Imperfections are the human element in music. It's what makes a piece of music beautiful and gives it soul. Capturing someone's absolute best performance is better than perfect. I can listen to the isolated vocal and instrumental takes on Pet Sounds and I get goosebumps every time.
It's one of the reasons in my eyes that nobody buys music anymore. It's bland because the human element is taken away. Everything is put on the grid and autotuned or programmed or hits replaced. All that effort to make music boring!
well, there is still human music being made and played, it is just not in the mainstream...you have to dig for it
I feel like I'm hearing lots of justifications for not practicing lol.
same here in some cases (I play with a person right now
((guitarist)) who lives in that world...it makes gigs awkward)....THAT is what bothers me about the imperfection thing...in many, many instances it is an excuse for passive participation...and that ruins music for me
I don't know about "perfection" but truthfully, this is a dangerous line to walk. It is only one step away from "It's all relative man! How can you say one guy is better than another person? It's all ART, Man!" Yeah, tell that to the bandleader when he listens to 5 drummers at an audition.
Was Neil "perfect" on Tom Sawyer? Is Vinnie "perfect" when he buries the click? Technically no but the level is so high that such discussion becomes irrelevant.
Imperfections are being treated on this thread as if they are the source of all things real and human and frankly, most of the time they're just bad.
a-men!!!! And now you and I will get super flamed for admonishing people who don't want to refine their playing for whatever reason. <<---- that does NOT mean who want to get fast and technical, but who just want to go out and "be in the band"
And I also think imperfection is sometimes a result of not knowing your limits either. The MANY, MANY musicians I have played with over my lifetime who should NOT have been on the stage -
yet - shows that to me...and I KNOW that in many instances in my teens,20's, and 30's that guy was me. The worst situations are playing with people who do not even know they are bad because they are blinded by the "fame" side of performing: "I must be good b/c all of the girls want to go backstage with me" or "everyone loves my outfit, so I don't need to practice"....
There are quite a few guys locally, and nationally, who are not actually very good musicians, but who got the "legends" rep because of being good at the "non-musical" part of being in a band....
so yeah, imperfection as an excuse to not actively participate - to me - is selling out everyone else who works to develop skill...in any endeavor, not just music