Technician Versus Performer / Music

Music

• Rap:
  • Technical geniuses who dominate the underground but don't have the charisma to achieve superstar status are technicians. They include Talib Kweli, Nas, Common, and De La Soul.
  • The loud, upfront, party rappers backed by incredible stage presence are performers. They include 50 Cent, Flo Rida, Lil' Jon, and basically all Crunk artists.
  • Wu-Tang Clan: Technicians like master producer RZA and stately story-teller GZA are contrasted with the more wildly-improvisational, jazzy, and audacious performances exemplified by Ol' Dirty Bastard (there's no father to his style).
  • You could potentially break down the entire history of hip-hop by noting the prominent Performer/Technician dichotomies of the day, even the ones that didn't result in outright verbal sparring:
    • Bronze Age: Kool Moe Dee (Technician) vs. Busy Bee (Performer)
    • Iron Age: Kool Moe Dee (Technician) vs. LL Cool J (Performer) or KRS-1 (Technician) vs. MC Shan (Performer)
    • Golden Age: Rakim (Technician) vs. Big Daddy Kane (Performer with great technical ability)
    • Early/Mid 90's: Tupac (Performer with versatile lyricism) vs. The Notorious B.I.G. (Technician with incredible charisma)
    • Late 90's/Early 2000's Jay-Z (Performer with great technical ability) vs. Nas (Technician with spurts of performer-like passion)
    • Mid 2000's: 50 Cent (Performer) vs. Kanye West (Lyrical Wordsmith, Motherfucking Genius)
    • Circa 2013, the two most significant young rappers of the day, Drake (Performer) and Kendrick Lamar (Technician) seem to be angling towards this kind of dichotomy.
  • Eminem is an unusual case, as he's been both of these rappers throughout his career. He started as a "rhyming for the sake of rhyming", speed-rapping Technician, then rebooted his style in his mid-20s to become a Vulgar Humor-spewing Shock Jock Performer with an iconic bratty persona and hairstyle. While he maintained his exceptional rhyming ability during this period, he came back from his drug addiction as more of a Technician than ever (while maintaining a toned-down version of his grossout aesthetic), causing a fandom split between those who admire his skill and bravura rapping, and those who admire his public persona and emotion. This is partly why so many of his albums are divisive.
• Amongst guitarists too, just look at the top 100 as ranked by Rolling Stone. The top 10 are mainly remembered as performers who played with a focus on soul and feeling. Whereas Technicians such as Eddie Van Halen are considerably lower on the list. The revised list written in 2011 is a bit better in this regard, with Van Halen now being in the top 10.
• Robbie Williams (performer) and Gary Barlow (technician) from Take That (Band), and more notably their solo careers. Most people agreed Gary was the better song writer and singer but he was quiet and reserved with a fairly stable personality, where as Robbie was wild, charismatic and beset by personal demons. Interestingly this reversed once they got older, as Robbie started to look more and more like a wangsty man-child and Gary like a dignified if stoic gentleman.
• Pyromania- and Hysteria-era Def Leppard had co-lead guitarists Phil Collen (technician) and Steve Clark (performer). Collen has stated that, after Clark died, he almost wanted to quit the group over his frustration at the problems he was having with replicating Steve's guitar playing.
• Britney Spears (Performer) Vs Christina Aguilera (Technician). In a TV documentary about Christina, a producer from the Mickey Mouse Club said that the talented vocalist Christina often had trouble competing with professional dancer and performer Britney - who, in turn, has admitted in an interview with Diane Sawyer that she wishes she had a voice like Christina's. Their fans also support them for different reasons: Christina's fans are here for her powerful thunderous vocals, and Britney fans like her performance and expression of emotions and stage show. There are alternative theories that say that Britney has better technique (besides smoking) and spends months mastering her show's technique wise while Christina would be a performer who focuses on the show of her voice.
• Backstreet Boys (Technician) and *NSYNC (Performer). The Backstreet Boys are more simplistic but solid in their live performances and rarely strayed from their Adult Contemporary brand of pop, while *NSYNC preferred technically elaborate live performances and experimenting with their musical palette.
• Van Halen's singer debate: David Lee Roth (performer) vs. Sammy Hagar (technician).
• Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne (performer) vs. Ronnie James Dio (technician). When Ozzy went solo he took the same approach by hiring Randy Rhoads (technician), who stood in sharp contrast to Tony Iommi (performer).
