For the Masses.

[kyrasantae]

It is true that rock music has always been for the masses.  It is meant to be enjoyed by all, an easily-accessible fine art without an audience of snobby, "cultured" people.  Yet once where the "music is good for child development" movement had parents everywhere signing their kids up for piano and violin lessons, we now have a slew of realistic rock band instrument toys and affordable performance equipment available on the market.

Almost everyone has wanted to be a rock star at some point or another.  It used to be that even the cheapest guitar or drum set at the band store would set you back a significant amount of money, so one ought to decide to take the whole thing seriously before investing in the instrument.  But now anyone can go to Wal-Mart, pick up an electric guitar and amp ($220) or drum set ($300) and go home and dabble around on it, get some friends, and put on a show in their garage.

And all they see are heroes.  An art which is so much about creativity and all they see is to be like their heroes: cover their solos, write songs like them, aspire to own the equipment their heroes do.  Even the young pianist knows that she'll never be of performance calibre practising on an electric piano, even if it has 88, fully-weighted keys -- but she does not pursue it because she wants to play on the instrument that, say, Evgeny Kissin endorses, or to play like him, or perhaps even to meet him.

To meet a master pianist is a very special thing, and getting a lesson from one even more so.  It's the sort of thing one gets from masterclasses at music school or maybe your $60/hr teacher has the connections and deems you talented enough to hook you up with such a lesson (which probably costs at least $200 an hour -- for a medium-sized-name, local professional; I don't know because my teacher paid for the one I had).  But for even the novice rock musician there are the magazines and the instructional videos from the masters, and though obviously not as valuable as the real thing, gives people the fuzzy feeling that they can learn to be like the masters by imitating them.

No classical musician decided to go into the field for fame and fortune.  But many youngsters who dabble in rock musicianship do so, to again emulate their heroes.

This hero-worship combined with the easy access to equipment and pseudo-instruction, are the greatest barriers to real musicians -- those with a true passion for the medium and have something they want to say with it -- the real artists.

And this is how and why amateur bands are only interested in recruiting people with performance experience and equipment, and spend their time trying to sound like someone else.  They can't recognize talent or open their minds to a style they may not have heard before.  It seems like only the masters still know how to recognize talent buried beneath a lack of experience and to give it a chance, to not discourage those who still value real musicianship, because it is known that only the true artists will endure, and not in infamy.  The others, the hero-worshippers, will fall, if they do not find their place and embrace real artistry.

In the meantime, the novice but real musicians must work doubly hard, to make their mark amidst the sea of deluded dabblers, so that they may not be strangled of the breath that will let them endure.

I work in the toy department at Wal-Mart as a stocker.
     When I unload boxes of toy and half-size guitars, I am reminded of this.
     When I move a box of toy drum sets, I am reminded of this.
Sometimes I am called to help elsewhere around the store.
     When I walk past the display with the electric guitars and drum sets and accessories, I am reminded of this.
     When I help move the magazine racks, I am reminded of this.

When I hear my peers revel in their spirit week cover band entries, I am reminded of this.
When I am turned down because I don't have experience or my own equipment or because they have a specific style they want, I am reminded of this.

I choke.

I must be strong.

Comments

just this morning

[nightwind292.livejournal.com]

I was working there.

I had an idea. I tried to tell them. I'm not to work there anymore. It is in my LJ now, perhaps somewhere in the world it will get used.

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

I responded on UF. You may not like it, but it's less harsh than some others are being over there. And I responded because I figured you are looking for responses, otherwise, why post publicly?