Quote on "Trashing Other Musicians"

[Old No7]

Really interesting comments -- both good & bad -- on the Lachy Doley "Gimme Some Lovin" posting that I'd started (now up to 5 pages)...

 

I stumbled on this quote which was posted as a comment on one of Rick Beato's videos where he talks about missteps his old regional band made with a much more popular national band -- it has to do with "Trashing Other Musicians" (although 'guitarists' were mentioned at first).   And I thought it was worth sharing here...

 

Old No7

 

One of his tips for guitarists was never to trash other guitarists.

"If you're stabbing someone in the back, you're behind them.

The guys in the front don't have anyone to trash."

Insulting other musicians makes you look small, jealous and petty.

True top performers aren't jealous, and don't need to trash others to make themselves look good.

[BluMunk]

I think it's important to recognize that not all criticism is "back stabbing"... it's valid to dislike something or take issue with how it's executed and to express that.

However, too much criticism comes from comparing the subject to an arbitrary and subjective standard held by the critic. It's just an "I don't like this" shrouded in language designed to frame the opinion as being based in objectivity- a way to attempt to prove that the subject is deserving of being disliked. "I'm open to anything, as long as it's good," says the critic, "so if I don't like X, it's certainly because X is no good."

 

It's fine to have preferences. It's great to know what your preferences are, so you can seek out things that are to your taste. Just remember that it's all arbitrary, we all are just seeking some joy on our journey through life before we die, and there's no moral imperative to criticize things that don't meet your unique standard of "good".

[Stokely]

I've never been a competitive person, got no time for it.  At work, as a musician, whatever. 

Listen to what you like, don't listen to what you don't like.  Pretty simple.  I guess the way to the top is by stepping on the shoulders of others for most people though.

[jerrythek]

2 hours ago, BluMunk said:

t's fine to have preferences. It's great to know what your preferences are, so you can seek out things that are to your taste. Just remember that it's all arbitrary, we all are just seeking some joy on our journey through life before we die, and there's no moral imperative to criticize things that don't meet your unique standard of "good".

This.

[ProfD]

As most already know, the critic was born shortly after the artist.

 

The funniest thing to me is that being a critic is a real job.🤣😎

[Bill H.]

16 hours ago, Old No7 said:

 

Insulting other musicians makes you look small, jealous and petty.

 

Insulting? I don't think that's ever a good thing. Critiquing? If I'm asked about a new release from a national artist, a new movie, my meal downtown last night - I feel I can speak honestly.

 

if it's a local artist working the same circuit as I do? Then it's time to say only good things, or nothing. 

[Old No7]

4 minutes ago, ProfD said:

The funniest thing to me is that being a critic is a real job.🤣😎

 

Yes, a part time job for some on this forum! ☺️

 

Old No7

[cphollis]

Having been in many bands, it's not unusual for one musician to rip on another.

 

When I hear that, I tell them I don't like being in bands where musicians rip on each other.  The implication is that if they keep it up, I'll leave. 

 

Since good keyboard players with a PA system, lights and rehearsal space are very hard to find, they tend to consider their options carefully.

 

The only person I'll rip on is myself when I do something boneheaded.

[ProfD]

10 minutes ago, Bill H. said:

Critiquing? If I'm asked...

Therein lies the operative word. 😁

 

Solicited opinion is fair criticism. 

 

The slippery slope is unsolicited opinions that are negative.

 

Of course, freedom of speech prevails. 😎

[MathOfInsects]

In discussion-board world, if you're posting a thread, you're asking for opinions. Not trolling or abuse, of course. But by definition you're opening a topic up for discussion. It's right there in the name...
 

 

 

[AROIOS]

"unfavorable opinion" ≠ 'trashing"
 

We don't have to be Gordon Ramsay to be qualified enough to dislike a dish and say it out loud.

It's the chef's own responsibility to separate his/her ego from his/her cooking.

[Steve Nathan]

For Crise Sake, all I and others said was we didn't care for him and said why. Some folks who do can't seem to get past feeling like it was a personal insult.  

[Outkaster]

I don't know bands are like teams sports to me, especially in a small market.

[niacin]

14 minutes ago, Outkaster said:

I don't know bands are like teams sports to me, especially in a small market.

