I have a
confession to make: I love watching musicians argue about music. I
find it fascinating to listen to the different opinions that people
have, and I really can't think of a single musician I've met who
hasn't, at some point, been tempted into a debate along the lines of:
“Jaco Pastorius is the best bass player ever” or “Pat Metheny
is the greatest guitar player of all time”. These kinds of
statements are usually met with a fierce response like: “How can
you say that? If you put Jaco on the Slipknot gig, there's no way he
would sound good”. Frustratingly, even though both sides are
usually adamant that they are totally correct, the debate normally
finishes with all the participants willing to accept the viewpoint
that “music is all just personal preference. Who are we to say
what's good and bad anyway? Remember, one man's trash is another
man's treasure”. Is this really true, though? I love debating and I
love genuine analysis of music and musicians, but for these reasons I
have always found the claim that all music can
only ever
be subjective to be a frustrating
and lazy claim to make. In the middle of a heated debate like the one
above, it feels lazy simply to accept that the answer of “music is
just personal preference” is somehow the last word in any
musical debate. In short, I think it's a cop out. It has got me
thinking, though. Is there such a thing as an objectively good or bad
musician? But more importantly, from the perspective of a working
musician, is it possible for us
to be objectively good or bad as
musicians?
I feel the place
to start is the question of whether there even is such a thing as
objectivity in music. Suppose I have this maths problem to solve: 2 +
2 = ? Objectively, the correct answer is 4. Given the laws of
mathematics, there is no alternative: 2 + 2 just
does equal 4; any other answer is
simply objectively incorrect; no other answer is possible. Here,
then, the laws of mathematics allow us to judge objectively whether
any given answer to our problem is correct or incorrect. The laws of
mathematics make it impossible for the answer to the problem to be
anything other than 4. They ensure that it can't be simply a matter
of opinion whether a given answer to the problem is correct. If, in
my opinion, the answer to the problem is 19, then, given then laws of
mathematics, my opinion is definitely wrong. If there is objectivity
in music, it clearly can't be like the objectivity we find in this
maths example, for the simple reason that music is, all too often,
much more diverse, ambiguous and undefined than my maths example. The
nature of music just is
such that it doesn’t allow us to divide answers to questions about
music into two neat and clear cut boxes, the box of correct answers
and the box of incorrect answers. For example, try and give a
straight, yes/no answer to this question: Is a piece of music better
if it obeys every rule of music theory? It’s impossible, isn’t
it? The answer is neither categorically yes, nor categorically no. In
short, the answer seems to be: “well that depends on a lot of
things”. For one, it depends on which theory book we choose? One
piece of music that obeys every rule in the jazz theory book might
also break every rule in the book on classical counterpoint.
The above
paragraph, I think, shows that it is a mistake to think of
objectivity in music in the same way as objectivity in disciplines
like mathematics. And it’s not difficult to see why the notion of
objectivity at play in the maths example just isn’t suitable for
describing judgments about music. When faced with the problem does
2+2 = 4, opinion doesn't factor. It's a yes or no question and
there's no way that this answer can be affected by opinion. However,
within music, opinion does
factor and very heavily too. There's no way the “is a piece of
music better” question can be a yes or no question which means we
can't asses musical objectivity in this way because, within music,
it's much harder (if not impossible) to define what we mean by the
words “correct” and “incorrect”. Unlike the maths example,
music isn't binary and it certainly isn't constant.
For these
reasons, I don't think that there is such a thing as a sequence of
notes that is, categorically, always good, nor a sequence of notes
that is, categorically, always bad. If I were to learn a very
dissonant and modern Michael Brecker solo, take a bunch of the
phrases and then go and play them on a pop ballad then it would
probably sound terrible. However, it's not actually that particular
sequence of notes on their own that would make the Brecker licks that
I have taken sound bad. And it couldn't be these notes that make them
objectively bad because in some cases (like Michael Brecker songs)
they actually sound like the most perfect thing ever. I remember
having a similar conversation with a friend a few years ago about Pat
Metheny. He said “I find it really hard to play his lines over a
song that he didn't write but if you put Metheny lines in Metheny
songs it's like magic. They all sound amazing”. This highlights
what might be the most important part of this puzzle. When we talk
about objectivity in music we shouldn’t try and analyse the
objective merits of a note sequence by removing it from its musical
context. Musical situations are often very unstable and open to quick
and dramatic change. Very few musical situations (some would argue
none at all) are the same. Trying to discover whether a lick is
objectively good or bad by analysing the notes in isolation, is like
trying to fit a square peg in a round hole: it simply can’t be
done. We will, most likely, never find a sequence of notes that
always sounds good, no matter what musical context they are played
in. The Metheny licks sounding good in one tune and not another is a
clear example of this. Analysing the notes alone just isn’t
helpful. So what's the conclusion to draw from all of this? Does this
mean that as musicians we can't judge some passages of music to be
better or worse than others? No. My view is this: if we look for
objectivity by focusing on the notes in isolation, then we're just
looking at objectivity in music in the wrong way.
