Just when things seem the same and the whole scene is lame I come and reign with the unexplained

July 18, 2011 11:16 AM

John Mayer visits Berklee to speak to students and offer insight on learning music theory, making music, listening to music, and the temptation to publish yourself.

On Cynicism: "If you’re good, and you know you’re good, and you know you’re better than those people getting paid to do it, you still have to have an open ear….Nobody’s music is the enemy of your music…The idea that someone else has made it when they shouldn’t have made it is toxic thinking."

On Twitter: "The tweets are getting shorter, but the songs are still 4 minutes long. You’re coming up with 140-character zingers, and the song is still 4 minutes long…I realized about a year ago that I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore. And I was a tweetaholic. I had four million twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using twitter as an outlet and I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song."

posted by cashman (64 comments total)

"And I couldn’t write a song."

He never let that stop him before!
posted by entropicamericana at 11:21 AM on July 18, 2011 [24 favorites]

Before the snark begins, I'd like to say 2 things:

1) This is actually perfectly sound advice, that, coming from anybody else would be embraced.

2) John Mayer is an amazing guitar player.


That's all.
posted by lattiboy at 11:27 AM on July 18, 2011 [15 favorites]

John Mayer is an amazing guitar player.

I love John Mayer, and so don't look forward to snark, but yes, he is definitely an amazing guitar player, especially blues.
posted by sweetkid at 11:29 AM on July 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Before the snark begins

Alas.
posted by swift at 11:29 AM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, before all the 'LOL John Mayer' shit starts, I'll say that this was actually a pretty great read. I know SO many musicians who haven't released a record, don't practice or play shows, and don't make any quality work in general, but they tweet and facebook like they're rock stars.

I also really liked his comments on the 'only a few people make it' thing. This has really bogged me down before. But when you here people say such things - and many even in this community do - it usually says more about the person saying it, since it is true that it doesn't make much sense as a piece of advice. There is not limit on how many people can be successful musicians.

This I thought was also quite insightful: “This is when you see somebody who’s frighteningly good and you stay and watch them until the moment you can rationalize with yourself that actually they’re not.” In addition to his earlier statement that “nobody’s music is the enemy of your music,” Mayer also added that “your limitations will define you in the best way. Your limitations make you who you are” But he was also careful to add that it's a myth that having good technique (re: actually working at being a good musician) will not 'cramp your style' or whatever - that part of being a good musician and writing good songs is actually doing the work.

Thanks for the post. Better than I thought it would be, honestly.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:30 AM on July 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

I've never met another human who could play this song in a convincing manner. Much less while singing. Admittedly the lyrics are not great, but MY GOD THOSE 16th notes!!!!
posted by lattiboy at 11:31 AM on July 18, 2011

Before the snark begins, I'd like to say 2 things:

1) This is actually perfectly sound advice, that, coming from anybody else would be embraced.

-

Well, before all the 'LOL John Mayer' shit starts, I'll say that this was actually a pretty great read.


Heh.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:31 AM on July 18, 2011

Ah, Berklee. The only school in Boston where if you do graduate, you've failed.
posted by maryr at 11:31 AM on July 18, 2011 [13 favorites]

Mayer Mentors, a write-up on his 2008 week-long visit to Berklee.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:31 AM on July 18, 2011

*hear
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:32 AM on July 18, 2011

Clay Cook cowrote some songs with Mayer, including Neon, and is pretty awesome in his own right.
posted by sweetkid at 11:34 AM on July 18, 2011

BTW, don't limit yourself, Mayer. Some artists find Twitter inspiring.
posted by maryr at 11:37 AM on July 18, 2011

But he was also careful to add that it's a myth that having good technique (re: actually working at being a good musician) will not 'cramp your style' or whatever

So true... two examples are Prince and Robert Smith, both of whom can shred on the guitar and both of whom don't use that skill on many or most of their songs.
posted by Huck500 at 11:37 AM on July 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Lutoslawski: “But he was also careful to add that it's a myth that having good technique (re: actually working at being a good musician) will not 'cramp your style' or whatever - that part of being a good musician and writing good songs is actually doing the work.”

I don't understand this sentence. It's a myth that working at being a musician will not cramp your style? So working at being a musician will cramp your style? I guess maybe you added a "not" that you didn't mean.
posted by koeselitz at 11:43 AM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lutoslawski: “But he was also careful to add that it's a myth that having good technique (re: actually working at being a good musician) will not 'cramp your style' or whatever - that part of being a good musician and writing good songs is actually doing the work.”

I don't understand this sentence. It's a myth that working at being a musician will not cramp your style? So working at being a musician will cramp your style? I guess maybe you added a "not" that you didn't mean.

Good christ this is one of those times I long for the 3 minute edit window. All sorts of editing problems in my comment. Yeah, I didn't mean that 'not,' i.e. it's a myth that being a skilled and proficient musician will make you lose some sort of style. Theory and skill are not there to help you start writing songs, they're there for helping you finish them (i.e. for when the initial inspiration leaves off and you need to actually construct the damn thing).

