What Makes a Great Musician?

You can have two individuals, with similar musical technical
ability, play the same exact notes on a guitar and receive
completely different reaction from the audience. You can also
have musicians who train day in and day out and become
extremely good at technically manipulating their instrument
but when you hear them play, they hardly evoke any emotional
reaction in the audience. On the other hand, you have the
other kind of musicians, who may either be technically good
or not, but their delivery always triggers a palpable
emotional reaction in their audience. So what is the element
that makes the difference?.

Maybe we can begin to answer that by following it with these
questions. Does the great musician really need an instrument
to become one?. Or, to phrase it another way, does the
instrument have anything to do in creating a great musician?.
The answer is, as you might have guessed is, not really. The
instrument is purely incidental, in fact, a great musician
can merely whistle and get a favorable audience reaction.
Why? because they are born with the internal knowledge of
the universal language of music, also know as, the gift of
music. The possession of that knowledge or talent is the
critical difference between the great musician versus the
instrumental player. The great musician usually has a clear
connection with the musical language within themselves,
making it easy for them to express it. To the extent they
can tap into that energy the greater they can reach the
audience. The not so great musician, on the other hand, has
a blurred connection, if at all. You can play your instrument
till you drop dead, if the notes are not connected to your
internal language of music you are merely playing notes, not
music.

The unfortunate difference between the language of music and
any other language is that, you cannot learn it. If you are
born with it, you can learn how to better tap into it, if you
are not born with it however, you might as well take up
Spanish. For those born with it, practicing your music should
involve great attention to the connection of yourself to the
language of music as much as the time spent with your
instrument developing your technique. By that I mean, in order
to tap into the energy of music easily, you will have to spend
a great deal of time taking care of your physical, mental,
emotional and spiritual health as opposed to just concentrating
on your instrument. Ultimately, it is your usefulness, in terms
of inspiring and touching your audience that makes you a great
musician.

phil fischer - phil fischer