noddy wrote:
playing the standard licks with the o-face , no matter how well, isnt going to cut it against the recordings of those that invented them.
That explains one side of the stage; but how does it explain the other? The average listener isn't going to be familiar with all the licks and recordings- and a recorded record is a whole kettle of worms...
I was listening to an old interview with the pianist Bill Evans a few weeks ago, had to be sometime in the late 60s or maybe the early 70s; and the interviewer gave him some form of "what do you make of the youth and their "rock" music?" In the sort of leading way, looking for a "rock is crap" quote.
The short of his answer (as I recall) was that rock music was doing a wonderful service by introducing the concept of "a beat" to the young folks. Never before had so many people been well schooled in the very basics of a pulse and how to find it. Then he went on to say that it was up to them to get beyond that and yadayadayada...
that's not really the important part- I think he was spot on with the beat comment, itself. The most popular, universal instrument is the voice and the 4/4 beat is quickly obvious (even if some people don't really get the backbeat).
There are now genres of popular music that give you those two elements in the most immediate form.
Nothing else has a shot.