Do You Look Like A Musician?

=hecklerkoch



You'd be surprised how much rationality & reasoning is nurtured through experience and less by age. i'm also totally unconcerned with quick judgments and labelling.

;) :)
 
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I think everyone needs to lighten up and chill. and man, posting jenna jameson is just distasteful. i mean, look at that face, it's probably half poison. here's to making things right!

2ahguvk.jpg
 
Everyone has their point, and neither is right nor wrong. In the end, if you feel comfortable with how you portray yourself to the public and how to answer to yourself, by all means, dress as flamboyantly or as plainly as you desire.

Fashion is subjective la, so chill.

I might say this guy might be a musician for some heavy band or whatever because of his dressing, but my AhMa might say he's some punk hooligan that takes drugs on the street and is indecent and stuff. Someone else might even think he's just a cosplayer or something. I always see those Visual kei-inspired teens on the street to be cosplayers rather than musicians if anything, unless it's so obvious that they're holding an instrument, but nowadays, that can be misleading.

Fashion is a very superficial thing (if you seriously don't dwell deep into the subject relating it to mindset and all, otherwise there'll be one hell of a long rant, lol.), and is ever changing, so take it with a pinch of salt la.
 
Hahaha!!

Pretty cool CG.

Apart from the fact that his hair is heavy like lead.

As in not blowing from the gust of the incoming train.

:mrgreen:
 
yngwie must be a poser, since he has longer hair than my mum and he wears tightn spandex. and has more bling on one wrist than i have over my body.

someone should sticky my previous post. : (
 
Anyone saw how those guitarists/bassists/drummers dressed on Crossroad Guitar Festival 2007? Most of them wore plain & boring t-shirts, short sleeve shirts, regular jeans or 3/4 pants. Even if they were the star performer, they still looked "average joe" (other than Bill Murray :)). In fact, they dressed just like the audience! But they were able to thrill and wow the audience with their playing, music and stage presence nevertheless.

I guess the most important thing here is.....these musicians were so comfortable with themselves and had so much fun playing to the audience, that couldn't care less about what they should wear.
 
=guitarsan

Well, I wouldn't be surprised cos it was for the Crossroads Centre, and not MTV.

I guess it all depends entirely on the circumstance and the geographical location - just like you see that American 'live' audiences are generally more enthusiastic, fervent and supportive like in American Idol and all those talk shows like Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah.

When I go to concerts (non-metal and not likely to involve any headbanging) like The Black Eyed Peas, for example - one can easily tell the Singaporean from the expat, apart from their clothing and attire. The typical Singaporean is still more likely to be concerned about his 'face', rather than let loose or open up his mind - which is my main grouse here, if it's really that difficult to see in my posts.

:-D
 
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I think the term 'non-conformists' is very vague in this topic.....

I dress like a kopitiam boy when I go out, cos I usually just go to kopitiams to slack...........

FYI, Kopikia style=the 3S

Singlet
Shorts
Slipper
 
haha i dress quite contrary to the music i play. i like wearing striped shirts and skinny jeans on stage, which would lead many to stereotype me as one of those "emo" guitarists who can only bang out power chords. then when they actually see me play, their jaws drop.

i believe in well, dressing whatever you wanna dress and playing whatever you wana play, so long as it sounds good and looks good.
 
I'm gonna try clear the air a bit... :S

Where's Mr Softie in longer hair? Where where where? I wanna see!



uhm.... I don't know about looking like a musician, but I wear long / short coats / jackets / hoodies when I go out. Yes, even in our crazy weather. It was sorta my usual trademark look when I go out sometimes.. like that girl in the corduroy mango coat, yeap, definitely sage lol :p I went completely ballistic when I left my coat at a previous gig performance venue and couldn't find it... Called them up nonstop and was practically going through sleepless nights..

I tried stopping this habit some time in the past when I'm not in the mood for the stares, but it was so uncomfortable going out without one that I got over the whole looking business. :p My reasons for wearing them are a weird mix, which I shall not mention unless you intend to marry me or something..

Otherwise, I don't think I look like a musician though; Just a nutcase. :D




Speaking of which, I'm just wondering.. is the general society picky on musicians dressing up these days?

I don't care for dressing up on stage much, firstly because being in a metal band (for example), my hair length seems to be the most important "outfit" I'd need to headbang with the crowd, and with the amount of movement I have to make on stage whilst keeping air reserves for singing my notes, I need to pick out clothes that doesn't hyperventilate, twist me in a loop, or make me fall off and squash the fans flat. I depend on my facial expressions and body language to do the bit for the music's showmanship (which I can express much better than flaunting what I'm wearing, fortunately or unfortunately :p)

BUT! I do wear single, minor articles (such as bracelets, makeup or a corsette look somewhere) to fit into the music my band is playing. I do wear at least one piece of attire that stands out, because my band's music needs me to do this :p Everything else is just simple giordano-esh tops and stuff lol.

