ah, more thinking

i had a conversation at work with one of my good friends about one of our favorite artist's solo side project. although it is a solo project, his bandmates played the backing instruments. we started talking about how this could have come up. maybe the singer wrote all the parts and just needed people more proficient at the other instruments to play them for the record, which we believe is the case. my friend asked me if i could recognize the singer just based on his lyrics. the lyrics are different than what he would've wrote for his main band. i told him that i could probably sit down and figure out it was him just by the language and style he uses. then i told him the same goes for the guitarist. on the solo album, i could tell that the guitarist from the band was playing the majority of the lead. it was the style, the way the notes were slurred, the preciseness, or the different accents on certain notes that led me to believe it was that guitarist.

so i was thinking back to the wong article about the asian american performance and more specifically jazz performance. in the article, wong mentions that come asian american jazz artists can pick out whether or not a player is asian american or not just by the playing style. maybe this is the same case for the guitarist mentioned above who happens to be japanese american. his style was precise, exact, and present. there was a little jazzy feel to it, almost souful. what would happen if we were to have jimi hendrix or even slash, both black guitarists, play the same melody on the guitar. we would definitely be able to distinguish the player, but would we be able to distinguish the race?

rock music hasn't been too much in the itinerary for asian american studies. but if rock music was also a cultural product of the black community, would this be enough to consider it along the same lines of jazz and hip hop?

just a few thoughts.

bhurin

playlist:
circa survive - juturna
darkest hour - undoing ruin
elbow - leaders of the free world