The best musician in your band... Historically what instrument?

[RABid]

I think most of the public assumes that the lead guitarist must be the best musician in the band. People with no clue of how bands and musicians work may even assume that the best musician would move to guitar to be showcased with all of those solos. Thinking back through my various bands this is not the case at all. Best musician is spread out with no concentration on a single instrument. In my most relevant bands...

 

My first good money making band - drummer. 

Band with the best musician I ever played with - guitar. I moved from drums to keyboards in order to play with him. He eventually left us for a long term gig with Barbara Mandrel. What did she have that we didn't?

Most popular band I was in - keyboardist. 

Last good band that I was in - bassest. Wow, I have never seen anyone that could slap like him.

 

Never really thought about it until today, and I am a bit surprised that it is so balanced. What has been your experience?

[Stokely]

Same here, it's been a gamut of different roles...in a few, there honestly really wasn't a "best" I could name, but the band managed to be a sum greater than its parts.  And vice versa, I've been in bad bands with one or a few great players, but they didn't work together.

In the small-time cover band scene I'm in, I cynically think playing doesn't matter.  The cover band here with the biggest draw jumps around like monkeys and runs tracks even for the instruments you see on stage.  Super gross in my opinion but my opinion doesn't count.  They make a lot of money so I can't exactly fault the "musicians" (and they might be great players, but they don't worry much about that aspect of performance at gigs...)

[GovernorSilver]

I've seen bands in which the lead guitarist was an inferior musician compared to the rhythm guitarist(s).

 

Usually when the rhythm guitarist is a hired gun backing up the lead guitarist, or a band (in contractual terms) that is playing with a lineup augmented by session players - eg. the Talking Heads touring lineup with Bernie Worrell, Adrian Belew, etc.

 

Not throwing shade on the lead guitarist per se - its just that, that player has typically devoted most of their time and energy to their music, while the hired gun rhythm guitarist has typically devoted the majority of their time to proficiency in multiple styles, techniques, etc.

[harmonizer]

As our covers band lineup has changed since 2004:

Rhythm Guitarist 1 (fantastic chord player, but not very good at solos)

Keyboard player (he joined in late 2005?)

Rhythm Guitarist 1 (after the keyboard player left in early 2009)

Bass player? (after Rhythm Guitarist 1 left in late 2010)

Rhythm Guitarist 3 (joined us 4 years after Rhythm Guitarist 1 left)

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We have had the same solo guitarist during the whole time since 2004.

He is a great soloist and great player of lead lines that fit between vocal lines, but is not a very good chord player and is not our best musician overall.

 

I think the term "lead guitarist" can be misleading. Sometimes it means the guitarist who plays solos, and other times it means an incredible guitar player who can do anything. What's overlooked sometimes is that someone can be an incredible rhythm guitarist, and just how important that is.

 

[KuruPrionz]

2 bands I was in, the best musician by far was the lead vocalist. Since the vocals are paramount in pop music, these bands both were popular. Neither of these fine gentlemen were particularly good looking either but they could sing their asses off, knew lots of great songs and everybody loved it. 

 

The Motown cover band I was in, the bassist was/is a monster player. They would have been nothing without him. I bow to his artistry. 

 

Another band back in CA had 3 strong harmony singers but at one point our bassist (she was also our best lead singer) and the new drummer we hired became a single, driving machine. Us two guitarist/vocalists were like passengers in a jet airplane, they were just killing it. 

 

I've been in a couple of bands where I was almost the best musician in the band ( the two singers I mention above were the best).

I'm a better than average soloist but more importantly, after 9 years playing guitar with a singer/guitarist who knew so many songs it was insane (literally thousands of songs), and bearing in mind that we maybe practiced a dozen times total and never once had a set list, I got to be really quick on the draw and play whatever was needed (even if I'd never heard the song before, which happened often). That does not mean I knew the parts of the song as it was recorded (since I'd never heard many of them), it means that I could provide a solid backup and decoration for the singer and keep things moving along. Some signature licks come easy, you can just play them. I also did a 2 year stint on bass in that band, I think bass is more important than guitar and certainly more difficult, if the bass sounds and feels good the dance floor with fill up quickly. Succeeding on guitar and bass was my PhD in Bar Band, the diploma was on a beer soaked napkin with the waitresses phone number smudged and faded beyond recognition. So it goes. 

 

 

[Nowarezman]

Whoever could play their instrument and sing at the same time was always the best musician in any band I was ever in....they usually wrote songs, too.  

 

But I've always valued all-around musicianship rather than virtuoso capabilities on one instrument....probably cause I ain't a virtuoso on nothin' 

 

nat