Apologies for hitting post too soon earlier.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:47 AM on July 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ah, I see in the article where he talked about that – I understand now. Sorry, Lutoslawski.

Anyway, I think that's very true. This all comes down to punk, doesn't it? It's a lesson we learned from punk: that music can be beautiful regardless of its source, so we can't write off "untalented" musicians as valueless. I think that's absolutely true; but as a jazz musician, I also think it's true that the spiritual practice of pursuit of excellence as a musician isn't something that compromises me. It's something that extends me as a human being. Both of those things can be true; there doesn't have to be a contradiction.
posted by koeselitz at 11:49 AM on July 18, 2011 [6 favorites]

(In other words: people have this misconception that the lesson of punk is that talent is crap, and nobody should try to be talented. But that's not it at all; the lesson of punk was that pretention is crap, that believing music is good or bad solely based on the virtuosity of the performers makes no sense. Skill is still worth pursuing, though.)
posted by koeselitz at 11:51 AM on July 18, 2011 [16 favorites]

Learning Too Much Theory and Technique Will Replace One’s Style

...

With his swiftest de-bunking of the clinic, Mayer said “I’ve been trying to extend my vocal range for 10 years. I just can’t get that original style to get replaced And I’ve been trying. So if I can’t do it when I try, you can’t do it when you don’t try. It’s a lazy excuse, it’s a cop-out, I am on to you, not allowed to say it anymore.”

As someone who has never wavered from the desire to learn more theory and more technique, I've come to realize that this issue is a lot more complicated than anyone wants to admit. Learning theory and technique is essentially the process of gaining fluency in the stylistic elements of a particular musical genre or genre family, which will undoubtedly replace some intuitive habits. The idea that your "style" won't change sort of relies on an assumption that the theory you learn is a superset of the sort of intuitive musical language you pick up on just by being a music-oriented person in society, which I think is unfounded. At the very least I feel comfortable asserting that any theoretical framework wide enough to admit that many styles is also insufficiently detailed to inform your playing to any meaningful degree.
posted by invitapriore at 11:56 AM on July 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

as a jazz musician, I also think it's true that the spiritual practice of pursuit of excellence as a musician isn't something that compromises me.

I'm a bit torn on this point. Whatever path you choose in music is valid, but they undoubtedly create different musicians. Once you learn how to play jazz solos in a very specific tradition, you're going to incorporate that knowledge into your jazz playing more often than not. It can be limiting, in that learning the 'proper' way to do things can make you afraid to play 'improperly', do your own thing. At that point you'll have to consciously break the rules, which is different from not knowing the rules, which is also different from not even knowing there are rules. You learned how to solo in an acceptable way within a jazz band, congrats - it's no small feat. You can make a living that way. But the things you learn limit you, and it's hard to unlearn them. And I personally feel that the path less trodden is where the real fun starts.
posted by naju at 12:10 PM on July 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

John Mayer is an amazing guitar player.

I love John Mayer, and so don't look forward to snark, but yes, he is definitely an amazing guitar player, especially blues.

He is also an amazing songwriter. I've been following John Mayer's career since my teenage years, and his songwriting craft and lyrical writing has consistently blown me away.

I actually listen closely to the lyrics (and the bluesy flourishes that "speak"). I focus. Does this make him a poet at times?
posted by stroke_count at 12:13 PM on July 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

I call bs on the twitter complaint. Just because you learn how to compact your thinking doesn't mean you can't turn around and create with words with a broader canvas. The problem probably was he was spending too much time on twitter and not enough writing songs.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:18 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's a lot of very good advice there. Cool post.

I'm a guitarist and I love John Mayer's playing and songwriting. I don't understand how anyone who plays guitar can not be in awe at the level of feeling that he brings to very technical playing.

The problem probably was he was spending too much time on twitter and not enough writing songs.

I suspect there's some truth to this and that his own meta analysis of the issue is just a more complicated way of saying the same thing. I got the impression that his creative energy and attention were being squandered on Twitter while his album got written and produced as an afterthought and ended up an overpolished turd as a result. There are a few brilliant moments on it, but the whole production is just so softened to death that it's really sad to listen to, particularly in the shadow of Continuum and John Mayer Trio.
posted by The World Famous at 12:21 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think he's a great songwriter as well, although everytime I hear "Daughters" I want to scream, who knows what was going on there? However, he has talked briefly about struggles with depression/anxiety and this definitely comes through in some of his very early songs.
posted by sweetkid at 12:22 PM on July 18, 2011

