Banging on About Musicians

Tonight, the Cadbury advert with the drum-playing gorilla came on and Mrs B asked me my opinion of Phil Collins as a drummer? This got us discussing what constitutes a true musician and, as I seem to have had blog-block recently, this seemed a good subject to muse about and get back into the swing of writing.

As a drummer, my answer to her question was that he was a capable drummer within his own genre but I wondered how he would actually be classed as a musician (hence the discussion)? To my mind, there are several different types of drummer: the Keith Moons, who add a whole new dimension to sitting behind the "real" band members, the Charlie Watts', who provide a perfect rhythm, with no frills and the Ginger Bakers or Ray Coopers who are true percussionists and seek to explore their craft, its origins and its total diversity and relationship to art and culture.

A lot of bands have travelled a short road from their roots. Is that because they are happy with what they play? Are they satisfying their fans' desire to hear the oldies? They have the choice to introduce new material but who wants to hear something they don't know? I would suggest not many. What if they tried to revamp well-loved songs? Again, I think few would want to hear variations. In other words, are musicians hampered by a fan-base who have to be satisfied at the expense of progression within their chosen area of expertise?

This therefore takes us back to musicianship. Charlie Watts is well-known as a devotee of jazz drumming and, for the non-drummer, this is technically as hard as it gets. He has the fortunate choice of extending his musicianship but does that make him a true musician? There are many competent guitarists out there but does capability mean everything? Mark Knopfler has been referred to as a "journeyman" guitarist; technically, extremely competent but lacking the undefinable "something" that drives and motivates. The jazz musicians seem to be the real music disciples, always searching for another riff and their devotion to their art almost oozing from their pores.

There have been many great bands over the last 40 years. What has happened to their members? I'm sure some have travelled that similar journey of musical exploration as the likes of Sting, Baker etc. but, without the need to satisfy their fans any longer, can indulge this without the Great British Public demanding their musical pound of flesh. How wonderful must it be to get up, create within one's own studio and not have to worry about pleasing anyone else.

I realise that I have used an awful lot of question marks and you can perhaps therefore deduce that I don't really know the answer?

Certainly, from a drumming point of view, percussion is really the only way to move on in one's craft. It's really the only rock instrument that does not allow much in the way of variation insofar as, say, a bass line can be as simple or complicated as you wish, similar to a drum rhythm, but, with a bass, one can go off in a far greater number of tangents given the scope of notes available (John Entwhistle, Jack Bruce and Jaco Pastorius being my choice of the greatest exponents of this). A drummer however is restricted by certain rules that cannot be broken. A true musician drummer however has a multitude of other instruments at his disposal and therefore his restrictions as a drummer are more than compensated by his singular advantage over guitarists and "conventional keyboard" players.

I digress; perhaps I should have made this a discussion, not about what constitutes a musician, but what happens to them? If they make their pile and then stop playing, are they true musicians? See, back to the original question again. Gosh, I'm confused. Are the semi-greats of my youth now postmen or social workers? Will I be mortified to find that Yardbirds are still knocking out "For Your Love" at Butlins, Pwllheli?

You can see that I am out of practice in this blogging thingy. What a pile of unrelated, unstructured poo! Still, at least I've started again.

I know some of my loyal band of readers must have thoughts on this and I' love to hear them. How about it?