Quote Originally Posted by davethedrummer
did anyone hear about the famous "5 minutes of silence " symphony by john cage, a man who has always said he made a living from his shortcomings as a musician.

well the idea wasn't just that the orchestra never played a note
it was the fact that when the conducter tapped his baton he got everyones attention
and they listened intently to their surroundings.
something they probably had never done in an auditorum before.

the experience becomes musical even though what you are listening to wouldn't normally be classed as music , just background "noise"
and this is the key to it all for me.

a musician is simply someone who can draw your attention to their sound
and make you realise it as music and not noise.

you don't need classical training or years of experience
just a good idea and the determination to make it happen.

that's the way i look at it anyways.
woah dood great post. musicians for me would be defined as people who want to control,shape & direct sound somwhere, play many shaped or non shaped sounds together and in most cases trying to achieve their harmony(altho this last one hasnt much to do with a definition of a musician in my opinion). i would even say, as dave put it nicely, that a musician would be a person who would just direct you and make you percieve plain everyday sounds, it doesnt even have to be their sound. not to even play it or compose it, just to draw your atention to a sound or create a soroundings where, like cage, he actualy used his public as his instrument. i would say if you intentionaly influence/shape/direct sound, your a musician.... everyone is a musician, just dont realise it yet ... every sound is music if you can percieve it that way....its just a unshaped untained sound you might hear next time you go down to the record store to buy some vinyls ;)