When I was in high school, around 9-10 years ago, I saw John Mayer play a lot when he was getting off the ground in Atlanta. I thought he was fantastic then; obviously very talented, a good songwriter, and clever and witty. He would perform with just him and a bassist and you could really appreciate that he knew what he was doing. All of his music since then has been terribly overproduced, and I can't help but wonder if he's proud of his career or sees it as the faustian bargain it seems to me. But then again, how many of us wouldn't do the same if given the chance. It makes him an interesting person to speak to aspiring musicians about cynicism and so on... I wonder if that quote ("Nobody’s music is the enemy of your music") is the result of a certain amount of defensiveness from being attacked or slighted by people whose opinions he respects.
posted by dixiecupdrinking at 12:27 PM on July 18, 2011

"...I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”

Possibly of interest. Edge asks prominent intellectuals: How is the internet changing the way you think?
posted by stroke_count at 12:36 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

All of his music since then has been terribly overproduced

I can't imagine the production on the Try! album being any more sparse than it is without it being a bootleg recording. And a lot of Continuum is not overproduced at all. Battle Studies is way overproduced, though, even though it does have some truly brilliant moments, and I think it really exemplifies what you're saying about the faustian bargain. But I also think it would have been more commercially successful if it had been more sparsely produced and arranged.

He should go back and re-record it live in the studio as a three or four-piece in a single take, just to show that the songs can be better than they turned out on the commercially-released album. He won't do that, of course. But I feel that way about a lot of albums that I think could have been better. In keeping with some of what he was saying at Berklee, it's not fair to the songs to leave them in that overproduced, saccharine state. He should give them the effort they deserve to really finish them right.

I can relate a lot more to him now than I could a few years ago. I went through a frustrating process recording an album with a band I've played in for a long time, having been a co-writer of all the songs on the album. What should have taken a few weeks ended up eating up session after session over the span of a couple of years, for no good reason. The end result is, I think, a really great production with great mixing and mastering. And I'm very proud of a lot of my own playing on the album. But I'm not proud of the overall sound of it or the feel - the soul, I guess - of the album. One of my bandmates recently had an opportunity to play it for one of our musical idols and he and I discussed how neither of us want that to be the thing we play for someone that represents who we are musically. It is really quite painful, actually. I have done other things I'm a lot more proud of, and this most recent one took the longest and is the most technically well-done thing I've ever done. But it's just not right, or something.
posted by The World Famous at 12:38 PM on July 18, 2011 [8 favorites]

Edge asks prominent intellectuals:

U2 and John Mayer in one thread? You're just throwing chum in the water here.
posted by dubold at 12:50 PM on July 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

me: “... as a jazz musician, I also think it's true that the spiritual practice of pursuit of excellence as a musician isn't something that compromises me.”

naju: “I'm a bit torn on this point. Whatever path you choose in music is valid, but they undoubtedly create different musicians. Once you learn how to play jazz solos in a very specific tradition, you're going to incorporate that knowledge into your jazz playing more often than not. It can be limiting, in that learning the 'proper' way to do things can make you afraid to play 'improperly', do your own thing. At that point you'll have to consciously break the rules, which is different from not knowing the rules, which is also different from not even knowing there are rules.”

I agree with this, but the trouble is that you've just described the entire framework of American music, and perhaps all music everywhere. No real music can be made when you're just following rules; and even the "tradition" of jazz is just a long sequence of people breaking rules in different ways. There is really no sense in which there is an accepted or 'proper' way to do things in jazz – or in any other kind of modern music – because the rules have been broken so many times. The point is what you make of it, not what you can do within a set framework that we cannot step beyond.

Also: you mention that jazz musicians come to this at a different trajectory than, say, a punk rocker in 1978 who just picked up a guitar for the first time a week ago. But making it binary like that simplifies the reality of the situation, in which there are in fact as many trajectories as there are musicians. I was playing punk rock in my garage at 15; I did it my freshman year of college, too. But then by my junior year I was playing piano in a jazz group. They're both things I go back to a lot, and it feels wrong for me to try to force myself to choose. And I could give examples of musicians I look up to in both "traditions" who have the same diverse experience; when it comes down, I think everybody does. Is Television less worthwhile as a band because they were punks who could play their guitars well? Is Miles Davis less worthwhile as a musician because he traded the dazzling virtuosity of earlier jazz trumpeters for a slower and some would say 'easier' mellow tone? I don't think so.

Finally, I think the problem, as always, is generally the overuse of categories. Duke Ellington – whom many would probably label "traditional jazz" today – always objected strenuously when people called his music "jazz" at all. He said that forcing any music into a category limits it and the musicians performing it.

“You learned how to solo in an acceptable way within a jazz band, congrats - it's no small feat. You can make a living that way.”

Ha. Don't I wish.

“But the things you learn limit you, and it's hard to unlearn them. And I personally feel that the path less trodden is where the real fun starts.”