I believe spoken
language can demonstrate this a little more clearly.
In conversation,
is there a perfect sequence of words, one that is the right thing to
say to in every situation you will ever find yourself in? No, there
isn’t. But there's no doubt that saying the right
words in the right
situation can have a hugely positive impact. If we succeed in doing
this we often think “oh that was just the perfect thing to say in
that situation”. Perhaps this thought is the key to understanding a
different kind of objectivity, one that resembles the kind of
objectivity that we might find in music, more closely. Just like
musical situations, conversational situations can be quite unstable,
and they are certainly open to drastic and rapid change. But
nevertheless, we all have a very clear sense that some things are, in
certain situations, simply the wrong things to say. We can all think
of times when we’ve upset someone because we’ve said the wrong
thing. Clearly, we can’t avoid these moments by just learning more
and more words and phrases to say. But that doesn't mean we can't
learn to avoid these slip ups at all. Of course we can: we learn to
judge which things are the right and wrong things to say in a given
situation not by learning more and more phrases, but by learning more
about – and becoming more aware of – the conversational
situations we find ourselves in.
Let's say that I
go to a funeral. Present and grieving at the funeral are the
deceased's children, wife, siblings and parents. All of these people
are in floods of tears. They have lost someone that they all deeply
loved and cared for. After the service I go over to all of them to
offer my condolences by saying: “Chin up, it could be worse. Just
sleep on it and the whole thing will have blown over by the morning”.
I think we can all agree that this is simply the
wrong thing to say. And it doesn’t
take a genius to figure out why. My comment is wrong because it’s a
horribly insensitive thing to say. The people in mourning have lost
someone who was important to them. The children have lost a father,
the wife has lost a husband, the siblings have lost a brother and the
parents have lost a child. This one death has impacted hugely on all
these people. My comment “it will have blown over by the morning”
implies that they are making too much of the situation. Problems that
have usually “blown over” by the morning are small and minor
issues. Things that are upsetting, but ultimately unimportant. By
saying these words, I'm actually classifying this death as a small
and minor incident that isn't of any genuine consequence. Clearly
this is not the case.
There are two
important things to notice about this example. Firstly, the family’s
judgment that what I said is wrong isn’t wholly subjective. It
would be outrageous for me to explain myself to them by saying:
“Well, in my opinion, what I said was completely sensitive, so I
don’t know what you’re so annoyed about; we’ve just got a clash
of opinions here, that’s all”. Why? Well, because if this is what
I think, then, clearly, my opinion is, in this situation, just wrong.
Secondly, if I went on to defend myself by saying: “Well I said
the same thing to my friend who lost an amateur tennis match the
other day and he said it cheered him up” then I am assuming that
“one size fits all”, as far as saying the right thing goes.
Clearly this is not the case. The “one size fits all” approach to
judging whether something is objectively the right or wrong thing to
say looks at the words that have been said and nothing else. It
assumes the idea that the “chin up...” sequence of words have
been comforting once therefore they are inherently comforting. It
assumes that every single time I say those words they will always
have the same effect on everyone who hears them, no matter what
situation those people are in. This is, in fact, completely false. My
mistake at the funeral is that I'm not aware of the situation. And
this lack of understanding of the situation that I and the deceased’s
family are in, this ignorance of context, constitutes the lack of
empathy that makes those words, objectively, such a horrible thing to
say.
Musicians are
often guilty of the musical equivalent of my slip-up at the funeral.
