You're a good player - so what?

by Minim Pro @ 2010-05-05
One of the things that most struggling musicians find incomprehensible is that the world does not seem to give their talent and expertise the attention, respect and award they think it merits. In my very first post on this blog, I said that I believe jazz to be probably the hardest musical path anybody could choose to follow. The reason for this is that is takes a huge amount of study and practice and an enormous range of skills, experience and knowledge to be able to play jazz even passably well.

Jazz musicians by and large, find it difficult to believe that the world does not give them credit for this when they play. But it doesn't. There are probably millions of jazz musicians across the world and the vast majority are unfortunately not that special as players. For every fine, talented, capable and expressive player out there, there are thousands of others who are at least as good.

There are precious few players who stand out purely on the strength of their playing. The ones that do are the ones that go on to have pretty decent careers by default - if not under their own names then as sidemen with the big guns. The cream will always rise to the top as the old saying goes. For the rest of us, whilst our playing may be very good, it is not remarkable enough to distinguish us as unique instrumentalists or outstanding virtuoso talents in modern jazz. Put simply, there is a deluge of damn good jazz musicians out there, and it's important to understand that people don't find what most of us do that remarkable any more.

50 years ago, a decent player could be a marvel in his own town or city, simply because many listeners would have have had very little to compare him to. In a modern world swamped by digital music and unprecedented access to recordings and footage of the greatest players who have ever lived, the expectations of listeners has increased - albeit subconsciously. Today, even non-jazz fans will be passably familiar with what great jazz sounds like - if only through through commercials, movie soundtracks or TV themes. This has led to an increasingly blasé attitude about the abilities of musicians and the skills they have developed.
In other words, the world probably isn't going to give you credit for what you can do.

This is a harsh truth but it's one that we must accept if we're going to take control of our own destinies and make things happen in our musical lives. It's imperative that we understand that playing well is not going to be enough any more. So what's left to us? Well, my personal belief is that if we're not going to blow audiences away with our skill, we're going to have to engage with them in a different and more personal way. We need to stop expecting automatic respect and recognition for displaying a musical ability that, whilst hard-won, is not as impressive as it used to be and instead focus on communicating something to our listeners.

A good musician with a unique way of communicating with people can become a great artist by virtue of the way he touches their lives.

Who was technically the better trumpet player - Miles Davis or Freddie Hubbard?
Who was technically the better pianist - Hampton Hawes or Thelonious Monk?
Who was technically the better bassist - Eddie Gomez or Charles Mingus?

Great playing is but one way to succeed in this music. Those that change music are not automatically great instrumentalists - but they are great communicators. Perhaps it's time to focus a little less on the technical aspects of making music and a little more on what and how we're communicating when we play.
http://playjazz.blog.co.uk/2010/05/05/you-re-a-good-player-so-what-8522508/