This is where I disagree. I believe that if you really learn something, it can't limit you. It's only when you half-learn something, or when you make something an unconscious habit, that you're limiting yourself. But true knowledge – conscious learning – never limits you.
posted by koeselitz at 12:51 PM on July 18, 2011 [5 favorites]

TWF: Thanks for the info. I have to admit I haven't kept up with him since being disappointed in his first couple of albums, so it's good to hear at least some of his stuff has been better. Even his first album, which was mostly songs that he used to play all the time solo, was grossly glossy to me and such a departure from what he had been doing so well.
posted by dixiecupdrinking at 12:52 PM on July 18, 2011

But it's just not right, or something.

Totally, man. How is it some painting I spent a month on is worse than that five minute sketch?

If I want to say "I love you" there's no need to write it in steel letters three hundred feet tall across the horizon..a simple wink and a smile might do just as much or more.
posted by chronkite at 12:53 PM on July 18, 2011

That's kind of heart breaking, World Famous.
posted by entropos at 12:55 PM on July 18, 2011

I know SO many musicians who haven't released a record, don't practice or play shows, and don't make any quality work in general

I have to wonder, if these people don't play music...what makes them musicians?
posted by adamdschneider at 12:59 PM on July 18, 2011

Ah, Berklee. The only school in Boston where if you do graduate, you've failed.

That's right. Mayer attended Berklee for two semesters before leaving for Atlanta.
posted by ericb at 1:04 PM on July 18, 2011

That's kind of heart breaking, World Famous.

True. But it's better than not making any music at all.

And don't feel too bad for me. Between all those sessions, I did spend about an hour co-writing and playing guitar on a song for someone else that has become pretty successful and that is the first time I've heard myself on the radio and on TV shows. There's a lot to be said for shaking off self-doubt and working to get things done without second guessing.
posted by The World Famous at 1:08 PM on July 18, 2011 [4 favorites]

sweetkid: “I think he's a great songwriter as well, although everytime I hear "Daughters" I want to scream, who knows what was going on there?”

Maybe I need to listen to more of his music to understand what he's doing, but this has always been so painfully creepy and sleazy that forcing myself to listen to Mayer is a real trial. I have watched youtube videos where he guests on others' tracks, and he does indeed seem to be a pretty great guitar player; his lyrics and songwriting, however, I can't really abide.
posted by koeselitz at 1:27 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

his lyrics and songwriting, however, I can't really abide.

I am pretty much in this boat. He has always struck me as a talented musician working in an idiom I mostly loathe.

That said, "Your Body is a Wonderland" strikes me as more boring than creepy.
posted by brennen at 1:35 PM on July 18, 2011

This is where I disagree. I believe that if you really learn something, it can't limit you. It's only when you half-learn something, or when you make something an unconscious habit, that you're limiting yourself. But true knowledge – conscious learning – never limits you.

What do you make of the difficulties that talented musicians have in crossing genre boundaries? There are probably lot of good contemporary examples, but the one I'm thinking of is Mahler. He supported Schoenberg in good faith, but when it came down to it, he admitted that he couldn't really hear what was going on in (I forget) either Schoenberg's first or second string quartet. I don't think you can make a case for his having half-learned his craft, or its theoretical principles, but that knowledge nonetheless made it difficult or impossible for him to receive or understand the principles behind Schoenberg's music. It's not really about knowledge, anyway, so much as acculturation. An analogous case would be the difficulty that Japanese speakers often have in hearing the difference between the consonants 'r' and 'l' as spoken in English. They're not bad at language, they're just biased towards the sounds of a different aural lexicon than we are.
posted by invitapriore at 1:36 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have to wonder, if these people don't play music...what makes them musicians?

Yeah, I don't know any musicians like that. I guess I've done a good job not surrounding myself with people like that. Sounds more like posers or bedroom playing warriors to me.

--

Music is a language. Theory just makes what you're able to say easier. It's a way of improving music vocabulary and grammar giving one an easier way to express things. Trial and error works too but can really limit in just the same ways relying solely on theory could.
posted by zephyr_words at 1:53 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

U2 and John Mayer in one thread? You're just throwing chum in the water here.

Chuck Klosterman and Dave Eggers did a great segment about this on Radiolab last week.
posted by middleclasstool at 2:27 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

a segment on what?
posted by sweetkid at 2:29 PM on July 18, 2011

Nothing. Just continuing the list of "things MeFites hurriedly line up to report their hatred of", i.e., more chum. Was a small joke.
posted by middleclasstool at 2:35 PM on July 18, 2011

middleclasstool, I think I saw a piece in HuffPo about that.
posted by maryr at 2:39 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

me: “This is where I disagree. I believe that if you really learn something, it can't limit you. It's only when you half-learn something, or when you make something an unconscious habit, that you're limiting yourself. But true knowledge – conscious learning – never limits you.”

invitapriore: “What do you make of the difficulties that talented musicians have in crossing genre boundaries? There are probably lot of good contemporary examples, but the one I'm thinking of is Mahler. He supported Schoenberg in good faith, but when it came down to it, he admitted that he couldn't really hear what was going on in (I forget) either Schoenberg's first or second string quartet. I don't think you can make a case for his having half-learned his craft, or its theoretical principles, but that knowledge nonetheless made it difficult or impossible for him to receive or understand the principles behind Schoenberg's music.”

