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QUOTE: We Shouldn't Have Music Anxiety

Posted on: 2008-05-13

From Lucas Gonze in an interview with John Udell:

Imagine that we lived in a world where all photography was the kind you see in magazines. In this world all photos are taken by professionals and all the people who got their pictures taken are models at the peak of their career. If you had your picture taken normally, you’d think you were hideously ugly. That is the musical world we grew up in, and it’s bogus. Things don’t have to be that way.

We reflect on ourselves by comparing to our context - our self image is often bad enough because we don't look like movie stars, but I agree that music is worse. While we do see plenty of non movie-star-looking people just by walking around every day, we just don't hear so much non-professional, non-produced music. A hundred years ago or so it would be a treat to hear a professional play music on a high-quality instrument - now it's exceptional to hear an amateur play on a regular one.

This quote really spoke to me - as a mediocre guitarist, a passable keyboardist, and a lousy singer, I don't tend to share my music, and I sometimes catch myself being upset because my playing (by myself with headphones) of the solo from "Comfortably Numb" doesn't sound like the one from David Gilmour (rated the fourth best guitar solo of all time by Guitar World magazine).

People should make their own music - even if it's just singing in the shower - and shouldn't feel bad about it. I think it would be make the world at least a little better.

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