# IYHO, what "music" isn't "poor music technically"?



## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

IYHO, what "music" isn't "poor music technically"?

Rock
Southern rock
Punk
New Wave
Classic rock
Acid rock
Folk
Blue Grass
Country
New Country
Blues
Hard rock
Grunge
Pop
R&B
Hip Hop
Disco 

and why. Thanks


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Is this How To Start An Argument 101? I was looking for Essential Disagreements 220.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

NoCoPilot said:


> Is this How To Start An Argument 101? I was looking for Essential Disagreements 220.


Please, try to approach this as a think exercise. 

Good grief.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't think you can get an answer by simply selecting a genre.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

eljr said:


> IYHO, what "music" isn't "poor music technically"?
> 
> Rock
> Southern rock
> ...


None of these is "poor technically".


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

eljr said:


> Please, try to approach this as a think exercise.
> 
> Good grief.



I think you need to define your terms more closely When you say "[poor] music technically" are you referring to the technical ability of the performers or perhaps recording engineers and producers - or are you referring to the music itself, ie suggesting some or all of these genres might like complexity and subtlety of composition? 

I tend to think of these genres as having their own ways of working. A classical pianist would be unlikely to be able to work successfully as a blues pianist. Some of these genres rely as much on lyrics as melody. A lot of the complexity of country is in the interplay between the story telling. the voices (and harmonies) and the instrumentation. It's incredibly hard to do well and, again. no classical guitarist could hope to excel in the field of country. For the best country, as with blues. lived experience is an important element. 

Pop done well is technically very difficult to achieve. ABBA for instance brough together a very talented keyboardist two (at least) very remarkable voices, a brilliant studio bassist and very talented recording engineers. With the Beatles we saw pop evolve into something extraordinarily creative, complex and evocative. 

Many heavy metal guitarists would I think be called virtuosos if they played classical stringed instruments. 

Clearly some of these genres (e.g.new country and rap or hip hop in the last 5 years or so) seem to have become kind of parodies of their antecedents and I don't rate them much, whatever their technical ability.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Owen David said:


> I think you need to define your terms more closely When you say "[poor] music technically" are you referring to the technical ability of the performers or perhaps recording engineers and producers - or are you referring to the music itself, ie suggesting some or all of these genres might like complexity and subtlety of composition?
> 
> I tend to think of these genres as having their own ways of working. A classical pianist would be unlikely to be able to work successfully as a blues pianist. Some of these genres rely as much on lyrics as melody. A lot of the complexity of country is in the interplay between the story telling. the voices (and harmonies) and the instrumentation. It's incredibly hard to do well and, again. no classical guitarist could hope to excel in the field of country. For the best country, as with blues. lived experience is an important element.
> 
> ...


I was think about the individual musicians abilities.


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

eljr said:


> I was think about the individual musicians abilities.


Well I still think each genre has its way of working. Take something like guitar picking that is common in folk music. Complex picking is a very tricky thing to master well. I suppose the harp in a classical orchestra would be the nearest equivalent. But I wouldn't assume a harpist's technical ability was on a higher plane than that of a folk guitar picker. Or think of Joni Mitchell's variant tunings on guitar - very innovative and gave her music a unique quality. How many classical performers would be at ease with this idea of retuning their stringed instruments in that way. For a lot of recorded popular music what happens in the studio is really the equivalent of what happens live with a conductor. Everything is being considered in fine detail and a large number of separate inputs are being drawn together to create a whole that has a desired impact I could go on but I will stop there.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Owen David said:


> Well I still think each genre has its way of working. Take something like guitar picking that is common in folk music. Complex picking is a very tricky thing to master well. I suppose the harp in a classical orchestra would be the nearest equivalent. But I wouldn't assume a harpist's technical ability was on a higher plane than that of a folk guitar picker. Or think of Joni Mitchell's variant tunings on guitar - very innovative and gave her music a unique quality. How many classical performers would be at ease with this idea of retuning their stringed instruments in that way. For a lot of recorded popular music what happens in the studio is really the equivalent of what happens live with a conductor. Everything is being considered in fine detail and a large number of separate inputs are being drawn together to create a whole that has a desired impact I could go on but I will stop there.