I don't agree that Mahler's knowledge was what made it difficult for him to understand Schoenberg. I claim that it was a lack of knowledge.

Otherwise, we're led into the difficulty conundrum that music must become worse and worse the more we learn about it, until finally we learn so much that we're completely walled off from enjoyment at all. That does not fit with my experience.

Moreover, would you really claim that it was only musical unsophisticates who were completely ignorant of music theory that appreciated Schoenberg?
posted by koeselitz at 2:53 PM on July 18, 2011

But he was also careful to add that it's a myth that having good technique (re: actually working at being a good musician) will not 'cramp your style' or whatever

So true... two examples are Prince and Robert Smith, both of whom can shred on the guitar and both of whom don't use that skill on many or most of their songs.

Yup, developing technique is a mostly neutral factor when i comes to one's innate creativity - if you have no creative imagination, being able to shred, sight-read, etc. won't give it to you, but neither does it get in the way when you do have a creative imagination - usually. That is, I mean by the latter remark that some players who have a certain amount of compositional ability along with monster chops will tend to write stuff that is just a vehicle for indulging those chops - which can be fine, but is subject to the all the usual pitfalls of self-indulgence in general. In those cases, it may be somewhat interesting but the show-off aspect gets annoying and boring pretty quickly. Part of having chops is knowing when not to use them. Ultimately you have to remember that your instrument is a voice. (Jeff Beck is usually cited as the exemplar of this among guitarists.) You don't want to be always running off at the mouth.

So, Prince and Robert Smith, yes. Zappa was pretty good on guitar, too, but as he famously said, "I'm a composer who happens to play guitar", which I've adopted as a motto. (I'm a composition degree Berklee grad, was a piano major, and I'm mostly self-taught on the guitar. I suppose I must be a failure for graduating. I'll just ignore the hundreds of classmates who are doing just fine in music careers, if not visible stars, although some are too. (Of course, being a failure in something as notoriously corrupt as the music biz is not necessarily shameful, either.) In the last decade I've taken up fretless guitar (mainly for the study of North Indian classical - where having a sitarist teacher who started out as a trained guitarist has helped me correct some of my self-taught bad habits), which is a pretty small subset, and within it I've noticed at least as high a percentage as in the larger world of guitar players whose composing exists to showcase their instrument. Some of it is kind of boring.)

On the other side, not being able to make happen something you can hear in your head that you would like to do, because you didn't practice your scales or learn your theory or whatever enough, is frustrating and definitely debilitating to your creativity. (Computers & sequencing have helped many of us get around our physical limitations to a certain extent, but…)

But I think the genesis (no pun intended, see ahead) of the "Chops suck, man! You'll ruin your uniqueness if you actually learn how to play your axe!" attitude certainly does trace back to the punk reaction to the 70's prog rock era. (Along with the quite appropriate disgust with the excesses of the Wakemans and Emersons of that genre was mixed in quite a bit of secret envy and resentment as well, I think.) It became this reverse kind of snobbism. Elvis Costello faced it early on when he found himself thinking, "Oh, shit, I can't use a diminished chord there - they'll think I've sold out!"

I remember a conversation in the early 80's with someone on the punk side of that debate - "I hate chops!", he said… And some kid in a Boston club asking about music notation, "but can't you just show them the notes?" Well, jeez, kid, what do you think notation is for? (Can't you just tell me the story? What do we need this elitist thing called writing for?)
posted by Philofacts at 2:53 PM on July 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

(Also, I don't think it's contradictory to say that a great and knowledgeable musician like Mahler would lack knowledge of one particular form of music, any more than it's contradictory to say that the greatest archaeologist in the world might lack knowledge about one specific type of archaeology and still be supremely knowledgeable about others.)
posted by koeselitz at 2:54 PM on July 18, 2011

I think I didn't make myself clear, maybe because I was playing a little fast and loose with the word "principle" above. The string quartet in question was tonal, so, as unstable as the tonality may have been, the point is that Mahler's work and Schoenberg's work at that same still fit (if uncomfortably) under the same music-theoretic umbrella. So, even though Mahler could have successfully analyzed the string quartet, he didn't "get it." The fact that I have to explain this is making me think it's actually not a good example, though, so I'll present another one. I was listening to a recording of Edgar Meyer, who's a hell of a bassist, a conservatory guy who nonetheless knows his way around "newgrass" (I'm not entirely comfortable with genre terms like that but there you go), playing Miles Davis' tune Solar. It was obvious that he's comfortable improvising in a jazz context, but something about it felt off, because he basically had the musical equivalent of an accent, you know? That accent is what I'm talking about. I suspect that the most talented musician, well-versed in a particular style, would need to train herself for ages, longer than it took to achieve proficiency at the style she was originally good at, to lose that accent while playing in her new style, even if she was capable enough to generate utterances in that style that looked the same as a natural player's on paper. A sufficiently advanced player will have absorbed the low-level stylistic dictates concerning minutiae like rhythmic feel on such a subconscious level that moving to a new style, assuming those low-level details are incompatible, will be really difficult. Again, I think it's a matter of acculturation, not knowledge.
posted by invitapriore at 3:43 PM on July 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Work at that same" in the second sentence above should read "work at that time."
posted by invitapriore at 3:44 PM on July 18, 2011

