Learn to not be the best!

(Photo credits,cbcastro)

For a few years, every year, I used to go with my band to a national rock/jazz/folk contest open to students, that takes place in Romania since 20 years or so. This show had actually 2 parts: one where various bands play in a contest and the second part where famous Romanian bands come and play as guests.

I enjoyed both, but to be honest, I enjoyed the first part more. First because I was in that contest and I was competing against the other bands. Second, because the famous bands were no news to me, while the underground bands were always a source of fresh music and musical styles.

I am not speaking about fresh songs, of course, every band had their own songs, new to me; not the songs were what interested me but the diversity of musical styles. It is amazing how creative underground musicians are! You could see there a lot of styles, from Led Zeppelin’s followers to death rock musicians but everyone of them had something that made their playing unique.

I loved that. I loved every minute of that show and the whole environment. We used to be hosted at a small hotel, a beautiful facility of the place where the show took place, a hotel just for us, musicians. I can not tell you what was there in the middle of the night…Guitars, keyboards, screaming voices outside the hall, a lot of drinking and smoking, girls and a lot of fun! The whole building was breathing rock!

I loved every second of this festival of rock, but what I loved the most was the fact that such an event showed me we were not alone on this planet and most of all, that we were not the best!

Playing for a lot of time in your rehearsal room can give you a distorted image of yourself and of your music. Exposure to various other musicians can correct you that image, without slapping you in the face. You just need to get in contact with the rest.

Having a concert is never the same. You play with other few bands, probably they also play things that you already know, so there is no big dare in this. But playing with 50 other bands, it is, trust me!

I remember that each year we came back from that contest I felt motivated to change something in our music, to come with better ideas and listen more underground music. I knew we were not alone and, again, we were not the best band in the world.

A very interesting part is the fact that you can compare what others are doing, it is kind of a workshop. I could see there, beside musical styles and performances, how one band can transmit such an explosion to public and how others just can’t. I could see how interesting one band composes, with strange rhythms, tensioned chords and bass lines and how straight forward other bands are playing the C-F-G thing. It was a thrill!

I could also see there a guitar player that, without being the fastest or the most technical one, had something in his guitar that made me listen and remember him even today. He played very easy, allowing his solo notes to be heard and understood, without crowding the solos with way too many notes. Very musical and technical at the same time, very good tone and feeling, he was the one that was as close as possible to being a professional guitar player, in my opinion.

We went there for 4 years in a row, if I well remember, for 3 years we didn’t do too much, while for the 4th year we were awarded the second place which was a very happy moment for us, back then since we knew we had it going with the band in that formula and with that musical style.

I am still sorry I can not participate to that contest anymore for the joy of it. Also, you can not be sure you would win anything, cause music there is always new and you can not tell what you will face there and how good your contestants would be.

Such shows are the best events a young musician could participate to. Such events show you where you are on your musical journey, show you what the world is playing around you and how you relate to the rest. And most of all, such events show that you are not the best, which in my opinion is always a good thing to know cause in artistic environments, this thing is often forgotten! Knowing you are not the best gives you an other perspective and allows you to listen to what the others are saying.

This is my personal view of it, if you don’t agree, well, let me know!

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