Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum When do you become a "musician"

Too bad the word doesn't use our normal friendly suffix -er for 'one who.' The -ian makes it sound like there are some real qualifications needed.

Like a "musicker"? It might catch on.

I like it!
Maybe "to music" could become a verb too while we're at it.

"I will music at 7:30."

How long do you have to music before you become a musicker?

Maybe this is a semantics thing but I think I prefer the term "a communicator of music" rather than "a musician". There is something too solid and "boxed in" feel to the term "a musician". It also feels to me like too much of a trap set up by our ego, as if we play for people to earn their applause rather than to prioritize liberating them and ourselves through music. Isn't this why we became interested in the first place? Or was it simply another way to land a trophy on our lap like so much of life seems to be about? I prefer to think of music as something grander, something that reaches much farther, something to unite us all and not just another accomplishment to satisfy our insatiable hungry ego.

But musician is easier to say. Let people who hear us play decide if we can communicate .

Back to the original topic of "when" do you become a musician, I recall that a while back there was a thread that tried to describe "what is music".

That did not prove possible, at least in anything resembling a complete description. Some said music is "rhythm", others "sound", and so forth, but to no satisfying end.

I think this question of "when" one becomes a musician is similarly impossible to describe.

Maybe once you've moved beyond focusing primarily on what is written in the score and you begin to explore what is not written in the score?

But I think the demeans all the work that goes into the foundational parts of learning to play an instrument. Certainly, one is a musician then, but perhaps less effective at communicating?

I have played piano all my life. 5 or so years ago I took up jazz. I play almost every day, take lessons, listen all the time, and I have played some paying gigs, and many, many, non paying gigs.

I absolutely DO NOT consider myself a musician. To call myself a musician is to eliminate any distinction between the true professionals who have devoted countless hours and years of their lives to this art form, and who play light years better than I do. If I'm a musician, then what terminology do we have to distinguish my amateur efforts from the efforts of those those who have dedicated their lives to it?

Wow jjo -- you're hardcore...

There are of course "world class musicians", "good musicians" and "mediocre ones", "Pro musicians", "amateur musicians" and "weekend-warriors" , etc. So the label isn't so absolute.

Just add an adjective, a qualifier. The phrase professional musician carries more weight than amateur musician. For raw beginners, aspiring musician. For an advanced amateur, the phrase accomplished musician says a lot to me. To me they are all musicians, though the level of proficiency varies. I would consider all that uploaded pieces for the recital to be musicians, though perhaps only 5% or 10% approach the level of full time professionals. Most here are hobbyists, amateurs, and perfectly happy with their station in the musical world.

There is a distinction, then, between a musican and someone with a musical hobby, right?

Since you've played all your life and you do not consider yourself a musician, your resistance to calling yourself a musican begs the question, how much of being a musician is pure devotion, and how much is natural talent? (and for the record, I would totally consider you a musican by default )

I knew a kid who was 18 years old when I met him. He played guitar and wrote music. He lived, thought, saw and heard life in musical vibrations. He was (and is) a really cool kid, but his affinity for music almost seemed to hang on the line right where it divides genius from insanity. He'd play any guitar, even if it had a bent neck and three strings. He'd just adjust to the new sound and make it work, and it worked like you wouldn't believe.

He started playing guitar around 9 years old. So, that gives him 9 years. Does that make him a musician?

I don't think we can measure musicianship by years, because a year for me with the piano equates to a few weeks in one year of that kid who played guitar for 9 years.

Perhaps being a musician involves two things:

1. An incredible drive toward learning and perfecting and being involved with music

and

2. The ability and drive to innovate and create.

Then again, Merriam Webster defines a musican as:

: a composer, conductor, or performer of music; especially : instrumentalist

So, technically, anyone who is consistantly learning and perfecting an instrument, no matter what level he or she is at, is a musician. The dictionary's example of the word in a sentence is "She's a very talented musician," which implies that the word "musician" carries less significance about the performer's skills and devotion than the qualifiers such as "talented," "amazing," "novice," and "awful."

So, if you can be an awful musician, anyone who plays an instrument is a musician.

So are we down to this definition? A musician is anyone who claims to be making music. And it is up to others to judge if that person is a great musician, a good musician, or the world's worst musician.

Well, when you put it that way... maybe not!

But than again, we revert to the definition of music. Are you making "music," if you're fumbling over keys (or strings or winds)?

I would expect a "musician" to have some mastery in his or her domain of music.

He or she should be able to comfortably and confidently play an instrument. You can't just learn Chopsticks and say, "I'm a musician."

But you don't have to play advanced levels of piano solos in all musical periods to be a piano player who is a "musician," either.

I know of some people who are very good at hearing music and playing the right chord phrasings to go with othe musical instruments. They can improvise by ear and on the spot. They play interesing runs and innovative musical impovisations, but their piano playing skills, alone, are not equivalent to a master classical pianist. They are musicians who often play several instruments and their musical domain is "jamming!"

Anyone who puts paint on any surface is a "painter" but no one thinks that a preschooler happily finger painting on butcher paper takes anything away from painters like Picasso or Michelangelo.

Why is it not so with music?

Painter is the person that paints the house or the fence. Artist is the person doing watercolors or oils or sculpture. The high level artist has their work at the gallery or at the museum. Even for artists, many casual observers might lump legends such as Rothko and Mondrian into a similar group as a kid with finger paints.

I like this explanation/phrasing the best! +1!

From now on I'm calling myself an aspiring musician!:)

I have heard two people play the same arrangement and the one who moves me emotionally has a certain something that is very hard to define. Both will be technically perfect but one is just carried away with it to a different plane...and it comes out in their playing. ??? They just seem to be so at ease with their craft. Just my opinion of course

The problem is that putting some talent type of measure is hard because there's ALWAYS someone better than you. You could be playing for 50 years and you'll still feel this. So on that basis, one may never have a chance to call oneself a musician.

Reminds me of the same kind of topic: Do you call yourself a Pianist or Piano Player? Many reserve the word Pianist for someone with Classical chops. But I just add that I'm a "Mediocre" pianist...