Musician or Performer(?) Rant

**pauln** · 06-11-2020, 04:59 PM

Originally Posted by jads57

So my apologies to insulting all those here. But in my defense I've become the Cranky Old Man who yells "Get off of my Lawn!"

Hard to do a job for 45 years for low dough,etc. And then see it become nothing more than an AP or loop that people use as a basically a video game entertainment.
But life isn't fair and people dont care how much work it takes to become a musician. But technology has always done that and now its our turn as professional musicians to be replaced and relegated to the past.

My dad was correct when he said music is a not great vocation but a hobby.

But a distinct feature of a Jazz gig is that there is no replacement for a performance. There is no "Jazz jukebox" that can read the audience and band, improvise and interact.
Which reminds me, I need to practice, have a show this weekend.

**Stevebol** · 06-11-2020, 06:26 PM

I was a performer but the mafia, rich women and hostesses conspired against me and ruined my career in music.
I just saw a movie last night on Amazon Prime that goes into some detail on it. It's called- Death Ride to Osaka. AKA- Girls of the White Orchid. It's one of those movies that's so bad, it's good.
Yeah, I used to be in show business but it didn't suit me.

**Stevebol** · 06-11-2020, 06:34 PM

Are DJs going to spin protest songs in the new world order? I would say, yes.

**rpjazzguitar** · 06-11-2020, 08:39 PM

So, when I think this through, I end up here.

We all post our resumes. Every gig, every recording.

Then, we vote on who has the best resume.

And, then, everybody else is expelled from the forum, because they don't have the background to talk to the top guy.

Or, maybe they can stay, but they can't post.

Is that the idea?

Here's what I think: No two of us sound alike. Therefore, each person has something to say, if nothing else, at least about his own sound.

**Stevebol** · 06-11-2020, 08:48 PM

I got fired from my janitor job at the Red Rock Casino in 2018. I needed heart surgery. I'm retired from everything now and I've had dozens of jobs. Music was full time for about 4-5 years and that was long ago. Needless to say, music can be a roller coaster ride. In my experience it was secretive and seedy.

**Ukena** · 06-11-2020, 11:23 PM

I grew up in a professional musical family. My father was a working professional opera singer (NY City Opera) who got a number of modern opera roles because he could read music, an uncommon skill at that time (Ezio Pinza claimed that he couldn't read music). Nowadays, of course, it would be difficult to find a professional opera singer who can't read music. My mother, a pianist, was the go-to accompanist for musical theatre auditions in New York City because she could sight-read anything. She also had perfect pitch, and could play anything she had heard a couple of times by ear. My siblings and I started piano lessons at the age of 7, and we performed à la The Trapp Family, singing, at various functions in the suburbs of NYC.

I studied French horn and theory/solfége at Juilliard in the prep division (in the building that is now home to Manhattan School of Music), and started teaching myself guitar at the age of about 12. I was a bicycle ride away from Rev. Gary Davis, and a subway ride from Dave Van Ronk, both of whom were teaching anyone who showed up for $5/hour, but I had no idea they existed; it never occurred to my parents or myself that I might take guitar lessons!

I ceased my private horn lessons at the age of 16 (had no aptitude, really, or desire), but I went to Oberlin College so I could take advantage of the conservatory, where I continued my music theory classes. I also used the conservatory practice rooms to get a little better technique on keyboards (I had quit piano at 11, when I took up the french horn). After graduation, I played guitar in a bluegrass band in the Bay area for a living. It wasn't much of a living, as we made almost no money, but it was all the money I had, so technically, I was supporting myself as a guitar player.

At Oberlin, I had gotten involved in the theatre, and at 24 I decided to get an MFA in acting and directing; in my last year, I managed to get a part in a show that eventually made its way to Off-Broadway, and I got my Equity card. Two years later I was in my first Broadway show. I was able to support myself during dry spells playing standup bass in a bluegrass trio (I arranged the 3-part harmonies, as I had in the Bay area band). In these groups, I was the only one who could read (and write) music. I also arranged the vocals and some of the musical arrangements for a group I was in that eventually became a Broadway show (I had left the group by the time it went to Broadway).

In one of the Broadway musicals I was in, I understudied the bandleader, who played guitar in the band and had a speaking role. For that job, I had to join the Musicians Union, and I had to pass a test to do so – I think I had to play a scale on the guitar, and read a simple lead sheet, or something like that. The rest of the band, who came to the show as a band, were from Nashville; they learned the songs in rehearsal by writing charts in Nashville shorthand, dictated by the bass player, who read the charts written by the veteran Broadway musical director. By the way, I was one of the very few in the whole cast who could read music.

