Are you a player or a composer?

Musicians tend to fall into either the player or the composer group. So don’t say you’re both. Even though you might be good at both playing and composing music, your heart surely gravitates towards one of them. The other one becomes an obedient slave of the dominant role. But which one you really are, the composer or the player kind?

The Player

The player’s main focus is to play, and to play well. His/her greatest joy is to learn to execute the piece perfectly. When that doesn’t happen, he keeps trying, over and over, stubbornly, until it does. And when I mention the piece, it doesn’t really matter if it’s his own creation or someone else’s one. If he writes songs, they are usually made to serve as vehicles for showing off his playing skills. Not only the highly technical skills, but the sheer power of errorless execution. The player has highly developed motor skills, so making no mistakes is natural for them. They feel urged to find new, easier and/or quicker ways to play something. They also have the ability to convey emotions with their beautiful, dynamic performance.

The Composer

The composer’s main goal is to create something new. He/she finds the greatest satisfaction in composing music; it basically means building something new from scratch; something new to show off. The composer has melodies (often with accompaniment) running in their head, constantly. They can be well known tunes or their own “children”. They don’t have the precise motor skills of the players, even though many of the composer kind develop a rather quirky playing style. But for them it’s really about creation; once they (more or less) complete a song, it’s time to move on to the next one. Their performance usually conveys emotions not by the flawless execution, but rather the way they make their personality speak through the music in an irresistible way.

Yeah, man. If you find yourself having too many traits from both groups, don’t worry. It only means this whole shit above is flawed.