To bring out the real point: Let's say you've got a four year old. This four year old hasn't yet heard any music in her life, but by some method or another you've deduced that she's got a lot of musical aptitude. You set her to the task of learning how to the play the sitar in classical Hindustani style (she's an abnormally tall four year old). Three years later, she's pretty good at it, she's had a few recitals, her pitch is off sometimes because dammit she's only seven years old, but it's obvious that she gets it. Now you've got another seven year old here, and, ignoring the fact that seven year olds probably have slightly decreased neuroplasticity as compared to four year olds, you set him to the task of learning to play Western classical music. He, too, has considerable musical aptitude, and up to this point has not heard any music in his life. At the same time, you make your little sitar star start doing the same. I contend that the second child will actually have an easier time learning how to play Western classical music in an idiomatically accepted way, because he won't have picked up musical habits that suit one style, but not another, and are a pain in the ass to unlearn or adjust. I just don't think the brain works in such a way that you can gain fluency in a particular musical style without damaging your ability to gain fluency in another with the same ease. It's not a matter of acquiring abstract, independent tokens of stylistic knowledge, because musical expression happens on a more intuitive and less reason-respecting level that rewards hard-wired specialization.
posted by invitapriore at 3:59 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

On the other hand (sorry about the rambling), if you're talking more from a listener's perspective, I'm a lot more inclined to agree with you, because I think it's possible to absorb a sort of listening grammar that lets you make sense of things in a particular style.
posted by invitapriore at 4:02 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

per Mayer's original songs: In Your Atmosphere, Stop This Train, The Heart of Life, and Why Georgia are some of my favorite non-Wonderland Mayer songs ( I couldn't find a "Why Georgia" live clip without girls screaming).
posted by sweetkid at 4:05 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here and Here are some fretless guitar playing...
posted by Huck500 at 4:39 PM on July 18, 2011

You know, he says doofus things at times, and his music isn't to everybody's tastes, but you do have to appreciate that he does reach out to those on the way up. Not too many people do that. And when he realized Twitter-whoring was fucking him up, he quit doing it. So good for him.

That said, when I saw this link on Metafilter I also thought, "Aw, fuck."

But I like the dude. He plays awesomely, and either I'm laughing at what he said (er, one way or the other) or it made me think. And I like it when there's a rare celebrity who still says whatever they think without getting utterly brainwashed to be bland and boring once there's an outcry. Go figure.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:54 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reading about musical notation here -- and I'm not someone with a lot of musical ability, so bear with me -- to paraphrase John Coltrane, are the notes you don't play just as or more important than the notes you play? To put this in a manner that doesn't sound like I've been hitting the doob and staring at the ceiling, doesn't putting these skills to the appropriate song or musical piece matter just as much as knowing how to do them?

Putting aside the matter of John Mayer's colorful personality (which has made me less inclined to follow his career), from the YouTube clips linked he's clearly a talented player. As with many guitarists, though, he seems to use a lot of skills that show off his abilities instead of serving the song. This is something that makes me less interested in listening to his music, and less interested in listening to other guitarists as well.

The only guitarist whose work I really enjoy is Tom Verlaine, and no, I don't know why that is, either.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:19 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

The medium is the message/massage, depending.

His advice to avoid blogs/twitter is sound but only if you're not a blogger/twitterer. He wants to disavow social media because it interferes with the writing of songs-- fine. But if blogs/twitter was the intended purpose all along, i.e. if he was a writer instead of a songwriter...

So the general form of his advice is: don't do stuff that distracts you from your primary work, especially if that other stuff changes the modes of thinking.

In college I was a physics major (not a good one) but it was easier for me to solve problems on blank, unruled paper, using a pencil. Let me rephrase that: it was more difficult for me to solve problems using anything other than unruled paper and pencil.

The trick is that sometimes it's necessary to experiment with other forms to see what comes out; but a commitment to, say, three different styles of writing is not likely to generate quality, unless you're da vinci. I suspect everything else ends up being a form of dilettantism.
posted by TheLastPsychiatrist at 6:02 PM on July 18, 2011

"... but this has always been so painfully creepy and sleazy that forcing myself to listen to Mayer is a real trial. ..."
posted by koeselitz at 4:27 PM on July 18

I dunno, koeselitz; granted, it's not one of the Top 500 Rock Songs of all time, but if you get that kind of feeling hearing it, it makes me think you've never had a pretty, sleepy 23 year old woman, on a lazy Sunday morning, who kind of likes you, but is just a little too sleeeeepy to wake up enough to have coffee with you, and is all tussled up in last night's sheets, with maybe a leg and an arm delightfully akimbo.