They are often guilty of ignoring the musical contexts in which they
find themselves, and they often make choices about what to play that
are, given what the situation requires, objectively wrong as a
result. In short, musicians that ignore the musical situations in
which they find themselves, often play things that are similar to my
objectively insensitive comment at the funeral. For example, if I
learn seven fast tempo and dissonant Michael Brecker lines that sound
good on a Brecker tune, and then go out and (playing them note for
note) cram them into every single pop ballad I can find, I am
assuming the same position of “one size fits all”. I am saying
that, since these Brecker lines have sounded good at some point in
the past, they will always sound good when and wherever they are
played. I am totally ignoring the situation that I am playing them
in, and by doing this, I am also denying myself the opportunity to
understand why
those lines, in the context of a pop ballad, could sound so
objectively tasteless. What's so crucial to understand here is this.
Firstly, there is real objectivity here. There’s as much
objectivity in the pop ballad example as there is in the funeral
example; the two examples are completely parallel. Secondly, the
objectivity that there is in these examples is generated by the
context a musician is in, and not something else that's unrelated
like a different song or previous gig. My comment at the funeral is
objectively insensitive because the conversational situation requires
me to say and not say certain things, and I, in making my comment,
totally ignored these requirements. Similarly, playing my Brecker
lines on the pop ballad is objectively tasteless because the musical
situation that I’m in requires me to play and not play certain
things, and, in playing my Brecker lines, I’ve again, totally
ignored those requirements. In fact, in the pop ballad case, the
requirements that the situation puts upon me come from my role within
the situation, my role as the bass player on the gig.
To
see this, notice that, my role, as a bass player, within this music
is, most likely, to play a bass line, not a solo. The Michael Brecker
licks have been taken from a solo and not a bass line. When I play
them, note for note, in this pop ballad they will probably sound
awful because they totally undermine my role within the music. I'm
there to support the melody, underpin the harmony and to hold a
rhythm section together. In short, I need to be a real team player
and not be the centre of attention. Secondly, the Brecker licks may
also conflict with other parts of the music that I am sharing with
the other musicians. If a keyboard player only has harmony consisting
of triads and I (through playing these Brecker lines) am implying
lots of dense altered harmony then I am ignoring my surroundings and
the context in which I am playing, and it will probably sound awful.
Making this kind of mistake doesn't necessarily mean that I am an
awful player on a purely technical level, any more than me making the
mistake at the funeral means that I’ve got a poor understanding of
grammar and syntax. What both these examples have in common, though,
is this: because in both I completely ignore the situation I am in,
I, in both situations, do something that is objectively tasteless.
Similarly, both examples suggest that I can avoid making objectively
poor choices about what to say and about what to play by
understanding and being sensitive to the situation in which I find
myself. Crucially, in the pop ballad case, I need to understand the
circumstances and musical framework that the situation of playing a
pop ballad present to me, I need to understand my role within the
situation and what performing that role in that situation requires of
me, in order consistently to make good, sensitive choices about what
and how to play.
As
a musician, then, what you should play and how you should play are
always, in some way, related to the situation you are playing in. So
often, though, it can be easy for these situations to change very
quickly. I've had countless experiences performing on stage when I
make a mistake that actually sounds really good and this one mistake,
often something as small as one wrong note, can change how I play for
the rest of the song. In other words, one wrong note can completely
change the musical context that I’m in, and then, given this change
of context, become something that I would consider as being very
good. I'm sure there are several people reading this now who can
think of being in a similar situation themselves. I feel that these
kind of experiences point out that a lot of musical contexts aren't
that stable. Most, but arguably not all, are very fluid and open to
these kinds of changes, which in turn profoundly affect what sounds
good and bad at that moment in time. I feel it’s a mistake to
assume that in music we should try to assess whether a certain
sequence of notes is objectively good or bad by always comparing them
to an abstract and constant reference point that never changes. But
that's not to say that there’s no objectivity in music at all, or
that, ultimately, it’s just a matter of opinion whether a certain
sequence of notes is a good or bad one to play in any situation.
Perhaps, underneath all this talk of musical objectivity, the real
issue is this. As a musician, my goal is not
to become someone who turns up to a gig with a mentality like this:
“fast jazz licks always sound good, so I’m going to play one fast
jazz lick after another, regardless of what music is being played and
what the rest of the band are doing.” Granted, that's a very crude
example of course, but I am equally keen to avoid these, far more
familiar mentalities: “Those jazz licks I learnt this morning
sounded great and I've got a really boring gig tonight that I've
played so many times already. I'll use my gig as a chance to practice
those jazz licks” or “I know the band leader said he didn't want
me to play with such a harsh tone but that's my sound; I use on all
my gigs so I won't change it”. The point is not that my jazz licks,
to choose one of the previous examples, definitely won’t sound
good; they might well do. The point is this. If, when I play the gig,
I just blindly throw out lines without giving any thought to what the
musical situation that I’m in requires of me, I’ll be more likely
to make mistakes and slip-ups like the ones discussed above; I’ll
be more likely to play something that is, given what the musical
context requires, objectively tasteless. Sure, I might get lucky and
throw out a line that sounds great. But if that happens then I can't
take that as a genuine reflection on my ability as a musician because
I got lucky. The next time I lead with guess work like this, I might
not be so lucky. My goal, then, should be to make myself as relevant
as possible to each situation that I find myself in.
