Question on technicality

[Aulë]

Hi all I am new here and just had this question in my mind so go easy on me.

If you consider music as art, metal as art, guitar as part of this art, and you want your art to be as great as possible... shouldn't you also want your guitar to be as technical and proficient as possible because that is the most talented art..and aren't the people that have this talent better then the rest at this art?

If you were to counteract this and say that technicality isn't emotion or passion or message conveying beyond showcasing personal ability, well, who's to say that one doesn't find emotion in the solo of Necrophagist's Fermented Offal Discharge or in Cynic's Traced in air?

The same can be said for vocalists I guess.

[Cargést]

You're looking at this from a "yes/no" perspective.  What people need is good musicianship, which includes good composing ability and, if necessary for the compositions written, good technical skill.

[Humanicide]

Hi all I am new here and just had this question in my mind so go easy on me.

If you consider music as art, metal as art, guitar as part of this art, and you want your art to be as great as possible... shouldn't you also want your guitar to be as technical and proficient as possible because that is the most talented art..and aren't the people that have this talent better then the rest at this art?

If you were to counteract this and say that technicality isn't emotion or passion or message conveying beyond showcasing personal ability, well, who's to say that one doesn't find emotion in the solo of Necrophagist's Fermented Offal Discharge or in Cynic's Traced in air?

The same can be said for vocalists I guess.

So you're saying technical playing = greatness?

I don't see any sense in that. What carries a song is the ability of an artist to compose, not how many notes they can cram into 10 seconds.

Necrophagist may have guitar work which is fast, but they have the songwriting ability of a rock. Their songs meander about with noodly guitaring and don't leave much of an impression. Friends of mine who used to like this band back when their second album came out and they got all popular have since become disinterested, further proving my point. It's  like that shiny new toy you get when you're younger. Sure, its nice for a little while but then you get bored of it. You probably have a favorite toy that you won't ever throw away because of its emotional value to you, and you'll have it much longer than that shiny one you thought you wanted so badly. Apply this analogy to metal.

[Aulë]

Totally agree.  When I first heard Necrophagist I was impressed by their wankery. That wore off fast and I haven't listened to them in over a year.  I still like Cynic though their songwriting hasn't worn off on me.

[istaros]

If you consider music as art, metal as art, guitar as part of this art, and you want your art to be as great as possible... shouldn't you also want your guitar to be as technical and proficient as possible because that is the most talented art..and aren't the people that have this talent better then the rest at this art?

If so, then surely the more colors a painting or photograph has, the better it is? Or, the more realistic it is, the better? You're talking about a trait that (potentially) leads to artistic value, not one that defines it.

[Kniv]

You confuse skill with talent. By your logic, only the most photorealistic painters would be great artists.

Talent and skill can definitely co-exist, but they're not the same thing. The problem is that some people, especially on internet forums, either think they're mutually exclusive, or that they are the same. It's impossible to argue with people who think that a piece of music is shit because the musicians play to many notes. People who think a high notes-per-second count is a seal of quality are also idiots. Yeah, it's impressive, but does it work with the music?


The art is in the end result, not in the techniques used to achieve it. Let your ears decide.

[The Timekeeper]

In the Baroque era, to be considered even a half-decent keyboard player you had to be able to play Bach's concertos and fuges without a problem.  It wasn't considered a great accomplishment to be able to do this.  In fact, most keyboard players could dance technical circles around the music that Bach wrote.  The reason Bach became famous wasn't because of his technical ability on the organ or harpsichord, it was because of how he arranged his melodies into fantastic and thoughtful expressions.  Technical ability wasn't such a big deal then because players were simply expected to be able to execute the techniques the music demanded.  It was understood then that techniques weren't a end in of itself, rather a means TO and end.