Every man ought to have a Sunday morning or a Tuesday afternoon, or two or three, like that, upon which to grow old. Here's hoping you yet get yours.
posted by paulsc at 8:11 PM on July 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've never met another human who could play this song in a convincing manner.

He seems to have cribbed his picking style from Victor Wooten. Pretty amazing.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:17 PM on July 18, 2011

I've never heard John Mayer, but I'm glad he gave up short-form writing (Twitter).
posted by kozad at 9:31 PM on July 18, 2011

I suspect that the most talented musician, well-versed in a particular style, would need to train herself for ages, longer than it took to achieve proficiency at the style she was originally good at, to lose that accent while playing in her new style, even if she was capable enough to generate utterances in that style that looked the same as a natural player's on paper. A sufficiently advanced player will have absorbed the low-level stylistic dictates concerning minutiae like rhythmic feel on such a subconscious level that moving to a new style, assuming those low-level details are incompatible, will be really difficult. Again, I think it's a matter of acculturation, not knowledge.

Important point you make here, along with the comments about childhood neuroplasticity - it IS a lot like language learning (with some caveats about the neural basis of music vs. language): one usually has a base fluency in one language, more basic and instinctive (an Iranian guy at the pub the other week used the example of "you cry out in your native language when you're drowning") than any others you might pick up (allowing for exceptions where children grow up in two (or more?) languages from the earliest days - Pierre Elliott Trudeau's bilingualism, or my SF Bay Area Syrian-American engineer friend who thought as a small child that "English and Arabic were the same language.")

What first gets hard-wired does, to a great extent, make it more difficult to acquire other skills (styles, approaches, whatever) in the same area to the same degree, to their becoming completely "second nature", as Aristotle put it in discussing the acquisition of "virtues" (which term the ancient Greeks understood more as skills, technical abilities, than as in the ethical sense we have of the term, although Aristotle in particular did think that the latter could be learned by habitual practice much as any other skill could be. But that's another subject.)

You state that "musical expression happens on a more intuitive and less reason-respecting level"; I'd take issue with "less reason-respecting". It's not that it's irrational, if that's your implication, but that the logical processes involved are much like many other subconscious skills we possess or acquire, which ARE quite rational in their own often quite circumscribed (specialized) way, but just aren't consciously accessible and controllable, either because they a) have to happen at reactive speeds for which conscious deliberation is way too slow, or b) need to be automatic for some compelling reason. (I won't go into evolutionary psychology here, contentious as it seems to be, but it's at least clear that many sensory survival skills fall into the latter category.) Most of our cognitive processes are walled off from our conscious awareness and control (Daniel Dennett loves to expound on this point); a great deal goes on "under the surface", so to speak, before we are aware of having a thought or make a decision or move our fingers on a keyboard or fretboard. When one plays "fluently", one doesn't really think at all in the sense of "OK, gonna do this right now, then this…"; (live) music being a rapid real time sequence of events, there isn't time to think, so we practice in order to be able to make our playing purely reactive in the best sense, pushing our at first conscious knowledge of theory and technique down into the level of "second nature" where it works at much faster speeds. One learns and then practices in order to "forget" what one has learned, in that sense.

My study of Indian music is an example of a "second language"'; I started casually in my teens, didn't get really serious until my forties (in terms of studying intensively with teachers), and I've had to work hard to unlearn a lot of my Western training where it inhibits my Indian learning. e.g., Western solfege (do-re-mi) was a particular nuisance; I'd absorbed it all too well at Berklee, got A's in Ear Training, even took an Atonal Solfege class (where you had to sing atonal phrases using the pitch names, and which did leave me with the generally useful skill of recognizing intervals in any sort of context), but in the Indian oral tradition, they rely heavily on their own solfege system, Sargam (Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa-Dha-Ni) to transmit ideas (all players are expected to be able to sing what they play in sargam.) My Western solfege knowledge, long ago made second nature, made it much harder to make sargam second nature (I still haven't reached that point, really, although I consciously always think in sargam names of pitches now.) It seems more like a task of burying the older layer under the new (sargam) layer, than being able to completely excavate the old to make way for the new. (Of course, this is just a metaphor, but there is that sense of the unwanted persistence of what I first learned.)

Add to this a very different approach (the raga system) to constructing melodies, which doesn't really have an analogue in any other system, even the relatively complex maqamat of the Middle East. It's often referred to as a grammar, and my sense is that it's a matrix of rules involving pitch order, probabilities & weighting of certain pitches, developmental conventions, characteristic illustrative phrases, and much more. Here much of my Western knowledge, whether the classical I started with, the informal conventions of the rock, funk and blues I played for a long time, or the jazz I never completely embraced at Berklee, are often worse than useless - they impede my understanding, and I have to work harder to set them aside.

