Furthermore this video has sparked up a conversation inside my head about our idea of musicianship and music in the metal community. It doesn’t matter how many notes you play. It doesn’t matter how many strings you use. Or how complex your composition is. Or how theoretically advanced your song is. None of it matters. None of it. Music, just like gear, is a means to an end. The end this time is pleasure and emotion. These two things are what every piece of music, no matter the characteristics, seeks to create. None of the characteristics of the composition, whether its radio pop, classical music, grind, or prog metal, matter if the desired ends are created. And regarding the individual, as one youtube commenter pointed out, shout yourself out in the comments if you see this and want some credit, professional, classical musicians dress up in suits and head to fancy venues to perform only a few notes. A cog in the machine of the piece. So are we, members of a musical community who value and emphasize open-mindedness and musical exploration, going to limit ourselves to ideas of musicianship more narrow than that of the supposedly rigid genre of classical music? That doesn’t seem right to me. So if a musician wants to make his music on a 100,000$ self tuning Gibson LP he bought on ebay, let him. If he wants to play a one-stringed guitar and play a total of about 6 notes, like the folk artist I’ve provided below for another one stringed example, and make that instrument the focus of the piece. Let him. And shut up while you’re at it and remember that music is a means to an end.
