Guitar Player or Musician???

[Jimi D]

I don't call myself a musician or a guitar player or anything... If someone asks, I'll tell them I play a little guitar, but I'd rather just pick the damn thing up and do it... Of course, we all know that the world is bleeding guitar players, and over the years I've seen all kinds of people who are very proud of what I might in a judgemental temper consider a "negligible" talent on one instrument or another, but in the end who am I to decide if they're a player or a musician or whatever?I'm not good enough to go cutting heads, but I'm good enough to do whatever I want to do, and so I'm happy doing it... Someone else might think I'm a clueless hack when I'm comping out jazz stuff or call me a silly white boy when I'm gurning a bend into a fourth bar at a blues jam, but what the heck, it all adds value to my life, and that's what's important...

 

[beej]

what the heck, it all adds value to my life, and that's what's important...

Well said, Jimi!

 

[nobozos]

After some careful thought, I'd like to take another stab at it.

A musician would be a person that makes their living playing music. Playing music is thier job, and primary source of income. A person that plays guitar, and makes a living doing it would be a musician, with musician being a description of the type of work that person does.

Kind of like how you have your eye doctor, throat doctor, toe doctor, ass doctor, and they are all doctors. You have bass players, guitar players, drummers, trumpet players that work in studios cutting kareoke music and making a living doing it, they would all be musicians.

Guys like me that play in bands on the weekend are part-time musicians.

Well, that's my latest thoughts on it anyway. Not that the word musician is some kind of hoity-toity veiw of how someone describes their talent, but as a description of how they earn some income.

 

[ex3.8]

Well here is the way i see it.... I always thought that a musician was a person who could read and play an instrument in the same way i do my day job. I have met some guitarists who have sold a couple of hundred thousand albums, been playing for 40 years and still can't read music. Bottom line is. I can do some plumbing, but i am not a plumber. I can do some eletrical work but i am not an electrician. I can do some auto repairs, but i am not a mechanic.......

When you can play in front of a crowd and earn a few dollars nights and weekends,when you can compose some tunes i think your a guitarist.
When you can make a good living playing an instrument i think that is when you become a musician.

I am a pretty good guitar player on the way to being a guitarist and hopefully a musician one day

 

[jeffrey]

I definately consider myself a well rounded musician. I can play drums pretty well, bass and fully compose on my own as well with others.

 

[Tim O'Sullivan]

Guitarist and musician, I think that sums me up well!

 

[edensdad]

Musician. Guitar wasn't my first or only instrument, but I do play it best of all others. My first instrument was Piano, which translated into synthesizers in the early 1980's (back to Piano now). I didn't pick up the guitar until 1981 or so, but I progressed the farthest and play it the best of all my other instruments. I have asthma so I can't so winds. I can play most strings effectively.

I write and arrange all my own music - that's what makes a musician, plus the ability the work with others to get it done is most important. (unless you're one of those studio guys who plays all the parts - more power to you)

I remember when I noticed I was listening to the other guys more than myself, and they were doing the same and a spiritual sort of connection occured. We could each shift gears into different musical directions and follow each other without stopping or speaking a word. That's being a musician at it's highest level for me. I miss that. It's really hard to find highly talented, clean & sober, 30-40 something year old Prog metalheads in rural Florida. I guess I'll have to become one of those studio guys who play all the parts

>^..^<