So yeah, in that sense, Mayer is wrong, technique CAN inhibit you, in terms of mastery of more than one style/language; but in the sense of being able to express yourself fully within the main style you do master, the appropriate technique for the style can't inhibit you. But it's still a matter of degree, and I don't think it's pointless to try to transcend one's "native" genre and branch out; you just have to be aware of the limits our neural natures impose. Lots of great music has resulted from boundary crossing, and new genres are often formed from such; North Indian (Hindustani) classical music itself has absorbed a lot of initially non-Indian elements, to the degree that it's quite distinct from the Carnatic (South) tradition while still being mutually intelligible to the degree that players from both can and do play together.
posted by Philofacts at 9:35 PM on July 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

paulsc: “Every man ought to have a Sunday morning or a Tuesday afternoon, or two or three, like that, upon which to grow old. Here's hoping you yet get yours.”

Oh, come on. It's sexploitation, pure and simple. Anybody who thinks John Mayer didn't write that song to get laid hasn't really listened to it. "But that's what it's about!" No, it's a phony pretention to love designed to get the singer into somebody else's pants. If you don't think that's the case, read a few of John Mayer's interviews. It's a cold, carefully calculating song designed to both make money and set him up as sexually desireable, nothing more and nothing less. And it seems to have worked brilliantly. But that doesn't mean I have to like him for it out of some desire to be part of some male frat club where we all guffaw together about the girls we've slept with.

I ain't growing old on a lame pickup line with no guts or soul behind it. I'm growing old on something real like this.
posted by koeselitz at 9:42 PM on July 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

"... And it seems to have worked brilliantly. ..."

"... I ain't growing old on a lame pickup line with no guts or soul behind it. I'm growing old on something real like this ."
posted by koeselitz at 12:42 AM on July 19

Fair enough, but perhaps you'll pardon me and Mayer for growing old, imagining ourselves headed to Heaven, not Hell.
posted by paulsc at 10:54 PM on July 18, 2011

I like what John Mayer said re: support on musical career: "Anybody who’s made it will tell you, you can make it. Anyone who hasn’t made it will tell you, you can’t."
I think this can be applied to any career actually, and something to hold on to when you're down.
posted by pleasebekind at 11:31 AM on July 19, 2011

I like what John Mayer said re: support on musical career: "Anybody who’s made it will tell you, you can make it. Anyone who hasn’t made it will tell you, you can’t."

It's good advice, yes. But it's not actually true. I haven't made it and I'll tell you that you can. You can make it. The trick to making it, according to my friends who have made it, is to not have a Plan B. Of course, I also know several people who have no Plan B but who have not made it and who, lacking a Plan B, are sort of up a creek as a result.
posted by The World Famous at 12:06 PM on July 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

You state that "musical expression happens on a more intuitive and less reason-respecting level"; I'd take issue with "less reason-respecting". It's not that it's irrational, if that's your implication, but that the logical processes involved are much like many other subconscious skills we possess or acquire, which ARE quite rational in their own often quite circumscribed (specialized) way, but just aren't consciously accessible and controllable, either because they a) have to happen at reactive speeds for which conscious deliberation is way too slow, or b) need to be automatic for some compelling reason.

That's fair, I guess what I meant by "less reason-respecting" was that the processes that underlie musical fluency don't operate on the level of abstract tokens like "move finger forty five degrees towards the palm." We sort of condition them that way, but I doubt they care. I may have abused the term, though.

The rhythmic solfege in Hindustani music is what blows my mind. I took a few classes with a great sitar player, and during one of the sessions he sat down with a tabla player and traded "fills," with the tabla player playing something, him repeating it back, him speaking a new rhythm, and the tabla player repeating it. Too cool.
posted by invitapriore at 12:27 PM on July 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

The rhythmic solfege in Hindustani music is what blows my mind. I took a few classes with a great sitar player, and during one of the sessions he sat down with a tabla player and traded "fills," with the tabla player playing something, him repeating it back, him speaking a new rhythm, and the tabla player repeating it. Too cool.

Yes - I haven't even gotten that far (the rhythm syllables are called "bols", as are the picking/plucking strokes on sitar/sarod/etc.); the demands on short-term memory that this aspect of Indian music makes on its players dwarf anything found in Western musics, and maybe any other music. There's a case to be made that this kind of memorization, completely an oral tradition, is more durable (assuming it continues to get passed down in the guru-shishya one-on-one tradition) than what we encode on paper or other media. (Indians do sometimes write down both kinds of their solfege, melodic and rhythmic, but it's de-emphasized.) It sure does force one to listen - hard.
posted by Philofacts at 6:59 PM on July 19, 2011