After 20 years in the theatre, doing music now and then, I became a professional Macintosh computer support person. After 20 years of that, I returned to what I loved: playing guitar. I had a guitar trio, for which I did arrangements of American Songbook standards and other songs I liked. We gigged some, for very little money.

So I am a trained musician. I have mostly played with non-trained players, who can't read music. Many of them were far better players than I, who even after decades playing the guitar am very shy on technique, except as a rhythm player. I am, however, an excellent performer – I have a lot of training and experience at that.

I think that the dichotomy of "musician or performer?" is a false one; I would prefer, Marinaro, if you could come up with a better distinction between players who can read vs. players who can't, since I tend to agree with those here who classify many, many players and singers who can't (or couldn't) read music as musicians.

I remember Eubie Blake saying once that he wrote a piece of music, and corrected himself, saying he composed it, since at that time he coudn't read or write music. He learned how to do it after he already had a career. You can't convince me that he was only a musician after he learned to read music.

**cosmic gumbo** · 06-12-2020, 06:28 AM

Sounds like an obituary...

**Marinero** · 06-12-2020, 11:18 AM

"I remember Eubie Blake saying once that he wrote a piece of music, and corrected himself, saying he composed it, since at that time he coudn't read or write music. He learned how to do it after he already had a career. You can't convince me that he was only a musician after he learned to read music." Ukena

Hi, U,
Interesting bio, however, the above statement leads me to believe you haven't read much or all of the previous 3 pages of comments. So, for a quick rehash, in my world, Eubie was a great performer/artist much as Louis Armstrong was before he learned to read music to further promote his career. Reading music does not make a great performer or even an artist and many here have mentioned the names of Wes, Eubie, etc., however I just learned that Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could read music in Braille. I think some here have assumed that "performer" is a pejorative term and nothing could be farther from the truth. It merely states, in my world, that if you do not read music, it is a liability in learning new tunes quickly or playing with a group that has their "book" charted if they need to add a new member. I have never played with a musical genius however, but have played with some outstanding players/musicians. Many could read music and some couldn't. It didn't effect their talent. Good playing . . . Marinero

**jads57** · 06-12-2020, 12:02 PM

Being a Pro Musician reads like an Obituary, if you're in the business long enough, Lol!

There is a joke that goes what are the 4 stages of a musicians life.
1.) Who is Marinero
2..) Get me someone who sounds like Marinero.
3.) Get me MariNero
4..)Who's Marinero?

**Ukena** · 06-12-2020, 12:42 PM

Yes, Marinero, I read all the earlier replies to this thread. I had previously understood that you were interested in having a discussion about your thesis; now I understand that you are only interested in defending it. The presumption that someone like a Eubie Blake or a Louis Armstrong only becomes a musician upon learning to read music (no matter how early or late in their career) I consider to be a serious flaw in your presentation. There is no question that reading music is a good thing for any musician to be able to do; many of us are trying to get you to revisit your insistence that non-readers can’t be labeled as musicians.

To be clear: until you recently found out that Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder actually could read music, they were not musicians, as far as you are concerned.

To define the term musician based on musical literacy is like saying that no painter who has not been to art school can be considered an artist. (Actually, there have been, and are, painters who take the view that a painter who has not learned to draw can not be taken seriously – I suppose they would be firmly in your camp.)

It occurs to me that you are basically saying, as well, that all non-Western music players – musicians who play indigenous music from Ghana, Japan, China, Cuba, Bali, etc. are not actually musicians. That’s amazingly eurocentric of you, and completely antithetical to the entire history of the evolution of jazz. Billy Taylor, with whom I had a number of conversations about music, would certainly disagree with you. He once referred to a friend of his who wrote knowledgeably about jazz as a “jazz musician without an instrument.”

**jads57** · 06-12-2020, 07:32 PM

What B.S.! Marinero seems to be putting forth an argument or reason to become a reader. I 've said that in my early 20s I lost out on a lot of lucrative work both stage and studio wise due to my inability to read well.

Nobody has ever said you can't be a great musician without reading skills. But it sure helps in many ways. And guitarists always use the excuse of its too hard on our instrument. If you want to play with the better musicians you need to have this skill at your disposal as well as a set of great ears for harmony and song forms.

And again amateurs wouldn't realize this as much since they dont depend music for their livelihood. You get motivated in a hurry when rent or mortgage puts come due!

**Stevebol** · 06-12-2020, 07:44 PM

Marinero, you base this on an audition as a horn player for an R&B band?
OK. I've been called worse things than a 'performer'. I've been both a musician and a performer in R&B. I don't like thinking about my R&B days so why am I writing this..

**Ukena** · 06-12-2020, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by jads57

What B.S.! Marinero seems to be putting forth an argument or reason to become a reader.