• The They Might Be Giants song "XTC versus Adam Ant" asserts that the two bands represent "content versus form," ie technical performance versus style.
  • And They Might Be Giants themselves count, with John Linnell as the introverted technician who can play numerous instruments and whose songs often have fussy musical textures and well-honed lyrics, while John Flansburgh is the outgoing performer who sticks mainly to guitar and whose songs tend toward unusual concepts and Refuge in Audacity.
• An unusually common situation: An actor-who-sings tends to be much more successful than the reverse. Though both fields are demanding, singing is also extremely focused; singers (Technicians) often lack the physical presence needed to connect to the audience, while actors (Performers) may not be the best singers, but know how to get reactions from audiences. Underlining the differences, many actors already are decent singers—but they view it as a fun way to kill time, while singers view acting as Serious Business.
• This trope is the main reason why it's generally not a good idea to try to discuss either Garage Rock or Progressive Rock with fans of the other. The divide between Punk Rock and Heavy Metal isn't as strong, but they fit this trope too.
• Despite his clear technical skills, Jimi Hendrix was closer to the Performer end of the spectrum. Had virtually no formal musical training, could barely even read music, but was blessed with natural talent and near-perfect pitch. Nobody taught Jimi how to play; HE JUST KNEW, man...
  • This was never made more apparent than when Hendrix requested a jam session with Cream when he first arrived in London. This was at the peak of "Clapton is God" amongst English rock fans, and many were shocked that Hendrix even dared share the stage with Eric Clapton. As good as he is though, Clapton was more on the Technician side and had a very stoic stage presence. Hendrix, by contrast, tore ass through "Killing Floor" doing his usual tricks (playing behind his back, with his teeth, playing with feedback, laying into the whammy bar, etc). As Jack Bruce said later "Clapton was playing guitar. Hendrix was a force of nature."
• Heavy Metal bands with two guitarists run on this trope. Often the two guitarists will cultivate wildly different lead styles from each other and play off each other in elaborate and extended "duels". Notable twin-guitar teams fitting this mold include:
  • Accept: Wolf Hoffmann (Technician) vs. Herman Frank (Performer)
  • The Black Dahlia Murder: Ryan Knight (Technician) vs. Brian Eschbach (Performer)
  • Cannibal Corpse: Pat O'Brien (Technician) vs. Rob Barrett (Performer)
  • Deep Purple (guitar vs. organ): Ritchie Blackmore (Technician) vs. Jon Lord (Performer), though Blackmore could pull off some really insane stage antics, all with a frown on his face.
  • Dethklok: Skwisgaar Skwigelf (Technician) vs. Toki Wartooth (Performer)
  • Dir en grey: Kaoru (Technician) vs. Die (Performer)
  • Dream Theater (guitar vs. keyboards in this case): John Petrucci (Technician) vs. Kevin Moore or Derek Sherinian (Performer). Now with Jordan Rudess it's Technician vs. Even Bigger Technician.
  • exist†trace: Omi (Technician) vs. Miko (Performer)
  • Exhumed: Bud Burke (Technician) vs. Matt Harvey (Performer)
  • Gamma Ray: Henjo Richter (Technician) vs. Kai Hansen (Performer)
  • Helloween: Michael Weikath (Technician) vs. Kai Hansen (Performer)
  • Hour of Penance: Giulio Moschini (Technician) vs. Paolo Pieri (Performer)
  • Iced Earth: John Schaffer (Technician) vs. Randall Shawver (Performer)
  • Immolation: Bill Taylor (Technician) vs. Bob Vigna (Performer)
  • Iron Maiden: Dave Murray and Janick Gers (Technician) vs. Adrian Smith (Performer)
  • Job for a Cowboy: Alan Glassman (Technician) vs. Tony Sannicandro (Performer)
  • Judas Priest: Glenn Tipton (Technician) vs. K.K. Downing (Performer), with Tipton favoring melodic, technical solos, and Downing preferring a rapid fire assault, punctuated by whammy bar tricks and other odd noises.
