UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
It's quite astonishing how little most singers know about music ...
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...and frankly don't care.
I don't think I've ever worked with a singer who knew what keys songs were in let alone chords, scales, arrangements etc. It's almost like "you play guitar - why can't you make it sound like the record?"
At most it's "what note do I come in on this?"
Guitar gear is dark arts stuff - I think I've only used one piece of gear a singer remarked on in the last 10 years and that was a wah-wah pedal. I sometimes wonder if they even know what my amplifier does other than "make a guitar sound".
It's not just amateurs - check out the This Is It / Michael Jackson doc on netflix right now - and see MJ mimicking musical sounds and beats and how it "needs to sound like on the record" to his musical director keyboardist when working out a song!
Just like a headless horse without a horse.
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To a guitarist, knowing what key it's in changes where you fret your chords, but for a singer it's just "can I get high/low enough" so not really a case of adapting, it's can I or can I not. Ask a guitarist to play an A note and you can do it on demand, it's uncommon for a singer do be able to do that without a guide, but whether do they need to add they'll just listen to what is accompanying them and come in where they need to as appropriate
… and then randomly play the tambourine whenever it suits them over your guitar solo…
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We have more singers lining up, and a potential guitarist we haven't met yet - they're making me far more nervous right now!
It's an observation I've found to be true over the years- nothing more, nothing less.
There's no malicious intent involved.
I think my music theory is okay but having been in a band with two music teachers who seemed to think it was their duty to correct me so a)my theory is lacking and b) they knew what I meant so why does it matter...
No singer knows what a bar is. To them it’s just whatever chunk of time they want it to be.
Are we all like that? ("All" meaning "all of us who play an instrument and sing a bit".)
Contrast with drummers, who (in my experience) always know exactly where the bar is and, if they are not playing, can usually be found in front of it. Or in some cases under it.
I'm not like that because I was heavy schooled in the music theory stuff as a kid doing piano lessons so I'm always very conscious and aware of exactly what notes I'm playing or singing and what they look like written on the page haha much to my detriment - hence my singing is very limited and... To be honest... Quite dull
Everything is capo 3 with him these days.
Even something as simple as the key is often misunderstood with a lot of people assuming the first chord played is the key of the song. Then during solo's completely avoidable mistakes are made because they don't know what notes are in the key and they don't know what chords they are playing over.
I see a lot of pub bands with some players who have a lovely feel and really nice control of bends and expression f#ck up constantly because they haven't bothered to study a bit of theory.
I always think no one expects everybody in the band to be some kind of musical professor but to not bother to learn anything at all theory wise is kind of making life difficult for the sake of it ... like some weird badge of honour.
In the past few months I've come into contact with two people (one singer, one guitarist) who don't understand basic time signatures and the idea of a bar of music. They couldn't even come in on the first beat of a bar. In a 4/4 piece, we'd count 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 and they'd start on the 4, not the next 1.
And as for the drummer I played with in one band who insisted that 6/8 and 3/4 were the same thing because they lasted for the same length of time...
Singer: How will I remember all that?
Me: Just do what you did last time!
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The caveat to that is that the single most important skill a musician can have is their ears (a skill I lack in bucket loads, not something I am proud of). One of my all time fave musicians is a chap called Andy Cutting. He's a completely self taught and un schooled melodeon (button accordion) player, who is one of the most in demand session musicians on the folk circuit. He can't read, by his own admission, a single note, but he has an exceptional ear and can quickly pick up stuff, then improvise and improve it.
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
In Bob Geldof's autobiography, he talks about when he went to the States for the recording of We Are The World. They gave Jacko the sheet music and asked him to give it a run-through on the vocals. Never seen it before - nailed it first take.
Producer then says could you do a harmony on the fifth? Sure no problem. Done Then a harmony on the third? Again, nailed.
If that's not knowing much about music, I hate to think what level most of us are at...
There's also the people who just cowboy chord a song then transpose it that way and basically lose the entire essence of the guitar part. I've seen this done with stuiff like nothing else matter for example.
In my opinion there's a lot of rock music that can only be transposed acceptably by re-tuning (or with pedals I guess these days).
Perhaps he had piano lessons as a kid, learnt to read music?
Or perhaps someone sang him the basic part and he took it and made it his own?
As for harmonies - I'd say someone like that who'd been in studios since a young age with the Jackson Five and then later with Quincy Jones doing a 100 takes of Billie Jean etc.. yeah - Quincy says do a fifth harmony - Jacko would have got know the sound of particular harmonies well... and could reproduce 'em on tap.
So ... my take is that Jacko was one of those people with a "great ear" for music - much like McCartney..