Are you still a musician if someone takes your instrument away?
Read the first half of this article for a story and another voice telling us what IFR already tells us
Are you still a musician if someone takes your instrument away?
Read the first half of this article for a story and another voice telling us what IFR already tells us
Thatâs excellent! Thanks for posting. There are many tips here that I can incorporate into my playing to develop musicality.
Great article, thanks for posting. I think Iâm finally starting to understand how important this skill is. Iâm now determined to improve my ability to learn by ear. I usually just grab some sheet music and labouriously work my through it, trying to play from the music. Now, my method is to get a recording, play it, slow it down, break it down, and play what I hear. And as I play it, I sing it. And when Iâm away from my instrument, I also try to sing it. I think, if I canât sing it, I wonât be able to play it. Iâve also tried learning to sing it first, before even trying to play it. Just listening to a song or a phrase, many times and singing from memory before picking up my instrument. It really makes playing a different experience.
Also, Iâm really enjoying the recent videos being posted on Sing the Numbers. Singing along with Mireia is really helping with my hearing chord progressions and playing melodies over them. Thank you for making these generally available.
I wonder why singing is such an âissueâ in western culture. âI canât carry a tune.â âI have a tin ear.â When I hear this I always think that if Tom Waits can sing⌠so can you. Same thing with drawing.
Anyway, itâs great to âget overâ this stuff and move forward. To be a little bit pithy, thereâs world of sounds out there, and can appreciate and use all of it.
Thatâs a thing that always seemed odd to me. In my case the âwhyâ is quite simple. My teachers way back in early school told me I couldnât sing (& that in some situations shouldnât even try). They seemed to be right about plenty of other stuff so I believed themâŚ
Looking back, a really odd thing is that back then right through school from age 5 to 18, aside from a few unusual situations, we started every school day with an âassemblyâ in which everyone (including me) sung a hymn. However the assumption was that you either âcould singâ or you âcouldnâtâ & those of us who hadnât cottoned on to the idea that pitch matching was a thing you could learn to do just remained in the âcouldnâtâ classification. I can only assume that it hadnât occurred to any of the teachers that it was a learnable skill either!? Given what Iâve learnt about this in the last few years, even just an hour or so of simple tuition could have made a huge difference to my perception of the possible. As it was I didnât make that leap till I was nearly 60.
The only people who got any help (i.e. tuition) with singing were those who could already do it well enough to be in the choir.
Yes, I agree. And you could say the same about music study in general. If you werenât considered âmusicalâ, then you were not encouraged to do music.
Singing is such an exposing thing to do, you have to make the sound yourself, rather than using an instrument. I think this adds to revealing nature of singing. But only when you do it in public. Singing on your own as part of your music practice, who cares what it sounds like.
Itâs weird right. I spent my life thinking I couldnât sing. And of course Iâm not Ella Fitzgerald. But I can reproduce a melody just fine. I had the same thing in school. Either you where considered âmusicalâ and got extra lessons, or you were not and that meant no extra instruction. Weird stuff. Now when I hear people say about a musician âhe/she is so talentedâ, Iâm like: Yeah, sure, but they are a craftsman too!
Great comment - except i personally think tom waits is an amazing singer! maybe i have a tin earâŚ
Nice to hear stories similar to my own. Definitely a case of " please shut up" which lead me away from singing and subsequently really limited my guitar playing, thinking I could not accompany myself. My friend had no inhibitions and performed whilst I gave up. For me it wasnât Tom Watts but Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen that made me think its not always the sound but the content. Now at the age of 61 I am struggling with cancer and have a lesion in my pharynx which means I canât go higher than G before croaking out but am adapting to a lower range and enjoying exploring it with singing the numbers. Think Lee Marvinâs " I was born under a Wondering Star". I am understanding that you donât need a huge range just the imagination to do something interesting with 7 notes (plus the 5 outriders). Thinking what better rehab could there be for my vocal cords.
Happy Christmas all and may many carols be sung, hummed or numbered.
Welcome to the forum. Fair comment. Heâs certainly amazing. I think that at least of the point that @niborsilliw was making, was that thereâs scope for a whole range (no pun inteded!) of voices & you donât need to have an opera star voice to be âA Singerâ? @AdrianY 's Lee Marvin is another case in point.
Anyone else here old enough to remember âTiny Timâ singing âTiptoe Through the Tulipsâ?
In Tiny Timâs case he was âputting onâ that voice for effect, and could have sung it in a variety of other registers, but his big success what with a song sung outside many peopleâs idea of a fine voice.
Wishing you tons of luck in 2021, Adrian!
I lurve Tom Waits. But his voice is his own and one could argue that without a little encouragement he could have just not sang. From what I understand the Tom Waits âvoiceâ comes from him channeling his nonfiltered Camel smoking uncle Ray. May he rest in peace. ;O)
Welcome to the Forum!
In the pocket David!
I know this is a really old discussion but I just wanted to say I am back playing and polishing some standards to do my first open mic after a rough 18 months of cancer treatment. Iâm rediscovering the IFR and itâs such fun. Relating to the cartoon post and âpainting by numbersâ IFR feels the same as playing with paints, experimenting with what colours compliment and which donât. Sometimes you just want things to clash. Looking forward to picking it up again.