  • Kreator: Sami Yli-Sirnio (Technician) vs. Mille Petrozza (Performer)
  • Megadeth: Chris Poland, Marty Friedman, or Chris Broderick (Technician) vs. Dave Mustaine (Performer)
  • Mercyful Fate: Hank Shermann (Technician) vs. Michael Denner (Performer)
  • Metallica: Kirk Hammett (Technician) vs. James Hetfield (Performer)
  • Mötley Crüe (Guitarist vs. rest of the group): Mick Mars (Technician) vs. Nikki Sixx (Technician/Performer mix), Tommy Lee (Technician/Performer mix) and Vince Neil (Performer)
  • Misery Index: Darin Morris (Technician) vs. Mark Kloeppel (Performer)
  • Scar Symmetry: Per Nilsson (Technician) vs. Jonas Kjellgren (Performer)
  • Slayer: Jeff Hanneman (Technician) vs. Kerry King (Performer)
  • Suffocation: Terrance Hobbs (Technician) vs. Doug Cerrito or Guy Marchais (Performer)
  • Trivium: Corey Beaulieu (Technician) vs. Matt Heafy (Performer).
  • X Japan: Pata (Technician) vs. hide/Sugizo (Performer).
• Technical Death Metal vs. many other types of Metal.
• John Lennon and Ringo Starr were more on the "performer" side, but Paul McCartney and George Harrison were more technical in The Beatles (though all were self-taught). (In Mitch Benn is the 37th Beatle, Mitch rather cruelly describes Harrison as someone who "realised that the way to become a rock star when you had no personality whatsoever was to become really good at all the complicated fiddly bits".)
• Roger Waters, Syd Barrett and Nick Mason (performer) vs. David Gilmour and Rick Wright (technician) in Pink Floyd.
• Exemplified perfectly in Charlie Daniels' song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", with Johnny as the Performer and the Devil as the Technician. While the Devil plays a far more complicated and difficult piece, it pales in comparison to the beauty of Johnny's song.
• From Queen, Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor were performers, whereas Brian May and John Deacon were technicians (Deacon, literally, since he was an electrical engineer). For that matter, Brian May is an astrophysicist.
• Electric Guitars (the band, not the instrument) is an interesting example. The band features two guitar players, Soren Andersen and Mika Vandborg. On any given song, whoever sings is the Technician, while the other is the Performer.
• KISS with their lead guitarists. Ace Frehley was a Performer, more known for his guitar emitting smoke and firing rockets than for his playing, and he was once described as "a cheap Jimmy Page imitation in a flashy costume". His replacements in the 80's (Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John, Bruce Kulick) were all Technicians who could play rings around him, but never connected with the audience the way he did. In fact, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons jokingly called Bruce "Spruce Kulick" when he first joined because of his lack of stage presence and just standing there like a tree onstage. Current guitarist Tommy Thayer is also a Technician, but more a Promoted Fanboy as he idolized Kiss and Ace growing up.
• Lorde (Technician) vs. Lana Del Rey (Performer). Lorde spends a lot of time collecting beats and rhythms and applying it to her music. Lana focuses more on performing the emotions and telling a story.
• Boy Bands and Girl Groups can have this. The Technician is usually the lead singer because they have the strongest voice in the group, but the Performer, often the other half of the Vocal Tag Team, may have a more engaging presence that draws the audience and camera to them. The Breakup Breakout is almost always the Performer due to their ability to keep the audience engaged and while the Technician can also be more critically successful, they won't reach the commercial popularity of the Performer.
• Lead guitarists are often seen as performers rather than technicians, which has lead to the creation of many lead guitarist stereotypes. For example.
• Even within the highly technical shredding style of guitar, a division exists between pure "shredders", who mostly kept their shredding improvised, and were more often seen in more commercial bands, and the Neoclassical guitarists who tended to place an emphasis on a understanding of music theory, and rigidly structured playing, often forgoing vocalists and conventional song structures to create instrumental symphonies.
• Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Bella Thorne and Hilary Duff (performer), vs. Demi Lovato, Emily Osment, Bridgit Mendler and Lalaine (technician).
• Elton John (technician) often teamed up with Billy Joel (performer with a technician lean) for tours during the 1990s/2000s. Both are classically trained, however.
• The seventies-era Stones were an odd example, particularly on stage. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards hewed strongly toward the Performer end of the spectrum while lead guitarist Mick Taylor was best known for his technical skill and staring at his guitar during performance. However, Taylor's improvisational ability also made him the most variable musically, and his ability to take the warhorses in odd directions is still missed in some circles compared to the steadier Ronnie Wood.
• Classical musicians in general are commonly stereotyped as extreme Technicians compared to musicians in other genres - that they focus on honing their technical skills to the exclusion of everything else.
• Classical pianists: there are pianists like Maurizio Pollini who possess flawless technique, but are accused of emotionlessness, and pianists like György Cziffra or Arthur Rubinstein, who play with great passion and seamlessly ignore minor mistakes.
