Several years ago this lady at my work started gushing about her ten-year-old son being some blues guitar prodigy. She went on about how he could outplay older guys and play the same things. Being the nice guy I am, I sat, nodded my head and said, “That’s nice” when appropriate. Deep down inside I wanted to call her an arrogant, unknowing idiot. Of course, a lot of people would think this would be mean to say, at the least. . . and they would be right. Saying those things would not give her one moment of enlightenment and would upset her (though it would be true).
“Wait!” one would say, “you never heard a note this boy played. How do you know he isn’t as talented as she said he was?”
“I wouldn’t but that’s not the point.”
“It wouldn’t be the point? What do mean?”
Getting away from the imaginary dialogue, I will explain. If she said any other music but the blues I might have been a bit more indulgent. One thing that a lot of people don’t understand about music (especially the Blues) is that the mechanics are only one part. In fact, I would go so far as to say, a small part. It’s down to feel. The soul you put into it makes the difference. It is your feeling and life experience that informs the music. This is the intangible thing that drives some people crazy. You can’t pigeonhole specific elements that make it good. Music can be technically correct and still leave you cold.
Think of it. If operatic singers with a five octave range were what constituted good singing, we certainly wouldn’t be listening to Michael Stipe. Chris Cornell has a four octave range but if there wasn’t anything else to it we would go, “That’s nice,” maybe be impressed, walk away and forget him tomorrow. Certainly, Dark Side of the Moon wouldn’t have sold so many copies! Playing your instrument or singing in an individual and unique way takes many years of soul mining into the core of your being. How many years depends on the individual but not at the age of ten!
Which brings us back to the Blues . . . . Case in point . . .
A friend of mine’s little brother could play all sorts of technical stuff. He impressed lots of people. Nothing seemed beyond him . . .as only a teenager. He used to sneer at blues artists. He used to envision these old guys sitting around a campfire playing the same repetitious, limited crap over and over. We then goaded him. We said, “Well, show us. Play it exactly as they do.”
He tried for a couple weeks and came back a different guy and a different player! He had been truly humbled because he couldn’t do what they did in the same way. It was quite a deep experience for him. He realized that it took more than technical ability. It took soul and imagination. Finding your own voice.
I can’t remember the singer I heard on the radio one day but she illustrated this as well in an interview. She said that one night she was watching some music award ceremony and there was this 17 or 18 year old girl accepting an award. In her speech she said, “I worked sooo hard for this, it’s unbelievable!”
The interviewee’s response was, “Honey, you don’t know what working hard is. When you’ve spent years of playing bars behind chicken wire, people telling you are crap, telling you that your going nowhere for the same music that eventually makes you money later. Then you can say that. Not when some scout whisks you in front of a camera, puts a bunch of studio musicians behind you and pours a lot of money in for advertising.” This, or course, is not an exact quote but it is roughly what she said.
When a ten-year-old plays at a technically high level, it is indeed, impressive. But it does not mean that he can “play better” than the older guys. When music becomes a sport, it’s time to pack it in. It’s like what Roger Waters said in “Live in Pompeii.” “What we learned in art school is that at the end of the day what matters is, ‘Does it move you?'”