Thatâs great to hear, @AdrianY! Iâm so happy youâre feeling well and strong enough to perform in public! This whole thread is exactly why we created IFR. One of the dumbest things about western countries in the last half century is how so many people have lost the concept of music as human expression, instead viewing it as a âtalent showâ. This is especially visible in our public education (as many in this thread have commented) but it has also ruined entire sectors of our culture, with the most notable being jazz music. But there is light, and there is hope. There are still people who go to concerts with open hearts, ready to listen deeply and connect emotionally with the stories being told by the musicians. The best examples are in pop music. Nobody goes to an Elton John concert to rave about how talented he is. They go to an Elton John concert to FEEL something, something that gives them a richer and deeper experience of their own lives. And this is something that you, @AdrianY, are probably even MORE capable of giving your audience because of all of the life experiences that youâve been through.
I donât know if you have seen the wonderful talk by Ethan Hawke on this very subject. He captures it so beautifully, especially when he talks about WHY we express ourselves to each other, and why listening to one another is healing. If you want to kill once and for all any demons you have about this âtalent showâ judgmental voice in your head, I invite you to take a few minutes and listen to how Ethan explains it. Hereâs the link:
I hope that hearing these words from such an accomplished actor can give you all strength and courage to share your own story with your audience, and accept your own flaws and limitations as an inseparable part of your beautiful human story.
@ImproviseForReal @AdrianY Another aspect of that is the advent of Auto-Tune / Melodyne. Hereâs Adam Neely looking at what happens if you use Melodyne to âpitch-correctâ some famous recordings.
@DavidW, auto-tune is another great example of something that we do to make the music âbetterâ according to very limited ideals. It would be easy to blame modern commercial culture for this but the striving for perfection is something that characterizes the entire history of western classical music. Itâs a deep subject that I donât want to be disrespectful or flippant about. Every society has its own relationship with this idea of perfection. Western religions take this goal literally, obsessing about sin and judgment and right behavior and such. Eastern religions tend to focus more on the quest for perfection itself, rather than on its actual attainment. As a spiritual practice, the concept of perfecting oneâs consciousness can be used as a blissful place to focus the mindâs attention. I believe that all of these ideas find their expression somewhere in our contemporary, chaotic mix of art and music. So I canât broadly dismiss the use of autotune any more than I could dismiss the idea of practicing oneâs instrument, since both activities are about the pursuit of a particular sound, which is clearly within the rightful domain of the artist.
But what I like about Adam Neelyâs thought exercise is that it helps us remember that superficial definitions of âperfectionâ (such as perfect metronomic rhythm or computer perfected pitch) are totally misguided if the artistic expression itself is enhanced by the additional complexity of these technical âimperfectionsâ. Much of the richness of music is in the broken notes, the intermediate pitches, and the physical textures that come out of natural, organic instruments in human hands. Autotune is an easy target because we all instinctively feel it as a kind of fraud. But itâs no different from the over-engineering of many contemporary jazz recordings. Yes, the overall sound is more balanced, with perfect compression, equalization and reverb on every instrument. But the result is the plastic, sterile sound of television commercials, lacking the fascinating richness of analogue recordings from decades ago. So thereâs this interesting dilemma with our search for perfection. Just like any other organic phenomenon (imagine a flower garden in your backyard), by the time youâve removed all the impurities, youâve removed the entire garden!
I think itâs fine (and even good) that we have this kind of bubble-gum auto-tuned pop music, because thatâs also art and it allows to contemplate those sensations, for whatever they are worth. But as musicians, we should never feel that this is an interesting standard to strive for. Just put on a record of Billie Holiday or Howlinâ Wolf and youâll get an incredible education in the power of imperfection in art. Thanks for sharing this! - David
Absolutely. @ImproviseForReal
That too. As a form of expression itâs perfectly fine & valid. If itâs what the performer wants for their music, then great. If itâs what someone else wants them to use in order to get the gig, that can be rather different.
In some ways Iâm happier with the use of the tool in its extreme form, i.e. where itâs being used as a distinct âeffectâ such as by T-Pain. I donât happen to particularly enjoy the music produced when itâs used that way[1] but thatâs an irrelevant matter of personal taste, my point is that used that way itâs clearly not an attempt to portray a false image of perfection. LOL!
[1] A year or two ago I did an Active Listening exercise at Musical-U that involved a study of a T-Pain song. Doing the study required multiple detailed listens to the song. Wow was I pleased to finish that module!
PS. I meant to comment on that bit too to say that Iâve pretty much always had a strong preference for âliveâ albums, across a range of genre.
One of the first albums I bought (1972 I think & me not quite a teenager?) was Slade Alive! (it has a great version of âBorn To Be Wildâ). Later that year (or maybe early '73), as a âjoint ventureâ with my elder brother (it was a double album, so a lot of pocket money!), there was Deep Purpleâs Made in Japan. There have been a lot more since (Steve Hillage Live Herald is a particular favourite).
@DavidW, thatâs a great point about the use of autotune as an effect in itself. And thanks for sharing those lovely memories of important live albums. All of this demonstrates Ethan Hawkeâs point that the intimacy of our creative expression is whatâs valuable, separate from any judgments about skill or quality. I doubt that Slade would appear in any lists of the most technically proficient musicians of our time, and yet their music touched you so deeply that you can still feel it today. If there were one thing about the world of musicians that I wish I could change with a magic wand, it would be to free them from this curse of judgment thatâs preventing so many of us from just getting on with it and expressing ourselves! Maybe thatâs the lesson we should all go back and learn from Slade and so many other passionate rock bands.