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Name: Keno
E-Mail:
Subject: RE: RE: RE: BJ
Date: Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Time: 10:57:35 AM
Remote Address: 97.107.69.29
Message ID: 318688
Parent ID: 318685
Thread ID: 318661
Agree with most you say other than BJ deserves a higher rating than just a 7. Maybe you feel that being able to play some 30 different instruments is not too special (I'm just guessing here), but he could play them better than most other versatile rock players who can play that many (if there are any, I can think of only one such person off hand, that being Dave Mason of Traffic). But you also noted that 7 is a high rating, but to me it's more mid-range, whereas a 5 would be nothing but average to below average.
I don't think it was Jones' playing ability that was outstanding as there was nothing overly complicated or technical in what he played
Here's the one bit I totally disagree with you on. He played several hard to to play instruments. From what I gather, a sitar, along with a few of the other hard to play Indian instruments he played, and which were noted, are alone very hard to manage. They are tuned differently for starters, and the sound one gets out of - say a guitar, will not come out sounding the same coming from a sitar, even if you play the sitar in the same exact matter (or try to, since one can't). Plus I'm talking about the actual sound you get from a guitar here verses the sound you get from a sitar, I mean that when you play the same notes they sound different on each instrument. Then a guitar has 6 or 12 strings to play, and many 6 string players aren't as good on a 12 string, yet a sitar has what, between 18 and 21 strings depending on the sitar being played? I understand that most sitar players have totally messed up fingers with blisters all over them, since the many strings and how you play them just rip your fingers apart. But when Brian played his sitar, say on PIB, he got a sound out of it that nobody ever heard before coming out of a sitar! That took a talent that few musicians have.
Hell, the electric sitar guitar was made for those who coundn't play a sitar, since rockers liked the sound heard on a sitar, but most of them couldn't play a sitar, so they developed a guitar to sound like a sitar, and any guitarist can play a electric sitar (but most of then can't play sitar at all, since it's a totally different instrument to play). Plus with Brian, it wasn't just Indian instruments he did this with, the mando-guitar could be noted, just how many guitarists play a mando-guitar? Well, if you can play a mandolin (another instrument I forgot to note that BJ played), you can play a mando-guitar, but most guitarists don't play them... But forget about the string instruments, there were few mellotron players ever around, it was a hard instrument to play, and why they came up with the easier to handle synthesizer, which most keyboard players can figure out how to play. Or the playing a marimba vs playing a xylophone. There's a lot more to playing a big marimba to get that more mellow tone sound from it than what you hear on a small xylophone. "Under my Thumb" won't had sounded so great had a xylophone been used on it instead. Not that anybody was playing xylophones or marimbas before BJ introduced the sound to rock music.
One last note, being a songwriter while is a big talent indeed, has nothing to do with being a musician. My late father was a professional songwriter in the 1930s and '40s, yet he didn't play any instruments at all that I know of. His best friend Joe who was a musician, wrote and played the music to his lyrics, but didn't write lyrics at all. Kinda like how Elton John - who can't write lyrics to save his life, is still great when writing music, but without Bernie Taupin coming up with all of the lyrics, he would have not gone too far. Not that I'm comparing my dad and his friend to them, even if they wrote a few hundred songs that people back in the day knew a bit, but I'm only making a point that it happens and no, not being a songwriter has nothing to do with your ability to be a good musician.
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