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[QUOTE=adamcz]Once you know a bit about music, learning instruments is easy. Mastering them is another story, but getting to be as proficient as Andre Benjamin is would taken most professional musicians a week or two[/QUOTE]
I am going to take a wild guess and say that you in fact have no idea how proficient he is with any instrument and are just guessing how good he is to suit your argument.
[QUOTE=Lascar78]I am going to take a wild guess and say that you in fact have no idea how proficient he is with any instrument and are just guessing how good he is to suit your argument.[/QUOTE]
I have all the Outkast albums, so the only way you're right is if he hasn't demonstrated his proficiency on them. Nice guess though.
What I've heard of his guitar and piano playing is perfectly adequate to express the music he writes, but it's not like he could get gigs if playing those instruments was all he did.
I like Andre, and I think he's a great musician. Very creative, and a great rapper with a lot of rhythmic control. He just doesn't play any instruments on a professional level.
Hip-Hop and pop isn't really based on excellent musicianship or a showcase of proficiency. They require basic, hooky riffs over and over.
So I doubt his proficiency across several instruments would really be heard on any Hip-Pop album.
I can play guitar better than Andre, can play piano better than Andre, and can play trumpet on the level of his sax play, does that make me a muiscal demigod to you guys?
So you sat down and jammed with him?
Yeah, right.
The point is you really don't know how proficient he is with any of those instruments, and you definitely can't judge him based on what he plays on a Hip-Pop album.
[QUOTE=DeuceWallaces]The point is you really don't know how proficient he is with any of those instruments, and you definitely can't judge him based on what he plays on a Hip-Pop album.[/QUOTE]
Yes I can. I've been a professional musician for 9 years now, and the study of music has taken up at least a couple hours of almost every day during that time. I can infer a few things on a quick listen at this point. How long do you think it takes Phil Jackson to tell if somebody is a professional caliber basketball player? Does he have to see the person play in an actual NBA game to be sure? Or could he watch me at the park and know I'm not an NBA player?
You being a musician for only 9 years does not qualify you. It's not an inference you can make. Tell me about how you sat around with Andre, hung out, jammed for a few hours, took lessons from him, saw him at a performance of classical or jazz music, or that you read some article where he or someone close to him states that he's just gettin by on the instruments.
This is very simple.
You can make very few, if any, assumptions of his proficiency based on a few pop records.
If you were such a great musician you would realize that pop music is driven by simplicity and clever hooks. Not how well you can shred on a guitar or drop some Liszt on the keyboard.
My inclination is that he's not some master musician, but don't act like you can tell based on his pop records.
if I were him, and I was magically gifted though, you can be damned sure I'd put it all into a record I knew millions of people were going to buy. Otherwise what's the point? If I'm going to the trouble of making an album, I'm not going to dumb it down for people, I'm going to use all the talent I have to put together the best record I can.
I agree with Adam somewhat here, you can usually tell the level of play that a musician has from recordings, not 100% obviously, but you can get a good picture
Listen to any radio single for a rock group. Like Aerosmith. Listen to Joe Perry play 5 chords over and over on I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing, Angel, or the radio promos for something off Get a Grip. No solo, hardly any breaks or fill ins, just some straight guitar work. You couldn't judge him off that.
Plus, you're talking about hip hop. They'll take one chord and loop it through the whole song. You think they can't hire great studio musicians to light it up on their albums? Of course they can, but it's not necessary nor is it a good idea, because popular music relies on simple hooks.
well obviously it does, I guess I'm just more pissed that there are a ton of musicians out there with talent that don't use it to full effect when they put out a record, and are content to stick with the same old formula just so they don't alienate their audience. So dull
There's more music than you could ever listen to in a lifetime that fits your bill. You just have to look for it. Plenty of [I]musicians[/I] making records out there.
I'm just saying you can't judge technical mastery from a hip hop record. Well, unless you're a drummer I guess.
lol hey you don't have to tell me about other music than the mainstream pop, I got hundreds of records and CDs from every genre with recordings spanning 90 years, and I've been an amateur musician for 20 years. I've heard a lot of music in my time, and I'm always looking for more, I just want some of these artists who have the global spotlight to use it to really reach out and slap some sense and imagination into the huddled masses. Hell at this point I don't even care if it doesn't work, I just want someone to go down in flames trying.
outkast said on BET the album really isnt a soundtrack.. there isnt any music they actually use in the movie featured on the album..
OK, understood but they didn't get into the global spotlight with any instrument mastery they may or may not have. And they're are lots of pop artists that try to switch it up, and guess what, they go bye-bye. No one will buy it, and no label will promote.
see that seems like fun to me, but I've always been a bit of a masochist, so probably not a great example