Joe Gerardi wrote:
Bullshit. Plain and simple. take several classic keyboard tunes by keyboard giants, and they played everything. Rick Wakeman, Emo, Tony Banks. Eddie Jobson, Tony Kaye. Hell, ever Daryl Dragon or Richard Carpenter. They covered everything.
It's because of "musicianship." Yes, I said it again. It AIN'T a "big" word, it's the core foundation of playing. There was a time when people learned how to play, and played everything. Now, they let the technology do it for them in the quest to be famous. There are no shortcuts to playing technically well and capably.
Man, you can be as big a "musician" and posess as much "musicianship" as you want, and have two keyboards, three keyboards, or whatever, but that is not going to solve the problem of having two hands which can play. If you record 20 tracks of synths in one song, no amount of keyboards and what you refer to as "chops" will be able to take care of that. You'll either use backing tracks or hire 2-3 more keyboardists to do that. The second choice is - I'm afraid - not really viable in most cases.
You can hardly consider the list of bands I mentioned to be on a "quest to be famous". Most of them have been famous (maybe not as important) and very well liked/successful (a bit more important) for decades. Like it or not, they've been much more successful then both you and I. And I'm sorry, but I do think all of them are the better yardstick to be taken seriously on a professional level as successful musicians then whatever you might say and/or write here. It's nothing personal - it's just a difference of opinion. There's a reason why they're trying to incorporate backing tracks in their live shows. I know you dislike that. But it's still a fact that every single one of those bands/artists (and many more) are doing it.
Joe Gerardi wrote:
So, there was no issue then when Milli Vanilli was lip-syncing on stage to pre-recoded music performed by others?
When does it stop being a backing track and become a fake performance? Tomorrow I go to see the Rach 3- the piece I performed as my final as a Sophomore in college - and I see it live rather than listed to a "pre-recorded" piece, because of its technical difficulty, the dynamic and tonal interpretation of the performer, the different timbre created by that particular conductor's vision of the piece. In other words, the "musicianship" of the performers. Were the pianist just play to a pre-recorded orchestral backing track, then it would just plain suck. hell, I could do that myself (with a lot of practice) and tape it, but why? It would be a flat, dead recording.
Now you're just putting words
I did not use in my mouth. I specifically said that lip-sync is a no-no. And I specifically used the term "augment" multiple times to get my point across. So, let's recap, once more (sigh).
When does it stop being a backing track and become a fake performance? When backing tracks aren't being used to "augment" the experience of live show (because of impossibility of something to be played live due to lack of hands, musicians, whatever), and when that "develops" in the direction of "ah, yeah, let's just play 20 backing tracks so that every musician can play nothing or next to nothing". I do feel that I adequately described what I feel should be the "limit" for that.
And, believe it or not, chops are less important then you think. If two notes on any instrument being repeated for 40 seconds fit the music/song, then that's what should be played. It's about the song and music(ianship), not outright prowess. What good comes out of the fact that I can play anything Rudess plays, if I don't feel that it fits the song? And how does that help my own musicianship and ability to create my own music?
If you ask me - except for teaching me what not to do, in no way whatsoever. And I'm saying that as a huge DT fan, until Mike Portnoy left, at least. Because I agree with him that they kind of lost their way.
Just to use one example - not by any means my favourite one, but still a viable example. Look at what The Edge has been doing with his guitar arrangements all his life. He might or might not have the technical chops, but he's definitely not using them. His guitarwork, on the other hand, is just excellent within the confines of pretty much any U2 song, however sucky it may be (a song, and there are dozens of crappy U2 songs). Are you saying that U2 is a crappy band because they use backing tracks? Because millions of people will disagree.
Now, the second reason I used U2 as an example - if I remember correctly, they did a complete Zooropa tour with playback, everyone knows that. That's just plain stupid, un-musician-like, and everything else you said, and they should be lambasted for that. No argument from me. But - counterpoint to that - U2 Elevation tour - that's a shining example of how backing tracks should be used.
You're just over-generalizing and over-dramatizing things.
