What's the point of "musicianship"?
 

I don't understand it. People will sit in places they don't want to be, listening to music they don't enjoy, while they lie and tell the band they did great, because it makes them look good. Now, maybe if you honestly enjoyed the band, you would support them, but it's seems very dishonest to me. It sounds greedy to me. But I suppose that's Showbiz.

As always, just my opinion, and a great deal of venting.

I think you may not understand the definition of "musicianship".
Musicianship refers to increasing your skills in music playing - it has nothing to do with hypocritical butt-kissing as suggested by your example.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/musicianship

What are you talking about??? :confused:

MM

That is a good point. For me, people typically refer to musicianship as hypocritical butt kissing.

Easy on the carrots!

You're talking crazy nonsense.

Hmm. I've usually heard of musicianship being defined as a phony kind of sportsmanship. But maybe that's just me :l

Click the link to the dictionary definition in my 1st post, and do some readin'....

:eyebrow:

You did great, OP! *claps*

LOL I also agree one of the best threads I have read today and I think your opinion is very important don't ever think otherwise.

What does your little rant have to do with musicianship?
Musicianship = craftsmanship.

I usually preface my opinion on anothers music with " are you askin me to tell you what i think or tell you what ya want to hear"? I appreciate hard honesty cant improve with butt kissin no matter how good it feels.

Hehe. I'm sorry, I think I should apologize, I was just frustratingly venting on the Internet, in a very rude manor. It's been said that the Internet will always listen to your great magnificent opinions, so I thought "hey, this is a great magnificent opinion that is plenty worth contributing to the vast array of prosperous knowledge on this site"

-not. Honestly though, I do apologize for my rant.

I think what you are referring to is "sycophancy".

What is wrong with telling a band that I don't care for that they did great. The band that practices in the room next to ours is a great band. I can't stand their music, but they are talented, tight, write quality songs, sing well, and have a lot of potential. I compliment them on their playing, and I am sincere about it.

Don't confuse your personal taste with what is "good" or "bad" music.

I personally kiss a lot of @$$ at shows because it's good for the local scene. My bandmates do too. If you show support for a group, regardless of what you think of their tunes, it'll increase the likelyhood that you'll have one of many buddy bands to swap shows with, and that starts to spread around. If bands in a local or even regional scene support one another over just leaving when their set is done, it helps get everyone more recognition, gets more people to come to the shows, and bands can start getting paid.

To get this out of the way: I have no clue why the OP sees "musicianship" as butt-kissing, but maybe in his musical circles this applies.

Hard honesty doesn't feel good most of times (and can potentially make one severely unpopular), but who cares? It's satisfying to live as a honest man rather than a hypocritical one.

Nope, no need to apologize. Besides, if you think about it, people in real life tend to think too much of themselves, so ranting about this stuff will never get their attention. But the Web has the unspoken quality of giving even the tiniest rant a spotlight. Enjoy yourself.

I'm a tad lost on what the OP is talking about. If you're talking about good musicians who play boring music that nobody really likes, then I tend to agree with you. Still, I was invited to Tamworth years ago, which is Australia's big country music festival. While I'm not a country music fan at all, I was extremely impressed by the "musicianship" of most of the players.

I was even more impressed with how they treated me. They knew I was a Rock & Roll guy, but I was still invited to play with tons of great musicians, and I had a great time and learned a hell of of a lot (I was hardly off stage in the 10 days I was there). It taught me a good lesson - Rock musicians can be some of the worst snobs in music, while country and jazz players are often much more laid back and generous. I've been back to Tamworth a couple of times, and it's always been the same - if you can play an instrument, they'll invite you to play with them no matter what your musical tastes. It's all just music, after all.

This ^

Well... this was a fun read.

If you really dislike what a band is playing, and the way they play, don't stick around to offer compliments. I would never criticize anyone without being asked, and even then I would try to make it as constructive as possible. I want to support other musicians and make the local scene better and better. I also agree with being able to separate your taste out of a judgment of a band or player- it's the real noob or simple uninitiated listener who says anything they don't personally like "sucks".

Also OP, about the definition of "musicianship", I think that is just you.