Help me understand music

[danlightbulb]

Bit weird this.

Its Sunday night and ive been out to the pub and had a few beers.

Ive come home and am watching Dire Straits on Sky Arts. This is an old gig, I dont know when from, but its early.

It sounds different to the later versions of their songs. The later versions sound more polished, more refined. The fundamental melody of each song is the same but the compilation sounds different.

I can play piano and am trying to learn guitar. I can play piano pretty well having been learning for a few years now, whereas guitar is quite new but Im picking it up well because I already know the theory.

Now, during this Dire Straits gig I was watching, well its fair to say that the keyboardist was not really playing anything I couldnt play. Mostly block chords. And what he did play was quiet mostly, drowned out by the rest of the band.

The same could be said for the other instruments, including the lead guitar played by Knopfler. Now im not disputing the guy was a genius on guitar. However it strikes me that what he played would not sound half as good if played without the rest of his band.

As someone who has strived to learn to play an instrument in later life, and always felt that what I can play was not good enough, I am now starting to think that actually my skills are good enough its just that I dont have the luxury of playing with others.

How do i solve this problem? I just dont have the option of playing with others. Am I forever not going to be good enough or is one driven from the other?

Is making good music fundamentally not about a single perfect skill on its own but about mutiple players of only adequate skill coming together?

There are no iconic bands today, not like 30 to 40 years ago. Technology now, has enabled anyone to technically learn how to play, but where is the innovation and creativity that there once was?

When there was nothing but 3 channels on tv and no internet and no social media, one could argue it was easier to break through?

Now, everyone is capable of playing an instrument, but where is the innovation?

 

[danlightbulb]

As to your main question, yes usually in isolation one amazing instrument doesn't sound as good as 3 average ones because of the audio spectrum. Playing something simple on piano with two hands often sounds more impressive than something complex with one because you are filling in more of the audio spectrum. The interplay of the bass notes with the lead notes etc.

Yes I understand. The reason I chose piano as the instrument I wanted to learn was because of the wide range that can be played when playing solo, making the songs sound far fuller and more complete as standalone pieces. As I learn guitar now, I am finding it difficult to get the same depth to what I play. I think I will have to quickly try and progress to fingerpicking/folk style guitar which will enable more standalone music to be played. But even then, I am faced with the question of what to do with the skills I learn.

So yes people in the 20th century became mega stars from 3 simple chords because basically they did it first, usually with a new type of instrument (the electric guitar in the 50-70s / Synthesizers in the 80-90s).

Makes sense. So what is the way forward now in the modern era? I'll never be a professional, nor do I have the right personality to be an entertainer anyway, so is there any point in developing musical skills?

Pop / rock music has never really been just about talent though, it's been equally about an image and marketing.

Yeah and this seems to be getting more and more common these days. Its all branding and showmanship. At least musicians thirty years ago could play an instrument, most of them, but the mainstream music now is all completely manufactured. Your point about certain types of music being linked to social or political change is also highly relevant and something we hardly see nowadays.

If I have missed the point of your post sorry, I did my best to understand the answers you were after.

Not at all, you hit the nail right on the head. I was struggling to articulate how I was feeling about the topic.

Its difficult to know what to do next. Before lockdown I had started attending a piano recital group which was good and the first time I'd ever played in front of people. Who knows when that will start up again. I don't have anyone who plays an instrument in my circle of friends so there is no obvious way into more group play.

 

[danlightbulb]

Get yourself setup with a DAW and an audio interface, you can easily be a one man band. In digital audio you can let your recordings be as live sounding or perfect as you like. There are so many resources for drums to be programmed for you etc. Also it's possible to hookup with people online and collaborate sending audio to eachother to build tracks. Everyone has been liberated to create music but at the same time we are probably also on our own more than ever. The solo artist is the future it seems.

Its an interesting dilemma. Without the subculture driving force behind it, does all music become purposeless? Many historical genres of music were more about a group of people belonging to something and the musical style was just an outward facing identity that developed over time, like having a certain type of tattoo or wearing a certain style of clothing.

Hypothetical exploration - if someone could play an instrument technically very well, but did not have their own style in any way shape or form and did not belong to any existing sub cultural stereotype, then what would they do? For example imagine if an alien came to earth and was brilliant on a guitar, but had no affiliation with any historical sub culture, but wanted to get involved in 'something' - what would it do?

However the main problem with the internet and Globalisation is that it is almost impossible to grow anything grass roots now. The mainstream machine simply absorbs and waters down anything successful before it can become a functioning subculture.

Makes sense and there are numerous examples of how the mainstream machine latches on to anything new and milks it for all its worth in as short a space of time as possible. Its all about money, extract as much as possible before casting it aside.

But, maybe it was always this way? I've used the example of Rage Against the Machine before. Their songs are anti-establishment, anti-America - yet they made they fortune off the back of that. Did the band really believe in what their songs were about or were they just milking a certain type of sub-culture? Was the sub-culture driven by the band, or was the band born out of the sub-culture? What about bands who came after Rage, were they just jumping on the bandwagon?

What about jazz or blues - what do their respective sub-cultures care about? Some sub-cultures (like Rage's, or rap) are very strongly identified, whilst others, like jazz, are not really about anything at all. Is that more musically pure?

What about big groups like U2, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits. Do they really stand for anything or are they just career musicians taking an opportunity to make money?

 

[danlightbulb]

Playing music is easy*, writing something original that people actually want to listen? That's the hard part

Is it even about the music at all? Or is it more about the entertainment value/personality of the outward facing brand? If the dullest person in the universe wrote the most amazing piece of music ever created, would it be successful?

 

[danlightbulb]

Is the difference between the Dire Straits songs u mention not just live vs studio versions?

Perhaps it was, and if so, this goes to show a degree of fakeness to a lot of the music we listen to. If a track created by a band cannot truly be played live (without changing things) then its not really real - its been manipulated offline. So then for a new musician, such as myself, trying to emulate that without really knowing what offline manipulations have been done - well it may cause chasing something that is impossible to achieve leading to disappointment?

 

[danlightbulb]

@SexyGreyFox very good! I do love Dire Straits - it was all my Dad used to listen to when I was a kid.

What would you do if you were a good guitar player but had no-one to form a band with and had to play solo, only for yourself?

Does it become purely an exercise of getting as technically proficient as possible? Does it become just playing stuff you personally like? Does it become learning lots of songs chords or riffs on the off chance that one day you might get chance to use it? Or do you try and learn all instruments, play each part separately and then edit them together. But what's the point of that, if no-one is ever going to see it?

I think Im just seriously lacking direction.