Alan Ratcliffe wrote
X-rated Bob wrote
Woah! I don't belong in that company. I'm not skilled enough to be unique - unless you're factoring in my specific way of flubbing things.
Uniqueness has little to do with skill. In fact, I'd say it's more likely for an unskilled player to come up with a unique playing style than a skilled one.
Hmmmm.... I've already named Neil Young, who is not a technically great player. We might even consider Keef, though I think he's a better player than he's given credit for, but for the most part the names that are coming up here are well skilled players, though maybe not formally educated as musicians.
If you had a graph with the Y axis being uniqueness and the X being chops then you can only go so far towards zero on the X axis before things start getting problematic
IMO. You end up with people slopping paint onto a canvas any old how and calling themselves artists and being praised for being "unique". Or you end up with punk rock, genuine mid 70s dumbed down, all attitude British punk rock. I actually liked the attitude and energy, but some of the musicians involved were so limited that if they had anything more to say they had no way of saying it. But maybe that's poetic too, and players with much more skill can still end up with nothing left to say.
For me "art" requires craft. We can argue about the ratios, but it has to be there. Players like Tom Verlaine don't place the emphasis on their chops, but the chops are there.