I completely disagree. Go back and read his first post. The entire premise of the O.P., and therefore this thread, is that players who can't read music should not be labelled musicians. He has since posted that he loses no respect for genius players who can't read music, and admires their accomplishments, but that they are not musicians, but rather performers.

**ccroft** · 06-12-2020, 09:14 PM

....I would prefer, Marinaro, if you could come up with a better distinction between players who can read vs. players who can't....

I don't know if the original question is a Red Herring, A Straw Man, or a False Dichotomy or just what it is.

I don't understand why we need any further distinction beyond players that read and those that don't. Some do and some don't. Is there more that needs to be said?

I thought that was an excellent post Ukena. Also, the animal hat interlude was fun.

For the record, and if it matters in the slightest: I earned a 'living' solely from performing music for 15 years. I've been managing a cabinet-shop full-time for 20. I did a mix in between. I read music. I have several 10K hour chunks of guitaring under my belt. I've played with a few savants as well as Julliard grads. I'm past retirement age but can't retire due to dedicating the first half of my adult life to jazz guitar. I'm a musician, dammit!

**Littlemark** · 06-12-2020, 09:47 PM

Marinero for some reason, has decided to define a musician who can not read Western musical notation as, "a performer", instead of a musician who can not read Western musical notation.

Though I'm not sure what he calls someone who performs things that are not music. To perform is to execute an action. Almost any action.

A musician is one who performs music. In any form. Composing, playing live, recording in a studio, practising in your house, playing a duet. You do not need to be a "professional" or read to be a musician.

Though, there is a "new" verb theorized my Christopher Small in ethnomusicology called musicking. He terms "musicking," a verb that encompasses all musical activity from composing to performing to listening to a Walkman to singing in the shower.

It's a useful word of you want to discuss non Western musical traditions where there are no professional musicians. Everyone in a tribe or community participates in musicking and dancing and ritual, there are no spectators.
You can also think about its use in olde tyme music performed on a porch. Maybe someone can play guitar or banjo, three people sing with one terribly out of tune and the person who can't even sing out of tune slaps their knee.

Even these people are musicians. As they are performing the act of making music. Not professional musicians, but amateurs. The definition of which is someone who does something out of the love for it rather than for money. The Latin root being amor or love.

Though I like to think of some professionals as amateurs as well. Because they love it.

**Littlemark** · 06-12-2020, 09:50 PM

Not that it's relevant but I am a high-school music teacher. Not to be confused with a high, school music teacher.

**jads57** · 06-12-2020, 11:07 PM

And again arguing some of this with non professionals is mostly a wasted conversation. Point of reference and life experiences are so different.
Unless you have made a living as this as your profession you have no understanding of what it takes.

This is not meant as a condescending remark as much as ,this is true with any profession. The difference again is I don't try and pretend to be a Firefighter, Policeman, Doctor or Lawyer.

**Littlemark** · 06-12-2020, 11:32 PM

Look at it another way.

If you can understand English(or any other language) but cannot read, maybe you are illiterate, or blind (and don't read Braille) that doesn't mean you aren't able to communicate in English.

But it can make it harder to function as many have said before.

Jad you are the one wasting your time on a board with non-professionals.

Do you need to see my union card (which I do have) to continue the priveledge of responding to this question posed to everyone?

What is the point of discussing with people that all share the same opinion, or view or background? Do you want to be a part of a mutual masturbation society?

Here is another perspective to consider. All joking aside, I'll bet there are a large number of professional percussionists that cannot read music.

**Littlemark** · 06-12-2020, 11:44 PM

Originally Posted by jads57

Unless you have made a living as this as your profession you have no understanding of what it takes.

Having an understanding of what it takes to be a professional musician has no bearing on the definition of a musician or a performer. Period. Good playing... Little Mark

These YouTubers who are auraly teaching how to play a song are likely not trying to teach professionals but rather someone with limited musical skills who wants to play music. Is this really a problem for you? Are you worried about being replaced by someone who learns by a you tube video? I wouldn't be surprised if the person teaching the song can read and write sheet music.

Your and I are not the target audience of these videos. Deal with it.

**jads57** · 06-12-2020, 11:55 PM

Why is it so hard to comprehend for many of you amateurs that doing something ,anything for a living is different than simply being and amateur hobbyist?

It's no different for any occupation. You wouldn't dare go on a Pro Sports field of any sport. Nor would you claim to be a Physician, etc. Why do you get to play on the same level playing field as any pro musician? It seems incredibly arrogant of people to behave this way.
And I've had this happen on stage as well. Where people just think they can jam with the band, or sing with them. Unless you are an extraordinarily gifted person, good luck!