A musician has to be a virtuoso before a solo is even warranted but that stopped being true, in the eyes of some, when so many electronic adjuncts arrived that one or two people can sound like an orchestra. Regrettably, an orchestral mind rarely comes with the package.
There are some soloists I know who bring remarkable skills to solo acts, usually by playing many diverse instruments without synth, but there so few who can do it and so many who clutter the air with so much ego the really excellent ones become difficult to find. No denying I do the same thing and regardless of whatever skill I bring to the guitar, I never tried to be a whizkid on the bass or the synth. If I liked what I happened to be playing then that was enough to justify using it along with the other instruments.
My situation is largely directed by circumstance as there aren't too many people who are willing to shake it when they're sixty-five and my only thought while I'm playing is how far can I push it. That's all very well but art it ain't.
This is no prelude to a melodramatic flushing of my YouTube content and the only regrets in that regard are I might have learned to play better and there's not much of anything recorded from when I was taking things seriously with The Freezebirds although maybe not so seriously with The Rot before that. There was another after The Freezebirds but the frontman was such a star it wasn't all that cool and fizzled quickly.
After that came suburbia and playing solo and, for various reasons, I have been doing it ever since. It was a bad decision to play solo back then but now it's the only one possible so I don't exactly feel terrible about it although see above about playing better.
Recording only for YouTube is all very well at my age but I see it as tragedy in anyone young. It looks much the same as hooking up with a bar band which is something I never wanted to do because it means you will most likely be playing cover songs for the rest of your life.
(Ed: Justin Bieber started out with solo YouTube videos and made zillions from it)
Sure he did but have you ever heard of him jamming with anyone. Did you ever hear of anyone who wanted to jam with him. I never did. Money seems to absolve everything here but it rarely creates art and typically only creates Kardashians.
The same applies to the femme solo stars and possibly even worse since they're such flaming narcissists you never hear them talk about the sideman in the band, assuming a real band even exists.
Music can't rise to its best without synergy but the rarest of us (e.g. classical composers) can violate that and get away with it but they exploit every aspect of the orchestra in their composition because, unlike mortals, they can hear every instrument at once. Furthermore, they can store all of it in their minds at once. We are so totally not worthy and likely the junior YouTubers will never be worthy but it doesn't matter much because there's such a plethora of music available now it has almost no commercial value except for the utter rubbish which amuses young girls.
This is not bitterness since I didn't make any money and I won't so it has nothing at all to do with my life except insofar as I could have pursued music better in different ways. There are still some exceptional bands floating around, mostly in Europe and Japan who take real risks, but they're annihilated by the popster pooftahs and their endless parade of unadulterated dreck.
There are some soloists I know who bring remarkable skills to solo acts, usually by playing many diverse instruments without synth, but there so few who can do it and so many who clutter the air with so much ego the really excellent ones become difficult to find. No denying I do the same thing and regardless of whatever skill I bring to the guitar, I never tried to be a whizkid on the bass or the synth. If I liked what I happened to be playing then that was enough to justify using it along with the other instruments.
My situation is largely directed by circumstance as there aren't too many people who are willing to shake it when they're sixty-five and my only thought while I'm playing is how far can I push it. That's all very well but art it ain't.
This is no prelude to a melodramatic flushing of my YouTube content and the only regrets in that regard are I might have learned to play better and there's not much of anything recorded from when I was taking things seriously with The Freezebirds although maybe not so seriously with The Rot before that. There was another after The Freezebirds but the frontman was such a star it wasn't all that cool and fizzled quickly.
After that came suburbia and playing solo and, for various reasons, I have been doing it ever since. It was a bad decision to play solo back then but now it's the only one possible so I don't exactly feel terrible about it although see above about playing better.
Recording only for YouTube is all very well at my age but I see it as tragedy in anyone young. It looks much the same as hooking up with a bar band which is something I never wanted to do because it means you will most likely be playing cover songs for the rest of your life.
(Ed: Justin Bieber started out with solo YouTube videos and made zillions from it)
Sure he did but have you ever heard of him jamming with anyone. Did you ever hear of anyone who wanted to jam with him. I never did. Money seems to absolve everything here but it rarely creates art and typically only creates Kardashians.
The same applies to the femme solo stars and possibly even worse since they're such flaming narcissists you never hear them talk about the sideman in the band, assuming a real band even exists.
Music can't rise to its best without synergy but the rarest of us (e.g. classical composers) can violate that and get away with it but they exploit every aspect of the orchestra in their composition because, unlike mortals, they can hear every instrument at once. Furthermore, they can store all of it in their minds at once. We are so totally not worthy and likely the junior YouTubers will never be worthy but it doesn't matter much because there's such a plethora of music available now it has almost no commercial value except for the utter rubbish which amuses young girls.
This is not bitterness since I didn't make any money and I won't so it has nothing at all to do with my life except insofar as I could have pursued music better in different ways. There are still some exceptional bands floating around, mostly in Europe and Japan who take real risks, but they're annihilated by the popster pooftahs and their endless parade of unadulterated dreck.
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