Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: tomohawkjoe on July 27, 2008, 04:39:29 pm
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This totw I wanted to discuss something I've always wanted to see GW talk about. Does being a musician change your views on music? Should being a musician change the way you view music? I ask this because whenever I talk to other musicians around town, It always ends with someone being very vocal about how them playing an instrument makes them more qualified to "get" music which then leads to a pretty lengthy argument and GW needs to argue so discuss.
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it changes the focus a lot yeah
i think it helps to catch a lot of the subtler sides and being able to follow countermelodies more effectively, but if that makes you more or less qualified to enjoy music i cant answer
i mean, are you more qualified to like a film if you know how the lights are set up in a scene?
idk
altho i guess there's a reason why musicians say they appreciate feedback from other musicians more than from people who have no knowledge of the process
idk
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I think it does because you can appreciate the way they are playing alot more like the drum fills and the timing or other stuff that a non-musician is less likely to understand, otherwise you are just listening to music simply for the sound. Often people who start playing music start listening to different bands than they did previously because they understand musicianship alot more, for instance Lars started playing drums and he stopped listening to Metallica as much because the drums were so basic.
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Yes it does. But to me, it doesn't have to do with music talent at all but with creativity.
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kinda, kinda not. I'm pretty sure you can understand all that stuff being a musician supposedly teaches you without ever touching an instrument. if anything I'd say that really getting into an instrument gives you more of a BIAS towards shit that isn't really good, but you can still appreciate anyway because of something technical they're doing with the instrument.
I think it does because you can appreciate the way they are playing alot more like the drum fills and the timing or other stuff that a non-musician is less likely to understand, otherwise you are just listening to music simply for the sound.
how often do you like a painting for the brush strokes?? isn't it the whole picture that matters most? isn't the most technicality-ignorant viewpoint the purest
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kinda, kinda not. I'm pretty sure you can understand all that stuff being a musician supposedly teaches you without ever touching an instrument. if anything I'd say that really getting into an instrument gives you more of a BIAS towards shit that isn't really good, but you can still appreciate anyway because of something technical they're doing with the instrument.
how often do you like a painting for the brush strokes?? isn't it the whole picture that matters most? isn't the most technicality-ignorant viewpoint the purest
Actually the genius of some paintings may very well lie in the brush strokes. Subtlety is pretty intense man.
The overall picture IS the most important thing, but a picture is the sum of its parts. Understanding the subtleties of a piece of music or a painting can compleeetely change its meaning for you.
You are right though that none of it is musician exclusive. I think though that being a musician you generally spend a lot more time listening to music than non musicians (not EVERYBODY but it makes sense to me that it would be true in most cases?), so you'd have a wider knowledgebase of the artform maybe?
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kinda, kinda not. I'm pretty sure you can understand all that stuff being a musician supposedly teaches you without ever touching an instrument. if anything I'd say that really getting into an instrument gives you more of a BIAS towards shit that isn't really good, but you can still appreciate anyway because of something technical they're doing with the instrument.
how often do you like a painting for the brush strokes?? isn't it the whole picture that matters most? isn't the most technicality-ignorant viewpoint the purest
i disagree! it's true from an outside, totally unmusical perspective you can look at something without having to worry about COMPLEXITY OF GUITAR SOLO or something and get an idea of it without that other stuff getting in the way, but at the same time, i don't think that you can learn all the things musicians see in music without ever touching an instrument at all. like going beyond just having a deeper appreciation of the skill/technique of the instruments you personally play (i agree this can sometimes have an odd effect in that you start kind of liking music that isn't very good based on technical admiration), there's also just a certain mindset and mode of thinking that i think only comes with playing an instrument and being a songwriter and all that.
i don't mean to say that you can't get an idea of what a song's about or appreciate the subtleties of it without being a musician yourself, but whether you view it as a positive or a negative, i do think that there's just a shift in perspective that comes with being a musician. also, you're talking like an appreciation of technique somehow precludes just accepting the work as a whole, and it doesn't at all. a person who looks at a painting and takes note of the excellent brush strokes doesn't just IGNORE whatever else a person who doesn't know about painting would see. i think you see that and just have a deeper appreciation because you can also notice the intricacies that wouldn't necessarily catch someone else's eye.
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Well yeah, I basically agree with what you are saying. BUT
I think looking at some of the more technical music out there without understanding it is like trying to read a book without knowing what all the words mean-- its going to be lost on you.
I don't even mean sitting there and going oh oh oh oh oh nnhhh, yeah 13/8 im crying but just being accustomed to rhythyms outside of most peoples normal experience can help you to understand them better.
again though a BUT-- that is something I guess you can learn without being a musician. Overall I agree with you. My points about this are then:
--GOOD or BADness of an artwork is in the whole(not sure about this yet though)
--Musicians probably spend a lot more time than the average joe listening to music
--Thus they have a wider knowledgebase and are better equipped to say yeah this is great etc
--However i will also concede that musicians DO certainly tend to get wrapped up in technicality in some respects (if they listen to/play more technical genres) and that kinda gets in the way because they aren't considering the whole so their opinions can be messed up because of this.