I agree with what you are saying, but harp is nothing like flatpicking. Each hand of the harpist is plucking its own notes and on a cowboy steel string guitar, the two hands have to work together. Left hand frets the note and right hand works the pick. What is hard is keeping the back and forth pick motion smooth when you are crossing strings, which is how you keep the "feel" right. Skipping strings coming back towards yourself, like high pitch to low pitch is the hardest. that would be doing things like playing arpeggios across the strings and skipping the string in between, that sort of stuff.

also, flatpickers are improvising. Its not like you get a few weeks to work out your part when somebody kicks off "Nine Pound Hammer". 

but that brings us right back to what you were saying, it is still a very technical thing. It looks easy because the player has spent thousands of hours working on it

My old guitar teacher used to say, "there's no simple music, only simple playing." 

meaning that a real musician can play, and play well, regardless of what the tune is


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

eljr said:


> I was think about the individual musicians abilities.


In which case, there will be poor technique among the practitioners of all your listed genres. Not sure what the point of the thread is.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Forster said:


> In which case, there will be poor technique among the practitioners of all your listed genres. Not sure what the point of the thread is.


Point of the thread is simple, for my edification as I am not schooled in music. 
For example, it's not uncommon for classical musicians to spend years at university studying yet we have no such schools for other genres. Do we?
Then there are numerous cases of popular artists being hailed as being great by both critic and fans who are not even though highly of with those they collaborate with. 
Garage bands are just that.

So I am looking for some insight into the whole "my music is better than your music" debate. What is true and what is raw bias.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

eljr said:


> For example, it's not uncommon for classical musicians to spend years at university studying yet we have no such schools for other genres. Do we?


part of that is because there are university programs in music, and classical music is an academic music, so you have enough subject matter to make a 4 year degree out of classical music. There was a movement in the 60s and 70s to create accredited jazz education programs, and so by the early 1980s, I was able to attend North Texas and major in jazz performance. 

A degree in jazz performance and a gun will get you a cup of coffee, but you better have the gun with you because the jazz degree is basically worthless

I think there are some music academies these days that work with rock, especially for drummers, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

The thing is that there really isn't any commercial need for a Rock and Roll college degree because everybody who plays rock learns to play by listening to records and just doing it. 

the best insight I can give you into the "my music is better than your music" thing is to say that there is good and bad in all genres.


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

eljr said:


> Point of the thread is simple, for my edification as I am not schooled in music.
> For example, it's not uncommon for classical musicians to spend years at university studying yet we have no such schools for other genres. Do we?
> Then there are numerous cases of popular artists being hailed as being great by both critic and fans who are not even though highly of with those they collaborate with.
> Garage bands are just that.
> ...


None of these require as much knowledge and skill as classical music, if that's the answer you're looking for. They can all be performed without training. Classical music by and large cannot.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

PaulFranz said:


> None of these require as much knowledge and skill as classical music, if that's the answer you're looking for. They can all be performed without training. Classical music by and large cannot.


Can a "virtuoso" metal guitarist sit down and play a piece of classical from sheet music that is difficult?
Can a "virtuoso" concert guitarist sit down and play a piece of metal music from sheet music that is difficult?

Both with some practice of course.


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

Nate Miller said:


> I agree with what you are saying, but harp is nothing like flatpicking. Each hand of the harpist is plucking its own notes and on a cowboy steel string guitar, the two hands have to work together. Left hand frets the note and right hand works the pick. What is hard is keeping the back and forth pick motion smooth when you are crossing strings, which is how you keep the "feel" right. Skipping strings coming back towards yourself, like high pitch to low pitch is the hardest. that would be doing things like playing arpeggios across the strings and skipping the string in between, that sort of stuff.
> 
> also, flatpickers are improvising. Its not like you get a few weeks to work out your part when somebody kicks off "Nine Pound Hammer".
> 
> ...


