Why Do “Good” Musicians Play Such “Bad” Music?

Lots of subjective terms in this one, but hang in there.* 

I watched a video of a young guitarist. He blew my mind with his effortless nuance and hand dexterity. Wild energy, yet never missed a note. One of the best players I’ve seen. WOW. 

I was so impressed and distracted by his skill that I almost forgot to listen more closely. Then I noticed everything he played was musically out-of-context over a generic backing track (the kind of thing you’d hear if you pressed the “Rock” button on a 1980s Casio keyboard). 

Why such a disconnect? And why does this happen so often? 

Two other examples:

1 – A supergroup of world-class jazz fusion musicians plays what sounds like MIDI elevator or grocery store musak. People cringe because it sounds “cheesy.”

2 – A supergroup of world-class prog-metal musicians hire a singer, thinking it will make their music popular and accessible. But they don’t know how to write hooks and are out of touch with what is “cool.” They’ll never have a hit. At best, it will be called boring. At worst, silly. 

The problem: “Musician” is a Bundled Term. 

“Take the word ‘charismatic.’ What it really means is 12 skills underneath it. If you do these 12 behaviors, people begin to describe you as charismatic. In the path of personal development, we want to become this, but we haven’t chunked down the bundled term into the series of behaviors that will create the description that people will then call us. By breaking things down, then it’s not like, ‘I’m just not that (insert character trait.)’ It’s really, ‘I have not mastered these 12 skills.’ 

“By doing that, it demystifies. If someone says, ‘stop being a dick,’ it’s not helpful. What are the 18 things that I have to do? Oftentimes, it’s significantly more things, but they’re also much easier than you think. But when you break it down that way, all of a sudden, you can wrap your arms around it.”

-Alex Hormozi, Modern Wisdom Podcast, Episode 830

Instead of assuming we’re good or bad at something, maybe we should break it apart. Examine its parts.

“I’m godlike at playing notes on the guitar” doesn’t mean you have the other bundled skills under the term musician.

There’s also songwriting, memorization, and the rare ability to use a calendar. And that subjective skill called taste. 

That’s why, in classical music, there is an acceptable division of labor between musician and composer. It’s two different jobs based on two different and deep skill sets. At a high level, they rarely coexist in an individual.

Maybe modern musicians should adhere to that tradition. 

(The bigger problem is that the sub-skill of “enhancing the music with a bit of a visual show” has grown like a parasite and replaced the essential act of playing music. No actual musicians are needed, and instruments are now merely additional visual props for dancers. Look again at the photo at the top of this post. Our brain assumes they are musicians because they are dressed like musicians — yet they have no instruments. [Maybe they are an a capella group or tap dancers.] See The Image by Boorstin.)

*”Good” and “bad” are, of course, dependent on personal taste and popular culture norms. If you enjoy watching a guitarist play very fast licks without concern for the musical context, I won’t say you’re wrong. I also enjoy it. But it’s still worth deconstructing.