What does it take to be a successful musician?

[hbcrandy]

How do one cast a vote in these Tubenet polls?

[jamsav]

depending on how success is defined , If I had all of the above I would consider myself incredibly suucessful but alas, while you can have all of the above and not be successful , or none of the above and be very successful , there clearly must be other variables...

[Chriss2760]

In my experience, this one comes the closest to the truth:

B. Be the nicest person YOU can be.

The tuba players that can play the parts are many; the ones that can do so graciously and with appreciation and respect for all the other people involved in the production are few.
Be one of the few and you will be successful.

[k001k47]

seventeen thousand + posts on tubienet?

This times infinity

[GC]

Mmmm . . . I'd call Johnny Cash a showman, an icon, a great performer, a risk-taker, and a fascinating personality, but I don't know that he should be called a musician. For that matter, there have been plenty of successful singers and songwriters who can only charitably be called musicians. I'm a great admirer of JC, but not for his musical skills. Successful? Absolutely.

[Donn]

Mmmm . . . I'd call Johnny Cash a showman, an icon, a great performer, a risk-taker, and a fascinating personality, but I don't know that he should be called a musician. For that matter, there have been plenty of successful singers and songwriters who can only charitably be called musicians.

OK, that certainly suggests an answer to the question - what does it take to be a successful musician?

- be a performer.

I would have sort of taken that for granted - it seems to me that the very essence of being a musician, is to perform. It's like, I don't know, an athlete who perfects his or her skills in order to compete in some event - the bottom line is where you place at the event. In the end, it's your musical performance vs. the listener, and for me, if you saw a great performance, you have seen a great musician.

[GC]

What makes a performer a musician? While Britney Spears has been successful as a performer, it's mostly been on her dancing and stage skills, on her ability to put on a spectacle. I'd in no way call her an actual musician; I've heard her sing. She can carry a tune, but little else.

Florence Foster Jenkins put on heavily-attended concerts, but it was not her musical skill that brought her attention. I'm sure that she was a success in her own mind, but nowhere else.

I really feel that musicianship and successful performance have become separable in today's "record almost anything with a gimmick and it'll sell" atmosphere.

[Donn]

What makes a performer a musician? While Britney Spears has been successful as a performer, it's mostly been on her dancing and stage skills, on her ability to put on a spectacle. I'd in no way call her an actual musician; I've heard her sing. She can carry a tune, but little else.

Florence Foster Jenkins put on heavily-attended concerts, but it was not her musical skill that brought her attention. I'm sure that she was a success in her own mind, but nowhere else.

I'm with you so far, but I don't think you really are declaring these to be great performance, from your own perspective - well, you say as much with Spears - we're talking about musical performance, of course, so if dancing and acting per se are the attraction, she isn't the best example of a successful musician.

If Johnny Cash was no better, then we're really talking about something else, how to be successful without being good, and some of the other ideas follow - get a good promoter, for example. I'm not a giant fan (don't own any recordings, didn't see the movie etc., just watched his show when I was a kid), but he was plenty good at what he did. I don't really know the story, it sounds like a raw natural talent but may for all I know have been finely honed skills in every category listed in the poll, suitably adapted to the genre. I mean, for example, his voice had a kind of unsteady, apparently untrained quality, but to say he doesn't have `beautiful tone' is to ridiculously confuse CW singing with madrigals or whatever, it was superbly suited to what he was doing.

[Brown Mule]

You just need to look "purty" on TV. They can "dub" in the music to make you successful.

[Rick Denney]

Florence Foster Jenkins put on heavily-attended concerts, but it was not her musical skill that brought her attention.

Oh, yes it was. Nobody would have been there at all were it not for her technical characteristics. She was not a dancer, nor was she particularly beautiful. She couldn't tell jokes for anything. With her, it was all about the musical skill, and only in reference to skill. People were there for entirely intellectual reasons.

People didn't go to hear Johnny Cash because he sang off-key hilariously the way Jenkins did. They went because he spoke to their souls. For those people, musical skill is that chill they get. It is for us, too, actually. It's just often something different that causes that chill. People go to concerts not so much for intellectual reasons as for emotional reasons. The music that appeals only to the intellect will never attract more than a niche crowd.

Rick "who has been emotionally moved by everything from Johnny Cash to Philip Glass" Denney

[GC]

I would rather say that it was her lack of musical skill that brought people in to FFJ concerts. Or maybe anti-skill, or her place at the bottom of the spectrum of skills. I just can't see calling what she did 'skilled' or the result of musical skills.

[Dean E]

Know your audience. (Aristotle)

[k001k47]

People go to concerts not so much for intellectual reasons as for emotional reasons. The music that appeals only to the intellect will never attract more than a niche crowd.

Like I said, effectively communicating a muse -- which is commonly centered on emotion in music.

I like that you mention Johnny Cash. He really displayed this ability when he covered "Hurt" late in his life, and I mention this song because it is a cover and can be compared to another musician's interpretation.

[Rick Denney]

I would rather say that it was her lack of musical skill that brought people in to FFJ concerts. Or maybe anti-skill, or her place at the bottom of the spectrum of skills. I just can't see calling what she did 'skilled' or the result of musical skills.

No, they certainly did not come to experience her great skill. But skill was the only reason they came.

Rick "as (hopefully) opposed to all other successful musical performances where skill isn't the only reason" Denney