Whether I'm
playing in a wedding band, arranging strings for an artist, teaching
students, being a musical director for a touring group, I always
need to asses and engage with the
situation in front of me. I need to figure out what is required of
me, how I can use my skills, knowledge and experience
to make myself as useful as I can. That doesn't mean I have to be the
person who knows what every other musician should be playing, nor
does it mean that I should strive to be someone who turns up at a
rehearsal and radically changes every arrangement of every song. Not
every situation needs that. Granted, I've been on some gigs when
people have come to me saying: “We really want you and how you
sound, so play however you want”. But I've also had a lot of other
people saying: “This is how this song should be played and it
doesn't matter if you're playing it or anyone else is playing it.
This is how the song goes”. Those are two very different
situations, but as long as I am able to engage with the contexts that
those situations present to me, I can make plausible assumptions
about what is objectively good and bad in each scenario. In fact, it
would be totally careless for me to ignore what is often crucially
important information about how I need to approach a situation, and
end up having to rely on blind luck to get me through a gig. The goal
is never to prove yourself. Rather, the goal is this: to sell your
ability to assess and respond to the demands of different musical
situations, not your ability to throw out your favourite licks on
demand. In short, sell your taste, not your guess-work.
It's worth
mentioning at this point that being in situations that require you to
do play music you don't like, or that you don't think sounds that
good, doesn't make you a bad musician. Whether you lead your own
group and have total control, or you are directed through every
single bar by someone else, is no real reflection of your ability as
a musician, but your ability to be a team player is. The captain of a
sports team isn't able to do as she pleases just because she has
status. She is supposed to have the same goals as every other player
in the team. If she doesn’t, then it's amazing how quickly she will
completely sabotage the hard work of the entire group. Whether you
are out playing a piece of music for the first time or the
one-thousand-and-first time, you will always need to pay attention to
others, and you will always need to listen. I would like to add at
this point that if you do all these things, if you engage with the
situation and if you try your best to genuinely make yourself as
relevant as you can, and you still don't come up with the perfect
part or the best idea, then there is nothing wrong with that.
Likewise, if being a good team player means that you don't play a
single note on some songs then it doesn't mean that you weren't
creative enough or good enough to come up with a part. One of my
favourite Branford Marsalis quotes is: “playing an instrument and
playing music are not the same thing”. He's right. So many times,
whether I've been on a gig, jam night, recording session or anything
else, my best contribution has been silence. Not because I was
playing badly, but because the situation didn't require me to play.
If a bike has a flat tyre the best thing to do is to only use the
tools required to change a flat tyre. You wouldn't change the tyre
and then say: “Well I have a blow torch, a hammer and a wrench that
I haven't used yet, so I'll break more things on the bike just so I
can use all the tools in my possession”. It's pointless, and will
end up causing much more damage to the bike than there originally
was. The situation doesn't call for it and this is what makes it a
bad idea.
Developing taste
and good circumstantial judgement will always be an ongoing process.
It will never be something a musician can fully achieve because music
itself is always changing. Whether you're in the studio working on a
ground-breaking record, or in the corner of a bar being told to play
a little softer than you had originally planned, you will always have
to think about what you, given your situation, and the others in that
situation with you, need to play at that moment in time. This will
serve you much better than thinking instead only of what I, and only
I, want to play. Some situations may start out one way and evolve
into something new, just as another situation may be presented as one
thing when, under the surface, it's truly another. In the process of
developing this sense of judgement you will
get things wrong and you will
experience failures, as I continue to do. Developing good taste is
hard, and it takes time.
