Different types of musicianship

[loveguitar]

This isn't much of a question but more of an opinion sharing thread.

Recently as I turn to writing originals, I found less and less time for guitar practice. And as I do different things on music, I sort of feel my strength and weakness in different areas.

I start to wonder if different musicians are good in certain areas.
Some examples,
Eric Johnson's guitar ability is no doubt first class. His instrumental solo like cliff of dovers is incredible, but listening to some of his songs where there is vocal parts, the melody just don't sound nice to me. And I sometimes do wonder if Vai, Satch or Malmsteem were to ask to write a song, rather than an instrumental piece, would it sound as nice?

And of course, some very nice songs, are not written by great guitarists. I mean they might play guitar well, but certainly haven't heard them improvise like van halen or john petrucci. Example, some of the songs from Bread, Beatles etc are very very nice.

Slash writes the best guitar lines, but I don't think he write any songs.

And there are also guitarists who never write any songs for the band

Perhaps a more all rounded musician I can think of is Eric Clapton. He is a guitar hero, and a good song writer as well.

Just some tots

[Los Boleros]

I sometimes do wonder if Vai, Satch or Malmsteem were to ask to write a song, rather than an instrumental piece, would it sound as nice?
Just like different people have different learning processes, We all have our things that we are good at (These are the things that make us, us) and things that are not as strong. I look at my own strengths and weaknesses and realize than I am a better musician that a guitar player. There are so many guitarists that can play with better acuracy than me but I find confort in believing that I can do as much damage with fewer notes.

[sugarbee]

I think the question of musicianship is an important one. I firmly believe that being musically talented and being musically skilled are very different things sometimes. For example, though I read music a bit, I am primarily a by ear player, and quite frankly, I think I get a better feel for a piece if I do learn it by ear, because then I have to take myself to a point where I need to be able to understand the song I am learning or creating without any directions in the form of notation or dynamic markings or anything like that, but, that being said, that's just me, and I know tons of people who are extremely skilled and extremely musical. I also know highly skilled musicians who barely have a musical bone in their body, they just don't feel it I guess. In my world of music, I strive to emote, to express and to give a good, solid performance no matter what. I woulod like to be more technically skilled, and I work on learning more when I have time to, but other than that I just try to do what i do the best way I can and that's what I hold dear. But, again, as always, that's just the way I do it, there's lots of musicianship out there, and it manifests itself in countless different ways. All I know, is if I can feel it, I know it's good, whether I'm performing or just listening. Express the emotions people, and the rest will come in time...