At what point can someone consider themselves a musician?

Yes and yes. And people would still tell me it was too loud.

2 Likes

If our neighborhood lost electrical power, I could still make music on my acoustic instruments.

I don’t guarantee though that it will be perceived as good music.

Then again, the OP didn’t ask at what point they can consider themselves a good musician. OP only asked at what point they can consider themselves a musician.

I’m still stuck on the RC ProAm reference. Such a hard NES game. Now what were we talking about?

Ah. Making noise with the hope that at least we will want to listen to it again. That makes me a musician enough…

3 Likes

Watch out for the oil slick.

3 Likes

Yeah, true. And I can get around on guitar. I just never feel like I’ve reached the level of fluency I aspire to, especially compared to other musicians around me. If people asked me, I would say “I play a bit of guitar.” The funny thing is that in Japan when someone says that, they are always just being humble and are actually amazing, so I’m even hesitant to say that. Haha.

I’m definitely not defining things for everyone, just for myself. Like mastering a language, I think it’s a life long pursuit, but in the end, just have fun and do what you feel. Call yourself whatever you want.

4 Likes

I know exactly what you mean about Japan, I’ve had similar experiences lol

my opinion on who’s a musician is not too unlike yours, do what’cha like

1 Like

Dictionaries, that is, lexical dictionaries such as Webster, give the ordinary or common usage(s) of a term. They do not offer carefully reflected-upon definitions of a term. So I always take them with a grain of salt, and rather read what fellow Elektronauts have to say. :slight_smile:

Easy Payday: said no musician, ever.

2 Likes

I beg to differ

image

3 Likes

You can consider yourself a musician once people start referring to you as one.

1 Like

I take music lessons, I jam with people, I play different instrument ( Shakuhachi, Table, Doumbek, a bit of violin, piano). I own synth and groove box, I sometime record and publish online. I still have a hard time calling myself a musician.

BUT, I realized that some people SEES me as a musician, and the fact that I am not calling myself a musician, makes them feel like they shouldn’t call themselves musician. Which is weird as I see them as musician.

So there is something about the community you live in also which define you as a musician. I am in a small village in the mountain, so compared to Montreal, I am way below any ‘musician’ level, yet around here, I am part of the musician, and calling myself one helps other stepping into their role as musician…

2 Likes

Anybody who has spent as much money on gear as me is either a musician, or a sicko

2 Likes

@obscurerobot

2 Likes

Well, it cost one of them their life.

And hot take… but the music was fire, and having beautiful men as the front helped get the music popular with way more exposure than if the session vocalist (who got paid) would have if they would have tried on their own…

This album was a confluence of talent and controversy, and I take some of my music as theatre anyways…

that’s a fact I neglected to gather. guess it would be in poor taste if I said blame it on the rain…

Ive had people call me a music producer, in that i produce music, which may be more apt a description, but it might get confused as the business typr of music producer…

Or I should just consider myself “One who produces music”

I can relate to this, big fish syndrome. some people will treat you negatively if they perceive you to be “better” than they are but you don’t acknowledge it or feel threatened by the talent of others. hard to explain but people can’t seem to feel good about their own behavior or justify their feeling of superiority to others in their perceived peer group if someone they perceive as “better” doesn’t act as an elite, or is confident without looking down on others. frankly, these attitudes, for me, made the experience such that I would even further avoid trying to stand out for “talent”, and this became worse when people tell others of your “talent” and then people you don’t even know want to verify your skill. So if you don’t immediately boast yourself and act like you can’t wait to prove yourself, they think you believe you are better than them and it feeds into a cycle of negativity to where people you don’t know have heard “this person thinks he’s better than everyone” when that is apparently just what they feel about themselves when they compare themselves against you. unless you have a good reason to, in any art, it is a terrible practice to compare yourself against other artists, it simply leads to less art or less durable art because you are afraid it will break, or you will break, and then one of them does. sorry long rant, no grammar, no capitalization, all heart :heart_decoration:

2 Likes

There is a definite trend in music technology to make it easier and easier to produce music without needing to learn, practice, or know much of anything about musicianship: tools for generating chord progressions, Melodies, sequences, you name it.

I don’t know how this effects one’s perception of whether someone is a musician or not.

1 Like

Probably any definition someone devises is going to come off as elitist if it excludes anyone who makes music in some form from time to time.

So it’s probably not the healthiest identification to figure out I guess.

1 Like

If someone walked up to me on the street clapping two shoes together and told me they were a shoe musician, I would believe them, and probably endorse them. If a Mime had Mimed its way over to me and communicated that they were making silent music, then I can also get with that.

Anyone who makes music is a musician. It is not an elitist thing. It belongs to all of us.

6 Likes