[JonPR]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Warning, pedantic person posting...

I think we may be conflating (or in danger of conflating...) performance charisma and then entertainment skills with another quality, the factor that makes some people's playing and singing (even from the same score or general arrangement of notes) more meaningful.

While charisma is somewhat subjective, there are performers who are generally seen to have "it" and it doesn't seem to require practice as such as it's often present very early in a performer's career. One example that comes to mind was the young Bob Dylan, who impressed people, even those that didn't really think much of him otherwise than that. Charisma is a weird quality where people sense there is something there even before it's established that the person has something as an artist. You could say it's derived from some increased degree of self-confidence, but vulnerability can be part of it too. James Dean (not a musician, but...) had charisma. Janis Joplin had a mix of bravado and vulnerability in her charisma.

A great many popular and successful musical performers have little or no charisma, other than that fame thing that accumulates from a track record of producing impressive work. Eric Clapton is one example that comes to mind. Woodshedding and hard work in general contribute a lot to many careers.

Entertainment skills, the ability to attract and hold an audience are learnable, both from the school of hard knocks but from shorter more focused efforts. I think of the Motown "Finishing School" that molded a lot of Detroit acts into an entertainment powerhouse. The skills here are very similar to salesmanship.

Soul as a word is less exact, but I think what we mean by it here is communicating emotional impact, something that in my mind is at the core of art (not just music). That communication has a great many factors, some external to the individual performance from history and culture and the audience's receptibility. But the musical performer's component can probably be learned (actors learn this, most aren't naturally good at it from the get go). Soul can be distinguished from mere entertainment skills that don't always relay on a feeling of deep emotional connection.

The contrarian in Frank Zappa liked to argue that this emotional communication was just a technique, a trick. Some actors will maintain the same thing, like musicians they like to point out they had to work at it. From Aristotle on, there's been a great deal written explicating this "trick." But, of course, that doesn't mean that something isn't communicated with this "trick," and that we don't or shouldn't value it.

Great post!