I didn't say the harpist's skill was "like" a guitar picker's skill. I said it was the nearest equivalent in a standard orchestra. I also made no reference to "flat picking". I was in fact thinking of the picking with the right hand (usually) on an ordinary acoustic guitar. All the complexities of the harp have their equivalents or parallels in picking an acoustic guitar to a high standard. I very much doubt most harpists could pick a guitar to a high standard. It's an entirely different feel that is required. Improvising seems like a boo word. In most folk and jazz a lot of "improvisations" are in fact remembered and incorporated into performances - so they are really composition. 

I certainly agree with your old guitar teacher! I don't why people can't just accept that for most of these genres to excel in them requires a very high standard of performance bringing together technique and emotion. .


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

eljr said:


> Can a "virtuoso" metal guitarist sit down and play a piece of classical from sheet music that is difficult?
> Can a "virtuoso" concert guitarist sit down and play a piece of metal music from sheet music that is difficult?
> 
> Both with some practice of course.


I think for me the point is that neither can replicate what the other does and within each genre the average player can never hope to emulate what the best can achieve. With classical musicians there is a lot of formal study, with metal guitarists much less, though it's actually quite common to learn rock performers have spent some time in formal higher music education. I think often this gives them a good grounding in things like tempo, time signatures. chords. scales. modes and so on. on which to build their rock performances.


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

PaulFranz said:


> None of these require as much knowledge and skill as classical music, if that's the answer you're looking for. They can all be performed without training. Classical music by and large cannot.


I'd be interested to know how you address these skills comparison. Is an airplane pilot more skilled than a bus driver? Most commercial pilots switch on the autopilot and it flies the plane. Yes, if things start bleeping the pilot needs to follow emergency procedures. But the procedures are all set out for them. A bus driver can be presented with any number of emergencies for which there is no guidance (mother with pram walks out in road, do I try and avoid her but therefore mount the pavement?). How would you compare the skillset of a classical pianist and a blues pianist or a jazz pianist. If it was the study that guaranteed high performance in classical music, all diligent students would end up virtuosos. (Spoiler - they don't!).


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

Owen David said:


> I'd be interested to know how you address these skills comparison. Is an airplane pilot more skilled than a bus driver? Most commercial pilots switch on the autopilot and it flies the plane. Yes, if things start bleeping the pilot needs to follow emergency procedures. But the procedures are all set out for them. A bus driver can be presented with any number of emergencies for which there is no guidance (mother with pram walks out in road, do I try and avoid her but therefore mount the pavement?). How would you compare the skillset of a classical pianist and a blues pianist or a jazz pianist. If it was the study that guaranteed high performance in classical music, all diligent students would end up virtuosos. (Spoiler - they don't!).



An airplane pilot is infinitely more skilled than a bus driver. He will have more training, better training, and rarer abilities that will be reflected in his remuneration. Yes, I know popular genres are usually better remunerated than classical, but I don't think that's the same thing as a non-artistic job.

I compare the classical skillset to the nonclassical very simply: people with no training at all become very competent singers and instrumentalists in all non-classical fields, but they almost never break through in the classical world, and not just because of institutional bias. More is expected of an opera singer than of any pop or jazz singer. You need more skills, more tools. It's pretty objective. You need more dynamic control. You need more agility. You need more consistency. You usually need more range. You need more size. Popular genres don't involve messe di voce, trills, fili di voce, legato, or the murderous tessiture of classical music. They are dominated by untrained voices.

A jazz pianist would have no hope tackling a Rautavaara or Dvorak concerto, even with tons of practice and instruction. Classical concert pianists are the cream of the crop. They are required to do so much that non-classical pianists are not. Could a classical pianist hang around in a jazz club and pick up jazz form, style, and technique, including idiomatic improvisation? Yes, probably. Classical instruction is extremely rigorous. These guys improvise quite easily. Obviously, an adult having spent his professional life in one style is not going to seamlessly transition to another, but it will be easier for the classical dude than for the jazz guy.