 

Yes, but I might be asked to sub for the other team or even join them if they lose their keys player, unless they're just too f#^*ing loud or known to be high maintenance I'm not gonna burn bridges.

[jazzpiano88]

33 minutes ago, Dave Ferris said:

My long time friend Zan Stewart is a jazz tenor player and used to be one of the main LA Times jazz reporters/critics. He also wrote for Downbeat and Jazz Times. He actually replaced the iconic Leonard Feather (Bird's close friend) at the Times when he passed away. The paper employed both Zan and Don Heckman, who also played sax and was on the scene in NYC during the '60s. Hard to fathom a time when a major newspaper had TWO jazz critics, that actually knew their shit.

 

Anyway, Zan wrote the reviews for new records, concert and club performances of local and visiting famous artists. He did it for decades, and it was his main gig. But he finally stepped down because he felt could no longer critique a fellow jazz musician.

 

And he was very kind, unlike Heckman. Never a bad word for anyone, even if they did suck. He did want to concentrate more on his horn and being a player, but he no longer wanted to be viewed as a "jazz critic". He said it made him feel uncomfortable. Also musicians were constantly hitting on him to show up to their gigs and write a glowing review in the Times. He also he received an overwhelming amount of CDs in the mail. So many it would've been literally impossible to listen to them all unless you put in 16 hour days. He showed me a stacks one time piling up in the living room of his small house in Venice.

 

This of course was all pre-internet but it was the beginning of when jazz musicians started putting out/financing  their own CDs and doing self promotion themselves without the support of a record label. I fell into that category in the early '90s.

 

The way society is today, I'm surprised there is anyone out, there in any genre, writing even an inkling of a negative review.

 

Great perspective.

 

Being a critic by profession needs to have some "separation of powers" and can't have conflicts of interest.   Otherwise you have your friend on one hand, and Wynton on the other hand.   Takes a rare person. 

 

In terms of the recent discussions on the forum here, I think the main things are:

•  Forumites aren't "critics".   Just offering reasoned opinions.  
•  Being publicly critical by someone in the business (i.e. a colleague)  is totally different from what is being discussed (my reading of this thread is created as a reaction to the negative feedback in No. 7's LD thread).  Too many other factors including future work, burning bridges, etc. are at play.   I wouldn't expect any person in the business to be remotely critical of a colleague.     Staying silent is the safe move.    But when this happens, the silence speaks for itself -- silence is a negative response.

[MathOfInsects]

It always comes in threes. First the Holocaust, then COVID, and now a couple of people expressed a very mildly differing opinion about a youtube video!

[Finale]

1 hour ago, MathOfInsects said:

First the Holocaust, then COVID, and now a couple of people expressed a very mildly differing opinion about a youtube video!

 

Well, like it or not, the Earth is flat.

 

Here is the scientific proof seen by the Hubble telescope :

 

[PianoMan51]

After I let the subject of this post sink in I realized that I have a very sharp distinction between commenting on others pianists/keyboardists vs. everybody else.

 

For my competition I try to only have good words, even if hard to find.

 

But everybody else is pretty much open season…

[Al Quinn]

It seems to me that many people have become hypersensitive about anything that can be taken as negative. When you’re an artist you have to know that not everyone is going to like your work — and some will say so. We all take on that risk when we put our art out there. Like it or not that’s what we’re signing up for.
 

Personally, I’m not in favor of a world where people’s opinions are stifled because I enjoying hearing their perspective. If they’re sharing their opinion based on their personal taste it shouldn’t be a big deal. If they get mean spirited that’s just bad people stuff and it sucks.

[niacin]

i think the confusion here is between ‘playing the ball’ and ‘playing the man’, in the case of the LD thread, between ‘I don’t like his vocal’ and ‘He can’t sing.’  The former is fine, the latter amounts to an ad hominem attack. Playing the man not the ball gets you a foul.  We could choose our words more carefully.