Wasted lah I'd rather wear something easier to mosh in, like an oversized shirt and my ripped jeans :p Black, leather and spandex under the stagelights is a one way ticket to the oven!!!!!!!

That goes for my metal band.



On other simpler gigs (acoustic pop, songwriter-ish, etc), I just don regular clothes and let the music do its work. Sometimes I could arrive for a gig in my usual coat attire, but strip down afterwards, remove my makeup, etc and dress like any other normal person for the performance :p It's quite odd explaining this to my friends sometimes, and my answer to this is that "this isn't the gig to have my voice compromised by what I wear. I wanna bounce the vibe off between me and the audience, and looking different isn't gonna help."


All I'm trying to say is............
I think it depends lah, on the music, the stage, the audience, and most importantly,
>>> your self-esteem and your music initiatives / priorities and how they work together IF there was a connection in the first place <<<
Like.. doing music aside, like I mentioned in the previous bit, going about with coats / jackets / hoodies is just my (personal) identity, which I always strain to keep seperate from my "musician look" (because I am not -only- a musician / metalhead etc). Nothing wrong with being what I am, with or without the "MUSICIAN!!" label over my head,
and I think there should be a clear distinction with this (personal identity) and the identity as a musician; They can be worlds apart, depending on the person.


Reading through heckler's posts and the counter-posts to heckler, it seems to me that there's a crazy jumbo super-size mix of a lot of different factors... human nature, musician nature (image), musician nature (music), music fans nature, music fans natures within different genres, philosophy, psychology and some schools of thought....
it's not gonna get any concrete I think, unless everyone's talking about the same thing? :/ Don't fight lar.........



===== Read this only if you have nothing else to do ==========
Here's another bounce-off, that is purely on my own personal theory (so don't hantam k)
I do agree, though, that musicians and music fanatics DO look different.
But... it's not on the obvious things like what. they. wear. This is my OWN personal observances, maybe I'm nuts or too free (highly possible);
They have a certain air, a certain walk, a certain smile, a certain expression, certain responses, etc etc
AND
these vary between their genres! Gasp.
Like some musicians look just like a regular Singaporean teenager but you just get a gut feeling there's something up with the fella when you look at his body language, responses after some time, etc; like they're psycho or their families are broken or have a crazy fetish or something. And you have no idea what it is, until you find out he's in a band or doing trance compositions or something.

Unfortunately, I have also met some "unique" non-musician or non-musically-inclined individuals that exhibit a handful of the similar dispositions :/ hmm.. I still think there might be a subset to these for a musician only. I'm willing to bring in a controlled experiment to this, but I can't find enough volunteers who are free enough. Maybe I'll start next year when I'm resuming my studies.. Anyone interested? Pretty little curiousity to poke into~
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Hee hee... Sage - you wanna 'fight' with me to see who can write longer ah? Don't worry about being hantam-ed for your 'thesis' lah. It's a democratic country, the forum is open to everbody, and James, in person, does look like a genuinely nice guy lah. :mrgreen:

Wah, you are taking this so seriously that you are thinking of starting an actual experiment to this ah?

Didn't know my simple wonderment could have led to a mini classification war of sorts, between people who play music (don't want to use the term 'musician' here lest people start to get defensive again) and like to dress up, on and off stage, and people who play music but think that people who like to dress up to suit their own personalities, are poseurs and teenagers who don't 'deserve' to be called ummm... 'musicians'.

Never mind the fact that I have sorta explained a few times why I think people in general should dress a little bit differently in my posts. Just like how you can tell apart easily the same age demographic of teenagers from two different countries like Japan and Singapore, apart from their dissimilarity in physical looks, and how a little bit more forward-looking/thinking our Japanese counterparts are - both fashion and music-wise.

Ok, before I write another 'thesis', I better go.

Running late...
 
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There is no such thing as looking like a musician. You just dress like an individual. Dressing up specifically to make people notice you as a musician is just poser behaviour if you ask me.

"Hey look at me! I can play guitar! Yeah I'm METAL! I'm hardcore!"

-_-
 
Hee hee... Sage - you wanna 'fight' with me to see who can write longer ah?

No lah... I've been groomed to write, so I don't realise it's long until I hit the "post" button.

... But did I beat you anyway? lol

Not that I'm taking the experiment seriously or anything, but I have been curious. Plus it'll help me with my psycho essays :}
 
There is no such thing as looking like a musician. You just dress like an individual. Dressing up specifically to make people notice you as a musician is just poser behaviour if you ask me.

"Hey look at me! I can play guitar! Yeah I'm METAL! I'm hardcore!"

-_-

Ya, poseurs are sad, I must admit.

Though I know lotsa people dress a certain way because they perceive it as a whole lifestyle thing, doesn't matter if they can play any musical instrument or not.

Whether they really look like a musician or a clown, I guess it's up to each person's interpretation.

So, it depends on whether you understand the context or whether you see it as a black and white thing.

Perception is rarely about whether it is right or wrong.

:D
 
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