girlfriend who has bought into the hype of "Oh it's sooooo coooool that my boyfriend is an entertainer!!" and do nothing all day outside of the 6 times a month they gig. Most of them are essentially lazy people who refuse to get a job, and usually end up with some kind of medical condition later in life that requires them to beg the music community to pay their bills. I get invited to 5 of them a year anymore, and I refuse to attend any of them. They made the choice to think they are "real musicians", making the scene from jam night to jam night every night playing their 2 songs for free (which also keeps an established band without work that night while these wannabe types give their skill away for free), rather than getting a job with medical insurance, and it isn't my problem when they get sick.

Everything where I live is bands who never rehearse and just get together and wing the first 45 songs they can think of, or a handful of players who are in 5 bands, all playing the same 45 copy song list so they can interchange players. There are maybe a dozen people in town who actually write songs anymore. Most of the bands are trios with a non playing singer out front, which means that when the guitar solos the music just falls away. However, in order to not have to pay another member to play either keyboards or second guitar and make 20 bucks more per guy, they settle for that awful, empty sound. Plus these "full time" music wannabes have no money in their pocket, much less a bank account, and nobody can even afford to OWN keyboards. Also, in most cases, nobody in the band but the front singer can sing, so there is no harmony. I recall a band fronted by a very badly out of tune girl singer who thinks she is Stevie Nicks playing all that Fleetwood Mac music with no harmony vocals. Think about how deeply steeped in harmony those songs were. However, as long as the drunks in the bar don't care, the bands won't. As long as they make their $75 a night they don't care AT ALL about the music. (Funny, I thought music was supposed to be about music.) Bands who just want to play somewhere, anywhere, continue to drop their prices and undercut the other bands just so their drunken friends can come in and tell them how great they are as long as they play SKYNAAAAARRRRRRD!!!! I went to see a band a month ago at the request of the singer that was maybe the worst thing I ever heard. That singer had NO stage presence whatsoever, the band does not rehearse so they didn't know how to start and end songs. On one particular song, they went through the intro 4 times before the singer knew to come in. Had that been me in that band I would have walked out in embarrassment and gone back at closing time to pick up my gear. Of course had that been me in that band it would never have been booked until we DID rehearse. And if one of the members whined about rehearsing, they would be replaced the night they whined. Any band I am in in WILL rehearse until I say it's ready to play. That is a moot point anyway because I will never play cover music again. I would prefer to die on stage playing my own music than play covers to get cheap, empty applause that is applause for the song, and not for me performing it. Much the same reason I wouldn't say I was writing a book and then start it with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That's been done and I can't do it better than Dickens did it.

So yeah, reality has to set in at some point and we all need to realize that if it hasn't happened yet, it ain't gonna happen. And if one more person reminds me how old Jagger and McCartney are..... they were both somebody by age 20. I am 63 and this isn't the time to start over under some delusional idea that NOW is my time.

Remember that whatever it is you do for your living, maybe you are a carpenter or a plumber, some hack guitar player out there is saying "Man, I wish I could fix my own plumbing!" or "I wish I could make my own kitchen cabinets!" It seems to be human nature to want to do something "else", no matter what it is we do. I still don't know why people look at music as something magical. It's just one thing I know how to do. I was a good catcher when I was young. I cook, I wrote a column for a newspaper as well as an online newsletter, I can build with wood, fix my own cars, and I am really strong with computers. Tell somebody ALL of those things and they just grin. Then add "I used to play music" and suddenly they get all starry eyed and say "Wow! You used to play in a baaaaaaaaaaaand?" I take a GREAT deal of offense to that. It's one thing I know how to do. It does not define me. It does not make me better than anybody else and in fact it does not even make me a better me. It's just one thing I know how to do. Nobody ever said "Oh wow!! You know how to make seafood stew with handmade cornbread?"

So there is MY rant on the topic. Fire away.

Last edited by eddie1261; 12/08/14 02:56 PM.