Bleeding Through The Mic: The Musicianship Paradox
Musicians tend to split into three categories, those who believe that playing clean is most important, those who believe that connecting with the audience emotionally is most important, and those who believe in a balance of the two and have the skills to execute that with aplomb. I generally fall into the emotional connection category as I've seen plenty of bands who didn't have much in the way of skills who just thrilled audiences while conversely, I've seen plenty of great musicians whose performances were flat as a pancake.
Call it the musicianship paradox. There's usually a line in any musician's development where (s)he learns to play clean with perfect technique and then spends years unlearning all of that in the name of getting back to the soul and spirit of the work.
As a result I tend to think in terms of creating the emotional connection first, then cleaning as you go, and if you've got the chops, repetition - through gigs and rehearsals - will take care of the rest.
In the past year, I've been working with a startup called TenthRow. TenthRow is bringing High Definition (HD) concert videos to the web. You can follow TenthRow on twitter, tumblr, facebook, and myspace.
What follows are a small selection of bands that I believe combine phenomenal original material, superlative musicianship, and an emotive connection with the audience. I'm using the tenthrow widget here to embed these, and you can too. Don't like my suggestions? Find some that you do like on tenthrow and keep live music growing and thriving.
Red Wanting Blue
Corey Smith
The Heavy Pets
Call it the musicianship paradox. There's usually a line in any musician's development where (s)he learns to play clean with perfect technique and then spends years unlearning all of that in the name of getting back to the soul and spirit of the work.
As a result I tend to think in terms of creating the emotional connection first, then cleaning as you go, and if you've got the chops, repetition - through gigs and rehearsals - will take care of the rest.
In the past year, I've been working with a startup called TenthRow. TenthRow is bringing High Definition (HD) concert videos to the web. You can follow TenthRow on twitter, tumblr, facebook, and myspace.
What follows are a small selection of bands that I believe combine phenomenal original material, superlative musicianship, and an emotive connection with the audience. I'm using the tenthrow widget here to embed these, and you can too. Don't like my suggestions? Find some that you do like on tenthrow and keep live music growing and thriving.
Red Wanting Blue
TenthRow - HD Concert Videos, Playlists, MP3 DownloadsTenthrow - Concerts - Red Wanting Blue - Live @ 9:30 Club
TenthRow - HD Concert Videos, Playlists, MP3 DownloadsTenthrow - Concerts - Corey Smith - Live @ 9:30 Club
TenthRow - HD Concert Videos, Playlists, MP3 DownloadsTenthrow - Concerts - The Heavy Pets - Live @ 9:30 Club
posted by David Watson at
10:32 AM
2 Comments:
The funny thing is, you are completely right. People spend how many years in high school and then music school being told that technically proficient is the only way they will ever get anywhere and make any money. Funny thing is, most of the people I know who love their music and actually play every day are not the ones who finished or even went to music school. Technically proficient is one thing if you want to join the Marine Band or the New York Philharmonic,but to connect with your audience and love what you do nobody needs some stuck up snob telling you that you aren't good enough for his studio. That's when you go play that gig down the street in the bar he goes to on the weekends to grade papers. On a side note, I'm surprised you did not add Blue King Brown to that list since you had mentioned it to me. I think they also do a good job of this, and can also be found on Tenthrow.
Indeed, I originally included Blue King Brown in this article, but when I went to the site, I couldn't find it. I'll have to ask, I suspect BKB disappeared for some reason, though I'm not sure why.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home