Finally,
let me finish by returning to the idea that musical situations
generate the sort of objectivity that I’ve been talking about, the
sort of objectivity that makes it objectivity tasteless for me to
play my favourite fast and dissonant Brecker lines over a pop ballad,
regardless of what that ballad requires of me. Some of you might be
thinking that there’s nothing inherent in a musical situation that
means musicians have
to play one thing rather than another. If I think a musical situation
requires silence and you think it requires fast licks, then we just
have a difference of opinion, and that’s that. And if there’s
nothing inherent in a musical situation that means that, objectively,
it requires one style of playing rather than another, then nothing
I’ve said about certain musical choices being objectively good in
some situations and objectively bad in others makes sense. Is this
right? Well, not really. As a working musician I spend the vast
majority of my time working for other people. I teach students and
help them reach goals they have set themselves, I record songs that
other people have written and I do gigs playing other peoples
arrangements of those songs. In all these cases, and many others, I
am hired to help someone realise their vision. That vision might
belong to a student wanting to learn about technique, a recording
artist writing an album, a musical director on a gig or any other
number of similar situations but they key thing to note is that all
these people are stating, in one way or another, what they
want out of me. Not what I want out
of them. Consider, for example, the artist who hires me for a session
during which she aims to record an album. There’s no doubt, in
hiring me, she places me in a musical situation in the studio. And
there’s no doubt that I could respond to that situation by saying:
“my interpretation of this situation is to play loads of fast licks
instead of a bass line on her music”. But I shouldn’t for one
very simple reason: she has hired me, so she gets to decide what the
situation that she’s paying me to be in requires of me. Sure I can
offer suggestions and my ideas. Doing so is actually very common but
I have to offer thoughts and ideas that are relevant to the goal of
the artist's particular situation. If my performance ignores the
requirements that she puts upon me – and that I accept by taking
the gig – then my performance is objectively poor, no matter how
fast my licks are.
Similarly,
I have to keep in mind that I might not fully understand what these
people are aiming for. I may not be able to see their vision with as
much clarity as they can and failure to acknowledge and act properly
on this can seriously cloud not only my judgement, but also my
playing. If I'm working with an artist who has a clear idea of what
they want me to do and how they want me to contribute to their
musical vision I need to trust them. This is exactly the situation I
described in my
last post about experience
when I found myself playing orchestral Persian music for the first
time. I had never played it and as a result I wasn't playing the
music with such good feel at first. Sure, I could hear how I thought
it should be played, but my view point on how to play wasn't informed
by vision, knowledge of experience like the conductor's was. I took
his advice, engaged with his objectivity rather than just my own and,
as a result, the gig went great. I couldn't have just said “this is
what this situation says to me so that's what I'll do” because then
I'm back to square one. Or square “one size fits all”, to be more
exact. I had to play for the team and that meant sacrificing my ego,
offering my skills and my opinions under the guidance of someone else
who was more informed that I was but always doing so with the aim of
realising another person's vision.
But none of the
above necessarily means that performing well on a gig is simply a
matter of mechanically satisfying the requirements that different
musical situations place on me. Quite the opposite, in fact:
performing well on a gig often requires the creative and sensitive
use of taste. As anyone that has tried to write music or lead a band
will know, it’s often difficult – maybe it’s even impossible –
to articulate exactly
in words, or even notation, the subtle nuances of style and
interpretation that constitute a musical vision. For this reason, our
employers often give us a comparatively rough or vague account of how
they want the end product to sound like, and it's this that sets the
tone, gives us the sense of what – in the employer’s eyes at
least – the music requires. We are then employed for our judgment
and discretion, our ability discern the subtleties of what the
musical situation set up by the employer requires of us and we have
to respond accordingly. By developing this ability, we make ourselves
more likely to be able to respond to musical situations and make the
music sound good, and we make ourselves less likely to make the
funeral-fast-lick style mistakes that result in us, ultimately, not
getting called back for the next gig. Regardless of what you think
about the ultimate nature of objectivity and whether there even is
such a thing in music, the fact remains that, if you want to get gigs
at any level, you need to develop taste, and you need to use it for
the good of the team.
The process of
developing taste will always be on-going, and whilst it's never too
late or too early to start there is certainly never
a good time to stop. You will most
likely experience difficulty, failure and days when you want to quit
and forget you ever started. I've had plenty of those days but the
more I learn about failure and how properly to understand what it has
to tell me, the fewer and further in between those days come to me
and the better my taste becomes. So, I guess the question now is one
along the lines of “how can I best understand failure”? Good
question. So good in fact, that it will just have to wait until next
time.
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