Hi Ace, you made some interesting points. First about my screenname, I have been using it for years, the Nitro part comes from a computergame I used to play when I was 14. The 1976 part is my birthyear, so unfortunately it’s not related to shredding, that would be cool.
About our philosophical argument, you are right in that we need judgment to function. The problem is the different meanings the word “judgment” can have.
You can judge if the street is safe to cross. But you can also judge someone on the color of his skin.
So if judging is “right or wrong” depends on the context. Everybody has preferences. So there is automatically judgment involved when you have to choose between things.
What I am opposed to is the winner-loser mentality. That there can only be one winner and the rest are losers. This is clearly taught and enforced in our culture, just look at sports.
When “winning” is the goal, there is also something as “losing”, and if you put it that way there is only one winner and the rest are losers. The funny thing is that people are not even using the winner-loser system correctly.
For example, let’s say a child won a chess tournament. We call him “the winner”, but technically he is a “loser”, because he would lose to a grandmaster.
In my opinion it would be much better if a competition would be viewed not as who is better and who is worse, but more like a test of your current abilities.
That is much more true to what it actually is and much more constructive. Instead of classifying coming in second as “inferior” or being a “loser”, you would just see it as a test and objectively observe what needs to be improved and what is working fine.
In music it holds even more true, because everyone argues about why soandso is “the best” guitarist, but unless you define and agree upon measurable criteria, there is no way of deciding who “the best” is.
But again, I know what you mean. If you want to become a session player, and the producer will have a choice out of 10 different players, you’d better be the one that is “better” ,in his eyes at least, than the rest.
There is no other way when you do things for money. Because money has been made to be scarce, you will have to compete for it.
What I meant in my original post is that I see music as a fundamental thing to be healthy and happy, and what I noticed is that because people feel that they are “bad singers” or “could never be famous” they give up on their musical abilities altogether. I think that is a damn shame and that the competitive aspect certainly plays a negative role in it.
Because when you play music or you want to sing, you should enjoy it first and not feeling that you are competing with Yngwie or Bieber.
So I think we both have a point, I just see it from the point of the amateur and general well-being, you see it from the cut-throat environment of the music business.
Amen.