So ultimately I guess wait let me go read the original post. Yeah ok, so don't think being a musician HAS to change your views on music or make you more qualified to "get" music. I do however think that listening to and being exposed to/familiar with a wide variety of music makes you more qualified to "get" music.
So yeah headphonics we are pretty much on the same page.
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This might just be me, but when you're a musician it's easier to see that there's nothing all that impressive about most popular mussic. I would much rather listen to some guy no one has heard of with a lot of passion and creativity than some huge famous rockstars that play whatever is making money.
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I fully agree with Panda.
I think if you aren't a musician you miss alot of the subtleties within a song and sometimes this is what makes it great in the first place rather than its overall sound.
I guess understanding the work that went into the music is also important, often if you understand the creation process behind the art-form then that can be what makes it all the more beautiful to you.
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What you two are saying is valid, sure, but I think that seeing subtleties isn't INHERENTLY part of being a musician, its part of being someone who understands the way music works and listens to a lot of music. Those two things arent always the same.
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I don't think picking up on the subtleties of music is something you need to be a musician to do. What I was saying is that I don't just think that it's the fact that musicians listen to more music than the average joe that makes them more qualified and appreciative. Like I think the actual act of CREATING MUSIC yourself gives you a point of view that just listening to it makes it pretty hard, if not impossible, to get. I think that making that kind of stuff yourself brings a type of understanding that goes beyond just being adept at listening to music. Maybe it is more an understanding of the process and the thought and effort and life that goes into it, or maybe it is something else, but yeah.
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BASICALLY THE POINT IS:
your view about music changes because:
-you actually know how it feels like to be in their position, y'know, playing a geetar or whatelse.
-you actually know what it feels like to make a song. To compose it, to improvise, to jam.
These are pluses you only get from experience. Empathy is not strong enough.
they are all pluses that adds to a whole conception about the music universe. There's an evolution in spirit.
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no one actually agrees, it's earl cnips|couchfiend|headphonics|afura
Actually the genius of some paintings may very well lie in the brush strokes. Subtlety is pretty intense man.
The overall picture IS the most important thing, but a picture is the sum of its parts. Understanding the subtleties of a piece of music or a painting can compleeetely change its meaning for you.
You are right though that none of it is musician exclusive. I think though that being a musician you generally spend a lot more time listening to music than non musicians (not EVERYBODY but it makes sense to me that it would be true in most cases?), so you'd have a wider knowledgebase of the artform maybe?
no no I concede, of course the subtlety of the brush strokes matter. ~a stroke can make a painting~ or some shit like that, but it still has to come together to make something to really mean something, ie the final aural aesthetic in the case of music.
I still think you can appreciate the subtleties of music without playing an instrument. you won't appreciate it from an EMPATHETIC viewpoint (where the 'bias' I mentioned before would come from), but you can still appreciate it fully. a lot of it is knowing where to look, or how to look at it. being a musician would definitely goad you into that sort of thinking though.
as for that last thing I posted about being ignorant of the technical stuff, I dunno if I agree with that or not. to really discuss that you'd probably have to get into how music is supposed to be listened to, and I'm not really sure anybody in the world could do that adequately
unexpectedly cool topic though, at lot better than Band Knowledge Showcase!! which admittedly is the best a music forum can get on a regular basis.
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Well, I do think that it makes some kind of difference in appreciating a song, like you'd be more aware of what's going on or whatever, but it seems to me like the actual difference itself would be kind of negligible! I dunno, I just don't think that a bad song could suddenly become good just because you're more aware of all the little details, or that good music turns awful just because you're now listening on a more technical level. If you've stopped listening to a band because of drum fills or whatever then you're kind of missing the point of the music. I think musicianship means you can appreciate the song from a new perspective, maybe, but I can't see that making a huge difference on your tastes unless you suddenly started listening to technical shit or whatever.
So yeah, I can easily see how someone could maybe get something new out of some songs if they approached them with some experience as being a musician, but I don't think that musicianship inherently gives you more taste than other people.
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I know that as a jazz musician your whole perspective on music changes. Its not necessarily a close-mindedness, but you tend to appreciate music with an improvisational element more than other styles of music. To the point of out-right preference. I see it in myself sometimes, but for certain in my band-mates who are way more serious musicians than I am.
For me, the only thing that truly changed in my music listening preferences when I began self-identifying as a musician was that I realized that music is a universal human outlet for expression and that unless it is expressly made with making money in mind there is hardly anything not worth listening to.
granted, I tend towards anything with a touch of psychedelia in it, even in country, gospel and world music lol (which is dominating my playtime as of late) but still yeah
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There a quite a few points I see here that make alot of sense. All can say is that after picking up the guitar, my musical taste changed drastically (and my interest and attentive listening also spiked) where I started wanting to listen to more complex things and pick them out. That might be why I stopped listening to a lot of current bands. Probably the band that had the largest influence on my taste change was Yes.