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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.