  • Vladimir Horowitz was both, he could play with staggering intensity, but was notorious for reworking other composers material when he thought they weren't technically perfect.
  • French-Swiss pianist Alfred Cortot is an interesting case. He was a highly educated scholar of the technical side of music, taught at the Paris Conservatoire, and published meticulously annotated print editions of musical scores. But in his playing he freely varied tempos for expression and was perfectly willing to include wrong notes or other technical slip-ups in his recordings as long as the performance was effective.
  • Musical scores bow to this notion as well: legendary piano virtuoso Franz Liszt often allowed the interpreters great freedom in interpretation while the Bigger Is Better symphonic composer Gustav Mahler painstakingly noted every inch of his vision.
• Jimmy Page, lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin, was a rare example of both. On the album recordings his guitar playing was precise and technical. The live versions of the same songs onstage were more emotional and improvised.
• Blues (Performer) versus Jazz (Technician). Within blues music, artists like BB King and Albert King are often seen as technicians - whereas artists like Jimmy Reed and Howlin' Wolf are seen as performers.
• An interesting 50/50 of this is Prince. You see Prince on stage, doing splits and tearing through epic fluid guitar solos, you'd put him on the Performer side. But according to his old engineers and collaborators, Prince was a wiz in the studio. His first album was basically a polished demo he recorded himself playing 26 different instruments ranging from guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, wind chimes and wood blocks, and more. He programmed all his own beats using his beloved Linn drum machine, knew how all the computers and tape machines worked, and cut his own vocals alone with a simple boom mic hanging over the mixing console. Classic singles like "When Doves Cry" were all him performing solo. That said, they also confirmed Prince rarely second-guessed himself, which is why he was so prolific and released so many albums. Basically, he was a Technician trying to capture the passion of a Performer, and he very more often than not succeeded.
• Electronic Music duos pairing a producer (technician) with a DJ (performer). Examples include Bedrock (DJ John Digweed x producer Nick Muir) and Way Out West (DJ Nick Warren x producer Jody Wisternoff).
• An important feature of 80's King Crimson. Robert Fripp, the mastermind behind the band and the technician, would sit there on stage not even smiling while Adrian Belew, the performer and the vocalist, would ham it up David Byrne style.
• The Who was all over the map. Pete Townshend's songwriting and guitar playing are mostly on the technical side, although he can still cut loose when playing live. Roger Daltrey is definitely a performer, continuing to draw crowds even after his once-mighty singing voice has weakened with age. John Entwistle was a technician through and through - in live shows he'd hardly even move, but his rock-solid bass playing was a reliable backbone the others could lean on. And whether Keith Moon was an exuberant-but-precise drummer or a crowd-pleasing rock animal depended on how many drugs he happened to be using at the time.
• Westlife had the lead vocal duo of Shane Filan and Mark Feehily. While Shane's solid, reliable, consistent voice meant he was usually trusted to sing lead for the majority of the song, it was Mark who provided the soulful, sweeping vocals that took over after the key change.
• David Bowie was the ultimate in 'performer over technician'. Other than a handful of saxophone lessons when he was a teenager, he was not a trained musician but he was a naturally instinctive singer (rarely needing more than one take to nail a vocal), a utterly brilliant songwriter, a natural showman and had a knack for getting the best out of his collaborators (including many technicians).
• Synth-Pop duos like Yazoo, Soft Cell and Erasure would typically pair up a quiet, technical keyboard player with a very expressive, soulful vocalist.
• Country Music Creator Couple Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, interestingly enough. Garth has a decent voice but became a huge success due to his natural abilities as a performer and songwriter, with enough charisma to fill up sold-out arenas. But as he himself will be the first to tell you, he happens to be married to one of the greatest voices ever to grace the country stage. Trisha, though she certainly has stage presence, will also be the first to tell you that she doesn't have her husband's gifts in that area and never will, but there are very few who will dispute that her vocals are among the best the genre has ever seen. Needless to say, they make a great duo onstage together.
• Former Menudo singers. Technician Robi Rosa writes new songs and re-arranges old ones, and has been modestly successful as a solo artist. Performer Ricky Martin performs popular songs that have greater mass appeal and has been the most successful ex-Menudo by far, not to mention one of the most famous solo artists who were former boy-band members.
  • The band itself relied on being Performers, with each member fulfilling a role (the funny ones the long-haired pretty boy, the baby of the group, etc.) and their appeal to teen girls.

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