Virtue and virtuosism

[S. Cane]

https://psyche.co/ideas/true-musical...atVH8D7R73uV9c

[OldStrummer]

An interesting article, and well worth the read. Thank you, Sérgio. I take single exception to one premise, however. It doesn't alter the intent and meaning of the article, but the author states, "[R]ock was about the guitar, roll was about the drums." To me, the "rock" of rock-and-roll has always been the beat. It's been said the best music for sex has a beats-per-minute count of 120. Who keeps that beat? The drummer.

The "roll" then, is in the guitar (let's for the moment relegate the bass to the rhythm section, where it was placed for decades). Trills, runs, riffs, slides, hammer-ons/offs are all parts of start-to-finish roll of the music.

Just my opinion, of course. As I said, it doesn't change for me the point of the article. Virtuosity is just that.

[S. Cane]

An interesting article, and well worth the read. Thank you, Sérgio. I take single exception to one premise, however. It doesn't alter the intent and meaning of the article, but the author states, "[R]ock was about the guitar, roll was about the drums." To me, the "rock" of rock-and-roll has always been the beat. It's been said the best music for sex has a beats-per-minute count of 120. Who keeps that beat? The drummer.

The "roll" then, is in the guitar (let's for the moment relegate the bass to the rhythm section, where it was placed for decades). Trills, runs, riffs, slides, hammer-ons/offs are all parts of start-to-finish roll of the music.

Just my opinion, of course. As I said, it doesn't change for me the point of the article. Virtuosity is just that.

English isn’t my mother language and I don’t speak it well, you’ll be able to confirm this better than me but the way I read it, the author uses the word “roll” constantly as a pun with “drum roll” as well as in “rock and roll”… That could be why he associates “roll” with the drums.

[OldStrummer]

English isn’t my mother language and I don’t speak it well, you’ll be able to confirm this better than me but the way I read it, the author uses the word “roll” constantly as a pun with “drum roll” as well as in “rock and roll”… That could be why he associates “roll” with the drums.

As I've said before Sérgio, your command of the English language is far better than many native speakers I could name! And if you were to challenge me to converse in Portuguese, well...

I did get that sense from the article. As I said, my take on it doesn't alter the meaning of the fine article in any way, it's just the way I take the term "rock-and-roll" and slice and dice it. I may be the only one who sees it that way.