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

PaulFranz said:


> An airplane pilot is infinitely more skilled than a bus driver. He will have more training, better training, and rarer abilities that will be reflected in his remuneration. Yes, I know popular genres are usually better remunerated than classical, but I don't think that's the same thing as a non-artistic job.
> 
> I compare the classical skillset to the nonclassical very simply: people with no training at all become very competent singers and instrumentalists in all non-classical fields, but they almost never break through in the classical world, and not just because of institutional bias. More is expected of an opera singer than of any pop or jazz singer. You need more skills, more tools. It's pretty objective. You need more dynamic control. You need more agility. You need more consistency. You usually need more range. You need more size. Popular genres don't involve messe di voce, trills, fili di voce, legato, or the murderous tessiture of classical music. They are dominated by untrained voices.
> 
> A jazz pianist would have no hope tackling a Rautavaara or Dvorak concerto, even with tons of practice and instruction. Classical concert pianists are the cream of the crop. They are required to do so much that non-classical pianists are not. Could a classical pianist hang around in a jazz club and pick up jazz form, style, and technique, including idiomatic improvisation? Yes, probably. Classical instruction is extremely rigorous. These guys improvise quite easily. Obviously, an adult having spent his professional life in one style is not going to seamlessly transition to another, but it will be easier for the classical dude than for the jazz guy.


Art Tatum plays Dvorak...in his own way. 

(1) Art Tatum plays Dvorak - YouTube

I think it's a bit daft to say he, as a jazz pianist, would have a problem playing it straight. Just as few classical pianists wish to cross over into jazz, so it is the other way - although there is the odd exception perhaps (Geoge Gershwin comes to mind as someone who had a genuine affinity for both jazz and classical music, as well as show and Tin Pan Alley music). 

As for airline pilots and bus drivers, well I think we need something more than training time as a measure. I'd prefer some objective measure. For example with taxi drivers they've found (certainly in the past, before Satnavs) that taxi drivers had enlarged parts of the brain to cope with the vast amount of road map memory info. An airline pilot has nothing like that to worry about. Punch in the co-ordinates for the route, that's all. Remuneration is not a reliable guide to skill level. We've seen plenty of CEOs rake in many millions and then crash and burn their businesses when economic conditions are challenging. One moment we are being told they have a highly complex skillset necessary to run a successful business - and the next they've driven the business into a wall at speed.

These days you can learn how to fly a plane at home on a big games simulator console. Maybe it's not that hard after all. I'm suggesting there's a lot of subjectivity in how we judge skill levels. Is the skill level of the average surgeon really so different from a good auto mechanic who deals with hundreds of different complex engines and diagnoses, then fixes thousands of fault. Most surgeons specialise in a few basic types of operation. Don't we often bring some of our social perspectives into such evaluations? Likewise with vets and GP doctors. There's no doubt the latter have a higher social status. And yet vets have to deal with many different species (two genders at a time) and with the added handicap of being unable to question the "patient"!


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

Owen David said:


> Art Tatum plays Dvorak...in his own way.
> 
> (1) Art Tatum plays Dvorak - YouTube
> 
> I think it's a bit daft to say he, as a jazz pianist, would have a problem playing it straight.


I think it's a bit "daft" to compare one of his humoresques to his concerto, considering that I explicitly mentioned his concerto.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

eljr said:


> IYHO, what "music" isn't "poor music technically"?
> 
> Rock
> Southern rock
> ...





eljr said:


> I was think about the individual musicians abilities.


Of the genres you list, Bluegrass probably has the most highly proficient musicians, compared to the rest of the genres listed.

But, that's not to say that every other genre listed does not have their share of musicians with high levels of musicianship. But the question then becomes, do those other genres _require_ very high levels of musicianship to play? Which if I am interpreting your OP correctly, is what you are asking.

As far as the rest, punk and hip hop probably take the lest amount of musicianship to play (I'm sure I will get some pushback on that statement), but as one who hasn't picked up a pair of drumsticks in a couple decades, with a minimal amount of 'clearing out the cobwebs', I have no doubt I could play along with either genre reasonably well. But even so, hip hop artist, Kendrick Lamar, regularly uses sax player, Kamasi Washington, and bass player, Thundercat, who both have some pretty major jazz and jazz fusion chops. Of course, they hardly need their jazz chops to play hip hop.

