My parents, my friends, and my parents friends have had the privilege of attending the winnipeg folk festival this year. I am extremely jealous because there are some acts I would love to see. (And surprisingly a lot of acts I have never heard before)
One of the people I would have enjoyed seeing for example was James Vincent McMorrow. I often listen to him on my iPod, but do not necessarily listen to every song. I enjoy him, but I don't LOVE him beyond everything....he's not even who I most regret missing.
The Irish Bon Iver as he's been called was apparently quite lackluster (according to my parents)...my mother debated a visit to the beer tent (and if you know my mother that's quite strange). But it got me thinking about musicians the differences live vs studio. I think that there are just some people who are studio people only. It's been said that if you can't play live you aren't a real musician and I think that I used to be one of those kinds of people. But just today I decided that no, it's not necessarily like that. You can be talented as heck, but just may not be able to perform, and while this may not make you a superstar it doesn't necessarily make you a bad musician. I think that it's just a different way of approaching music.
I am looking at this from a much more artistic perspective and not just the 'entertainment value' perspective, nor the saleability. Think about it this way. Some people are just very outgoing and friendly and just want to 'have a party' and perform for others. Other people are much more concerned with the integrity of the song and are more willing to spend time in the studio working on an album to perfect and and ensure that every song is in the exact right place...and everything is a lot more deliberate.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that we are more upset when people don't sound the same live as they do in the studio is because the same instruments that were used in 'crafting the song' are not transferable in real life. I'm not necessarily just referring to auto-tune here either. But then it begs the question, does a song no longer have any validity if the artist can't reproduce it and what if he only ever plays it well once. Does that mean it's a bad song?
I don't know the direction I was meaning to take with this, but it would be cool to hear any opinions on studio vs live artists...
.....................Bon iver wasn't at folk fest
ReplyDelete'the Irish Bon Iver as he's been called' still refers to the same artist
ReplyDeleteI though that James Vincent McMorrow was awesome! But perhaps that was because I knew the songs that were coming and quite enjoyed it. I was hoping he could have played longer because he was awesome.
ReplyDeleteRemember that JVM was playing solo, so that's a totally different feel than with a band behind him. Plus the sound peeps were not even close to where they should be... his mic was muted for half a song and they couldn't fix it immediately (same with the Head and the Heart's set).
ReplyDeleteBut ya, studio is for attempted perfection and is an entirely different craft in a way. A live performance contains many more uncontrollable factors, that don't necessarily make a song bad. There's validity in both methods of artistry!!!!