When does a guitarist become a musician?

PetGerbil

I will give you 1 million pounds. But in return for my money you can never play a musical instrument again.

If you say yes to my proposition,then you are not a musician.

How that ?

monquixote

PetGerbil said:

I will give you 1 million pounds. But in return for my money you can never play a musical instrument again.

If you say yes to my proposition,then you are not a musician.

How that ?

That's very far from my experience of a lot of professional musicians I've known who've got pretty sick of the treadmill and would probably gladly take you up on the offer!

camf

I agree that there's no entry point to becoming a musician - anyone can call themselves a musician and plenty of people do. Whether or not you can justifiably call yourself a musician is a matter for each individual and how ballsy you/they are about carrying it off. However, all the musicians I know are more concerned about playing music than working out if they're actually qualified to be called a musician. I'm a sensitive flower, so I'd definitely hesitate to describe myself as a musician to other musicians (even though they almost certainly wouldn't give a flying **** either way), but I know most non-musicians would almost certainly regard me as a musician. It's a very flexible title.

Blueingreen

The first definition of musician in the first dictionary I checked was "a person who plays a musical instrument".  A guitarist plays a musical instrument.  So a guitarist is a musician.

Everything else is froth.

Cirrus

Guitarists will become musicians this Thursday 8th.

NEXT!

camf

Drummer in the thread alert! DRUMMER IN THE THREAD!

viz

stephen.wood125 said:

When he understands 15% of the concepts that @viz evinces.

My personal feeling is when they understand the form and function, but more importantly stops being "widdly widdly" and plays WITH the band for the sum of the parts.

Really, noooo! I mean, maybe musical but nothing special! Certainly not on here, there are some real pros here. (but thanks for the compliment )

I reckon the term 'musician' is a little ambiguous and unspecific. To my point of view, there are two main dimensions: 'musical' and 'working musician'. The first is what you are, the second is what you do. If you are either (or both) of these, then to my mind you could qualify as being 'a musician'.

I don't really see a distinction between being a guitarist and being a musician, though I understand the sentiment behind the question posed. Probably most of us here are musical whether we are just guitarists or not, and some of us are working musicians even if as amateurs. So all of us are 'musicians' to a greater or lesser degree.

Anyway I’m as guilty of widdly widdly as the next man  )

https://youtu.be/HibP__y6v04

soma1975

Danny1969 said:

 Lennon, Mc'cartney, Noel Gallagher ....  

Milligan, Cleese, Everett. Sessions

Fretwired

When does a guitarist become a musician?

When they walk out on stage and play live to audience ... I guess recording something and releasing it might count but with modern technology you don't know what's a loop/sample or MIDI and therefore what's real.

Sitting in your bedroom playing makes you a hobby guitarist.

steven70

When they do something with their guitar which contributes to a piece of music.

Greatape

Danny1969 said:

To me a musician is someone who understands music. I know a lot of guitarist and a lot of musicians ... it ain't the same thing. 

As an example, let's consider someone who can build a guitar pedal from an online Veroboard layout. They are capable of following the layout and producing a working pedal but that doesn't make them an electronics engineer. They can produce a working product without knowing any of the underlying principles of electronics. This is very much like someone learning a song via online tab. They can do it but they don't understand any of the principles of why they are playing those notes and most of the time don't even know what key they are in. 

A musician is someone who works on his instrument and has a solid understanding of musical principles and is capable of communicating with other musicians in the language of music. I wouldn't go as far as to say you need to read music,  as things have changed over the last 100 years and even the best sight reader can't read music in the dark of a modern stage. But to be called a Musician you need to understand how music works.

None of the above is meant to distract from the fact that some of the best songwriters in the world didn't have much knowledge of music theory. People like Lennon, Mc'cartney, Noel Gallagher wrote superb songs just by instinct and a good ear for melody. In fact oddly enough the best songwriters I came across working in a recording studio were all not knowledgeable about music theory .... go figure  

McCartney and Lennon also spent a lot of time playing other people's songs - well-written ones. It wasn't just instinct.

Greatape

Unless you just want to operate in a basic cover band mode or similar, I'd say that the modern guitarist should at least have a basic grasp of harmony. The further up the music food chain you go, the deeper the understanding should be.(And the less dependent upon the guitar alone.)

That said, my guitar teacher -  who teaches at the highest level and has decades of studio/live pro experience behind him - says the most important thing is not what you play, but how you play it. That has come to mean a lot more to me in recent years. Maceo is a stellar example. As is Angus/Malcolm. 

antonyiv

1. When he starts thinking about the other instruments in the mix.

2. When he stops playing barre chords. 

Snap

Blueingreen said:

The first definition of musician in the first dictionary I checked was "a person who plays a musical instrument".  A guitarist plays a musical instrument.  So a guitarist is a musician.

Everything else is froth.

This.

End of.

Branshen

antonyiv said:

2. When he stops playing barre chords. 

Oh well. I guess I'm not a musician 

IMC1980

Snap said:

Blueingreen said:

The first definition of musician in the first dictionary I checked was "a person who plays a musical instrument".  A guitarist plays a musical instrument.  So a guitarist is a musician.

Everything else is froth.

This.

End of.

+1