All musicians think they're geniuses. Without exception. Maybe not, like, some amateur dulcimerist, who jams with the local dulcimer community group at the library every Sunday. That person dreams of imminent genius, but perhaps isn't quite there yet. But any musician with the least bit of a viable career, or following, or any association with a person or enterprise with a following, is a GENIUS.
The problem is that I fawn poorly. I talk to people like people, and that's the worst affront to geniuses, who merit great deference ("I'm not just anyone, I'm the rhythm guitarist for Floyd and the Bozos, and we have a RECORD DEAL").
Musicians spend so many years facing uphill - first during the arduous journey of developing skills, then the lengthy period of shat-upon dues paying as they climb the ladder - that once they arrive "there" (i.e. any degree of acceptance or success), they feel world-crushingly elite. Those years of aspiration would seem worthless if you didn't emerge from the interminable chrysalis as a regal star child. It's MY TIME!
Why do the abused so often become abusers when they get some stature? Because it's THEIR TIME!Want to rile up a musician? Tell her she's improved. The implication that she was ever less than sublime will drive her to apoplexy. You can get away with "better than ever!", but she'll swirl the phrase around her mouth, probing for stinging hints of non-glorification.
There's a cliché that's become a nonsense mouth sound via overuse among musicians. "Sounds great, man" is the standard thing musicians say to each other. It's not quite a euphemism for "you sound just ok, but you're such a turdish egomaniac that I don't dare use anything but superlatives," even though it totally means exactly that, and we all know it. But it still works because, just on the face of it, "great" is a word we like to hear. Good word. Hey, say "great" some more! C'mon! Don't worry, man, you don't have to mean it!
I know many brutishly untalented musicians who feel like geniuses. I used to work with some, and it bugged them that I out-played them. I saw one a couple years ago, after I'd long been out of the business. He begged me to sit in with his band, which I did only after much persuasion on his end and explanation, on my end, about how I'm very very out of practice.
I didn't embarrass myself, but I did not exactly impress. And afterwards, he got on the microphone to tell the crowd about the long journey of his development as an artist, and how gratifying it is to finally have reached a pinnacle where he's surpassed musicians, like this guy [gestures at me], who he once looked up to. The passing of the baton. The lifecycle of genius.
This really happened. I guess it's like a prize fighter knocking out chumps to work up the food chain. You still feel like an absolute beast landing your right hook on the jaw of some boozy, bloated rube and sending him to the canvass. People cheer, bells ring, just like it was real. Hey, look at you! You're doin' it! That's YOU up there!
I wasn't the least bit surprised, because the guy had identified as a genius all along, back to when we first met as kids. And one thing about being just a regular person (which I've been the whole time) is that you must accept having your bacon stolen by geniuses. It's the law of the jungle! Geniuses gotta genius!
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