[niacin]

I’m tempted to start a thread on reviews that got it so wrong: I came across this recently, it’s um … interesting reading: 

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/wish-you-were-here-3-96417/

 

Actually i just reread it, totally wtf gobsmacking stuff.  Standout comments include: ‘The illusion of complexity that caused their drooling legions to make wild claims of high-art accomplishment was actually nothing more than the skillful manipulation of elements so simple — the basic three chords everyone else uses — that any collection of bar hacks could grind out a note-for-note reproduction without difficulty’ and ‘The cardinal offender is David Gilmour, by most counts the most technically efficient. No championship guitarist, he nonetheless had enough intelligent ideas [in Dark Side of the Moon] to maintain the group’s ultraimportant link to the bedrock demands of their mass audience. He oversteps his bounds in several places on Wish You Were Here, however, indulging in protracted solos that present him as just another competent guitarist who thinks with his fingers instead of his head.’

 

[D. Gauss]

I dunno... I think it was perfectly fine (and also very true) when Phil Collins dunked on Carl Palmer in an interview for rushing/speeding up all the time.

[niacin]

11 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

I dunno... I think it was perfectly fine (and also very true) when Phil Collins dunked on Carl Palmer in an interview for rushing/speeding up all the time.

 

I can’t imagine you’ll get any argument about that, especially for a drummer, iirc Sting said the same thing of Stewart Copeland. I was in a funk band years ago that fired a drummer for committing the same sin.

[Theo Verelst]

"The notes in a C major chord are C E and G" isn't the same truth type as "this keyboardist couldn't play a pentatonic scale with interest if his (her) life depended on it". More interestingly, judging a Jazz type solo is often context dependent, and in many cases weighed against the player's presumed skill level. That is: not put against a Miles or Peterson example  usually.

 

Then, there is the strange perception that someone in the same confines of limited skills, or predicaments concerning knowledge, are not just more appreciated but considered world class norm because that feels better or is even advantageous among the ignorant/unskilled audience.

 

T

[SamuelBLupowitz]

This brings to mind a quote from an interview with Derek Trucks I heard once and think of often. I'll paraphrase here to the best of my ability:

 

"The true greats are usually very humble and kind. It's the mediocre-to-good players you have to watch out for."

[jerrythek]

10 hours ago, Al Quinn said:

Personally, I’m not in favor of a world where people’s opinions are stifled because I enjoying hearing their perspective. If they’re sharing their opinion based on their personal taste it shouldn’t be a big deal. If they get mean spirited that’s just bad people stuff and it sucks.

Yes, that's my feeling as well. It's how some people express their criticism that can be the issue. Especially since briefly written words on a web page can be misconstrued, or not accurately express what the poster was thinking. They may not be intending to be mean spirited, but a brief retort can often be misinterpreted. 

[AnotherScott]

The only places where I find a musician's ability can be criticized objectively is where there is a standard of comparison. Most music, like most things creative, has no such standard. You might think Tom Waits can't sing, but nobody does a better Tom Waits, and for a good bunch of people, what he does works. About the only time I think you can say a singer/player is objectively "better" is when people are in tribute bands and the like. So yeah, you can look at different Zep tributes and say "this guy sounds more like Robert Plant," "this guy plays more like Jimmy Page." But other than that, with no standard of comparison, the "better player" is just the one who better reaches you, which is something that won't necessarily relate to technique, speed, whatever.

[mate stubb]

Even Pat M was embarassed later over going ham on Kenny G. 

[HammondDave]

It's easy for me to be complimentary cause I basically suck. If you play music, the music will speak for you. Period. 

[timwat]

The only thing I have to contribute at this point is almost OT.

 

Since Scott mentioned him, I just met Tom Waits on Sunday. My wife and I were spending the day at Dillon Beach (Northern California coast) and stopping for lunch. At the table behind me is Waits, his companion (wife?) and what appeared to be the wife's son and son's GF. He politely nodded when I caught his eye, and near the end of lunch I got his attention, shook his hand and thanked him for his music, and told him briefly how big an influence his music had been on me when I was coming up. It was.

 

He was appreciative, thankful, humble. And I let him and his return to their conversation. He seemed like a wonderfully human soul to me. I was very glad to have met him, and briefly have the opportunity to let him know my appreciation.

 

Folks want to say what they want to say...about Waits' voice, or playing, or writing (or acting). Or someone else's. Well, everyone has an opinion, and musicians will have more than non-musicians. No one wants to be gagged, or told what they can say, or should say. I get it.