to create music

I'm not sure this is true ... though it's material for a wide and healthful debate. I would challenge any individual musician to write good poetry, paint as well as Van Gogh, explain the basis of the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem, design the next best-selling pickup truck, or do any other thing (well) not involving music.

Time and work are necessary, yet not sufficient, conditions to achieving greatness in anything. I think some people have a natural affectation towards producing something of 'quality,' but the direction is rooted somewhere else. Neither of us could prove the other wrong, though, because there isn't enough time for any given human to do all these things. We die hopefully having excelled in one thing, if we are lucky.

We as a collective species have the ability to produce music and do these other things, but individuals, I believe, do not all have the talent to produce the output that magically captures an audience.

I think this is so true. That's why I mentioned the kid at school who could draw right from the start.

I would argue that many of those artists, poets & musicians etc.. didn't make squat while they were alive (years after their deaths their efforts became valuableinfluential). How is that any different from hearing from Eric Clapton in the early days, or SRV when he started out.

Your technique and quality are constantly evolving regardless of 'being born to it'. Sure some people have the natural ability to excel at something quicker then people that have to learn it. If you have read some interviews when Yngwie Malmsteen (considered pretty good on a guitar) he says that he practiced Pagnini's 5th Caprice in E minor something like evertday and 10,000 repitions blah, blah, blah. I have never read an interview with him saying 'well I was born this good'.

There are many variables to consider about success and being good etc, it's not a just 'born to it' ability in the vast majority of cases. (I'm sure there are some rare exceptions)

Just my 2¢, _Bigred

Yes indeed, and Johnny Ramone showed how to play guitar the fun and easy way. When asked to join The Ramones, he sad 'But I can't play', and the manager went 'That's ok, in this band that doesn't matter, go buy a guitar'. Johnny was 25, and considered it too late to start learning Jimmy Page-riffs, so he played the cords the songwriters put on top of the lyrics. If I'm remembering correctly, on the first album he didn't even know how to mute the strings.

'But I can't play',

Sorry guys, this is where I get off

on 4/5/05 10:56 AM:

Well, somebody playing guitar sure laid a hellova groove and a neat Marshall sound on their records. Simplicity aside, I sometimes wonder if they had studio musicians on that. The rhythm is really, really smooth, and I give kudos to whoever did it, to the band in general for putting something out that pure, and having the guts and insight to do something that simple.

I'm not sure it's what you meant, but Johnny Ramone certainly 'got me off,' once I quit taking myself so seriously as a guitar player. I sure wouldn't want it to be the only music out there, but I think there's definitely a place for rock'n'roll that is only meant to be fun.

From the fourth Ramones-album they used studio musicians, that's why most people like the raw feeling of the first three the best.

I think you're confusing 'music' with 'BLooZ'. Any idiot/ pleb/ moron/ prole/ imbecile/ stupid-music-fan-type can spend a lifetime strumming his (or her) strat in the bedroom and hashing up warmed up servings of decomposing BLooZ licks. It takes a special talent to come up with something new and no matter how many Stephen Raymond Vaghan tunes you can play exactly the record or grate out on your tin sandwich, you will never have the creative spark to write a single meaningful original phrase let alone a symphony.