Is There Such Thing As "Cheating?"

[AtoDeficient]

Then someone came along with a drum. The others looked at him and said, "That's cheating."

Well how else did you expect those people to get into the band ?

 

[MrWrenchey]

niether can every singer or even most of them.

And I did say some singers are musicians.
But I know singers who don't know jack about music and I don't consider them mucisicans.

But to be clear ..... I know guitar players I don't consider musicians.

Out of curiosity, is there a specific line that you have that defines the line between "singer" or "guitar player" to musician?
I've got plenty of friends who think that because they've taken up guitar lessons for a week, they're a musician already. I have to explain to them that's not how it really works...

 

[grimtraveller]

But I know singers who don't know jack about music and I don't consider them mucisicans.

But to be clear ..... I know guitar players I don't consider musicians.

These are known as "musicians in name only !"

 

[Lt. Bob]

Out of curiosity, is there a specific line that you have that defines the line between "singer" or "guitar player" to musician?
I've got plenty of friends who think that because they've taken up guitar lessons for a week, they're a musician already. I have to explain to them that's not how it really works...

well .... it's kinda a "I know one when I see one" sorta thing.

It's kinda hard to actually verbalize it ........ plus .... if I DID try and verbalize it I'd possibly insult someone who might read this thread and I want to avoid that.


But, I do hired gun gigs for a living and I take gigs with anyone that pays.

Some of these bands can't change keys on a song without spending some time working on the new key.
I suppose they memorize the chord changes ( "it goes C E Am Am G" ) and if you change keys that's the same thing as learning a new song.

They play semi-not-sucky but I wouldn't consider them musicians.
The only thing they can do is copy the record and any changes flummox them. I don't consider them musicians anymore than a typist that copies a book is an author.

 

[Xdrummer]

The only thing they can do is copy the record and any changes flummox them. I don't consider them musicians anymore than a typist that copies a book is an author.

Bob - I like the comparison. Like you I freelance and I've grown rather fearless in taking any gig and being able to play in any key, transpose on the fly, etc. I too have worked with a lot of people who have learned their set list (and many who can play that list relatively well) - but Lord help them if someone throws a curve.

I think there are a lot of people who can play an instrument - but finding "real musicians" (or as I prefer - "real players") does thin the herd rather quickly.

 

[oretez]

Out of curiosity, is there a specific line that you have that defines the line between "singer" or "guitar player" to musician?
I've got plenty of friends who think that because they've taken up guitar lessons for a week, they're a musician already. I have to explain to them that's not how it really works...

play guitar for some indeterminate amount of time over 40 yr. (& generated more revenue from music/audio performance/production then cumulatively everything else) and am not sure I consider myself to be a musician, yet. Still something that for odd reason to which I aspire (as opposed to being a rock star (a concept that also obviously dates me). I would, on general principles consider, for example, Shostakovich to be (to have been as well) a musician.

 

[oretez]

I'm writing a home recording blog post for a class and I need some input.

Can musicians use digital recording and editing to "cheat" by making them sound better? Is copy & paste, pitch correction, or even overdubbing - cheating? Is it fair to present the listener with an "unnatural" performance? Where do you draw the line? And if no post-performance manipulation can make someone sound better, why not?

I am with consensus that any 'cheating' seldom resides with technology employed. For at least 10K years humans have used combinations of technique, education, technology to enhance and extend biologically derived 'talent'. It's a process that is simply unlikely to stop any time soon.

Human societies being what they are if something new/novel is not rejected out of hand (see Tesla for example), if it confers any enhanced status (e.g. success) on a practitioner it is more or less instantly with more or less success imitated. Some techniques, technology peculates through human conventional wisdom and for relatively brief periods of time become accepted as canonically 'THE' way to express one's self for success. Certainly for the last 450 yr. this canon is always fiercely debated . . . verbally, with fisticuffs and occasionally with high explosives. These debates are also unlikely to disappear any time soon.

With even minimal skill (review, for example, the 'Cher effect' debate . . . made slightly interesting by individuals attempting to duplicate original Cher Fx and original producers attempting a disinformation campaign) the only person that can really determine whether one is 'cheating' is the individual . . . was Link Wray 'cheating' when he stuck a pencil through a speaker cone? Attempting to reliably replicate a sound discovered accidentally? Though it is possible that it's the damn pencil that is keeping him out of the hall of fame

I'm pretty sure I would, on the other hand, consider castration as an unacceptable form of cheating

 

[AtoDeficient]

I think "cheating" would be defined as a "willful intent to defraud" or something of that nature. . . So I'm of the opinion that using available technology isn't cheating unless by using it, your intent is to defraud your listener . . . So are you using technology to entertain or to cheat? . . What is your willful intent ? . . .

I suppose that in today's world someone would have fixed the drum-fill stick-clicks in Pink Floyd's "Money". . . Or maybe even micro-edited The Allman Brother's "One Way Out", so that the bass player didn't jump in too soon. . . But I'm glad those songs were performed and recorded before computers and the people that swear by them. . .

Is plastic surgery cheating? . . No, because those people aren't fooling anyone. . . And in the same way, recording technology isn't fooling anyone anymore. . .

But does anyone else get that warm fuzzy feeling in the third verse of "You Love the Thunder" when Russ Kunkel misses that one snare hit? . . .
He keeps on missing that snare hit every time I hear that song, and I'm glad he does.

 

[grimtraveller]

Is it cheating if I use a hammer and saw to build a new desk for myself? No, because they are just tools that go toward the final creation.

That was such a poor comparison. It's simply not possible to build a desk without tools. Even a karate expert with several pet beavers couldn't do so, with all their chopping and chewing prowess.

I think when a lot of people refer to editing and plug-ins and such as "cheating" really they are talking about "deceiving." Like Moresound said, these people hate such tools because they aren't reproducible at a live concert! I guess that's understandable--what the product sounds like isn't what you've played. But then one must ask...am I in for the "rawness" of the track, or I am in it for the auditory beauty of it all?

That, on the other hand, was masterfully put.

Can you think of any groups or artists that are notorious for terrible live performances compared to their studio albums?

That's an interesting question because it throws up a further question, namely, whose account do you trust ? A number of people that saw the Spice girls live said they were pretty crap singers. But their concerts continued to sell out and people loved them.
I was terribly disappointed with the 1984 version of the Mahavishnu orchestra and Rush the year before. But I don't believe any of the players in either band were deficient live and whatever studio trickery appeared on their records didn't detract from their ability to perform live. I just thought they were boring the night I saw them.
And what about all those artists down the years that were so booze or drug wasted that their gigs became shit, while their records were still good. If you read the account of the period when Aerosmith were recording "Draw the line", it's pretty horrifying. It really is a wonder that they put out a record at all. I consider it to be one of their great albums.
Studio trickery has been alive and well for a number of decades.

Milli Vanilli.

As bizarre as this sounds, Milli Vanilli didn't cheat in the studio. They didn't actually do anything in the studio ! No trickery was performed on them to make it seem like they could sing or play "Angus Santana Van Hendrix" guitar solos. They were just faces. Kind of like Bobby Farrell in Boney M. Where they cheated was live, being a couple of guys that could dance and lip synched pretending they were singing the hits. So in actuality, their hoax isn't really within the remit of this thread, unless we're talking about cheating in a wider sense.