Now, as far as genres that do have levels of musicianship at, or approaching the levels of classical musicians, that would be, several subgenres of jazz, and several subgenres of progressive (rock*) music. And, these genres and subgenres require high levels of musicianship to play. Substantially higher than the genres on your list.

Within prog and it's subgenres, there are quite a few musicians with classical training, and quite a few musicians that play in prog bands, as well as the classical world. Examples are many: Rick Wakeman of Yes fame attended the Royal Academy of music before dropping out to enter the 'rock' world. Carl Palmer, drummer with ELP, was a classically trained percussionist. Kerry Minnear, keyboardist with prog band, Gentle Giant, was a Royal Academy grad. But there are many, many more.

The list of classically trained musicians is even more numerous among prog bands from Italy. Bands from the 70's and current era all have an extreme level of musicianship. From Banco del Mutuo Soccorso and PFM from the 70's, to Deus ex Machina from more recently, have classically trained musicians. Deus ex Machina has a violinist, Alessandro Bonetti, whos main gigs are playing in string quartets and orchestras in Italy. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Christian Vander of French band, Magma, is a classically trained drummer, but is mostly influenced by John Coltrane.

The subgenre of prog with the overall highest levels of musicianship, is what is commonly known as, avant-prog or Rock in Opposition. Of all subgenres of prog, this one, overall, is very difficult to play, and also has the most classically trained musicians in the many bands of this subgenre. It would be easier to list the bands of this subgenre without classical musicians, than those with.

Website, Progarchives.com describes avant-prog like this:

*Avant-prog is generally considered to be more extreme and 'difficult' than other forms of progressive rock, though these terms are naturally subjective and open to interpretation. Common elements that may or may not be displayed by specific avant-prog artists include:*

*
Regular use of dissonance and atonality.
Extremely complex and unpredictable song arrangements.
Free or experimental improvisation.
Fusion of disparate musical genres.
Polyrhythms and highly complex time signatures.
*
*Most avant-prog artists are highly unique and eclectic in sound and consequently tend to resist easy comparisons.*

And finally, there are various subgenres of metal, that are very complex, difficult to play, and have terrifying levels of musicianship. Prog-metal and technical-metal are the main ones.

I am not really a fan of the band, Dream Theater, but there is no arguing with their incredible chops. But there are many other bands in the prog-metal subgenre that have comparable levels of chops, but are more interesting musically (Haken, Pain of Salvation, Fates Warning, Wolverine, and more). Within technical-metal, bands like; Cynic, The Contortionist, Tesseract, Animals as Leaders, Meshuggah, Blotted Science, etc., not only have chops from hell, but they play music with constantly shifting time signatures, rhythms, dynamics, emotional content. And they make it look easy.

Jazz, and many of its subgenres, also has musicianship very close to that of classical, with the added skill of improvisation. Which, is composing on the spot, its not just random notes.

I could fill pages with jazz musicians with near classical levels of musicianship, playing very difficult music.

John Coltrane, Miles, Herbie, Mingus, Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Wayne Shorter, Chic Corea, John McLaughlin, Jean Luc Ponty, Allan Holdsworth, Ralph Towner, Jaco, Joe Zawinul, Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Keith Jarrett, Hiromi, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Steve Coleman and many more.

Bands like: Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Brand X, Iceberg, Oregon, Weather Report, Bruford, Pat Metheny, Panzer Ballett.

There's: post bop, fusion, chamber jazz, M-Base, avant-garde, modal jazz, all with their own take on jazz, and all requiring their own particular improvisation skills.

* I added a footnote to my use of the term 'rock', because some of these subgenres are pretty far from sounding anything like what one would expect to hear with something associated with most people's expectations of rock. The bands within the subgenre that the French band Magma created (known as Zeuhl), have about as much in common with jazz as rock. The entire subgenres, avant-prog, is highly influenced by post 1950's classical, and the entire Canterbury subgenre is very jazz influenced.

I am sure that post was way longer than you expected, but I am home sick today, so I have plenty of time on my hands.


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