Definitely fun to watch musicians destroy their own egos but we already do that on a daily basis. Build your confidence and awareness with Tonic: tonicmusic.app/join-in 🎵
So would you let Ross (on the show Friends) call himself a musician? Check him playing the bagpipes or his keyboard "composition" (which he describes as "wordless sound poems" - basically using the preset sounds on a Casio keyboard)
@@jamesrawlins735 Of course! A musician is just a term used for someone who's playing music. It doesn't define your level or whether you make a living from it :)
I think the drummer MAY the most talented! Very rare to find someone that good. There is nothing special about anyone else except the girl with the guitar is beautiful. I am a (good) amateur violinist. However I would not even be able to accurately discern all other classical instruments in the orchestra. For example I would recognise a good flute player but not instantly detect a professional one. It’s kind of easier for people to appreciate technically if they actually play the same instrument. I am not a drummer that’s why I qualify my answer with MAY! We all know the real solution is Tonic 😎
It's so insane that the female pianist got ranked 5th by the audience despite being the only one of the group who showed some advanced musicality. The fact that most people in the audience are unable to perceive that is kind of shocking. Then again, looking at the sort of music most people listen to, it's not that surprising.
I watched the reaction video of the female pianist and she mentioned that the instagram poll asked the audience who was their "favorite musician" not who had the most talent or skill.
@@Myztyrio Not really. No difficult high notes, simples runs, no difficult lyrics to introduce melodically at all basically just hummed some runs with easy vowels. She did have decent support but seemed more like raw talent rather than a real demonstration of vocal skill, like she didn't sing an opera piece with rapid whistle notes or anything, not sure what you got out of that.
@@Belial-jv5tq what you listed here is fluff to impress people with. You don’t need anything overly fancy to qualify as good at singing - just plenty of experience, a good ear and creative/emotional evocation
@@MyztyrioI think she’s pretty good but everything she’s doing is not very difficult. That is kind of what musical skill is in a sense, is being able to play difficult things well. Singing is different in that more difficult things do not necessarily sound as good as simple things. What she did just was not extremely impressive, but it did sound good. In terms of actual instruments, she sounds kind of amateurish. It does not take that much effort in comparison to the other people to get to where she is, which is literally the whole point of this video. Musical skill is definitely partly how good it sounds, but in practice it is basically just how good you are at playing extremely difficult things, improvising, and to a much smaller extent understanding your tool. Whether thats learning theory, or just being familiar with your tool. Nobody is denying she sounds great, but in terms of skill she does not stand out as a person that’s in the top 50% of the people in this video.
@@probag8414 I mean... are you that surprised to see TwoSetters comment under Ray Chen's videos ? They probably represent at least 80 % of his audience. 😅
Hey @RayChenViolinist ! Summer-the female pianist from the Jubilee vid-here :) I believe I initially heard about you from TwoSet a while back, but I recently saw a clip of your Playing God cover! I played + co-wrote the piano part on Playing God Acoustic, and was so blown away by your cover, so it’s wild and unexpected to see this pop up. Thanks for your kind words, they mean a lot coming from you!! I’ll try to respond to a few things you brought up in your commentary. First off, I was honestly expecting at least one or two other musicians to be closer to your / Tim Henson / Yuja Wang level, so was initially taken aback by the overall skill level. I’m a studio/touring musician and composer/arranger who was classically trained, so you were spot on with that assessment. I didn’t go to conservatory / didn’t major in music (B.A. Legal Studies), but did grow up taking classical piano lessons for 10 1/2 years and violin for about 6 years too (I was pretty terrible at violin). To explain my ranking of the other musicians, I have to note that in the touring backing musician world, multi-instrumentalists are very sought after, especially by artist management with tighter budgets, so Michael (guitar/backing vocals/pedal steel)’s skill set would rank highly in that sense …but that doesn’t necessarily equate to talent, I realize; I just wasn’t expecting him to have any intonation at all (I was expecting worse tbh, so was surprised. He was not a cellist that I would personally hire as my string contracting standards are high/pro, but he still played cello far better than what I’d expect from a guitarist who picked up a cello). His voice was also pretty solid and better than my own singing voice (I’d never sing lead vocals publicly; I know my strengths and that isn’t one of them lol). For instance, my tour with Kings Elliot, I both played keys and ran triggers; my tour with Chon, I played keys, sang backing vocals, wrote the string arrangements, contracted the string players, and music directed the show, etc. The more you can do at a high level, the more employable you are as a touring backing musician. Another important note: Jubilee had IG rank us all based on who was people’s “favorite musician”-yup, they used a different metric. Why? I don’t know, and imho, comparing rankings by different metrics kinda invalidated the social experiment, but I digress… I also believe that if I’d played something recognizable-like you mentioned-instead of an original composition (my piece “JFN”), I possibly would’ve ranked higher with IG. Another pertinent note, the keyboard that Sèdo an I played on was a Nord Electro HP which has fully weighted keys; it certainly doesn’t feel quite like a Steinway / Bosendorfer / Fazioli / Shigeru Kawai, but any trained pianist could easily play expressively effectively on it because of it’s high-quality fully weighted keys:) That all said, I enjoyed hearing your insight! If you ever want a non-classical pianist to collab with, plz lemme know; I absolutely love working with violinists - and/or I also would love to interview you for my AAPI Musicians blog if you’re down🙏🏽🙌🏽🎵 All the best to you and yours regardless!
I used to be Julius, I can relate how he feels, but one day he will grow up and realize how insignificant his 'skill' is and how much more he can improve or correct his past ignorance about music making.
What a thoughtful response. I judged him a lot, but you've made me realize he deserves some kindness - maybe no compliments, but at least some empathy hahaha.
being julius is an important part of being a musician. Hopefully that inspired him to practice and develop a skill set. it's unfortunate to have this revelation made in such a public medium, but it's an important revelation - humility - and so vital to growing as an instrumentalist/songwriter/composer/etc.
Thank you for making clear that the biggest issue with a format like that is that the term „talent“ is not defined properly here. Most people vote following a feeling of „I like the type of music“ or „well, I think I cannot do that“… both are not very meaningful approaches to judge a talent.
@@filoue2583 I can't comment on the technical side of how youtube deals with the different symbols and the standard quotation mark (youtube puts both like this " " for me, but in a german word document they are instead „ “) but quotation marks differ wildly between languages. E.g. German uses „ “, French « », some use » «, etc.
For TH-cam I cannot change the language settings for each comment (and I don’t want to switch everything to English), so the German quotation marks appear automatically when I write. It has never come into my mind that they could cause any trouble. Take it as an exercise in mental flexibility 😊
a fun note to add is that with jubilee, most of these people actually sign up for these videos months before. they have to go through a questionnaire and acceptance round and all that before filming. so the fact that the blue hair guy said he just learned it a week ago is strange because that would mean he signed up with no experience?
I noticed that a lot of the performances were cut from the final video. At 10:34, you can see blue hair guy singing without piano in the Instagram compilation. I think this means that the final video cut the clips of him singing unaccompanied and just left in his original song. My guess is that he considers himself a "singer" and signed up as thus, even though he only recently learned to accompany himself on the piano.
Hey Ray! I just wanted to say love the content you make and wanted to thank you for introducing me and my 5yr old daughter to Tonic. I was having a tough time to get her to practice her violin even once a week.. Now she just got to a 20 day practice streak!! She's gotten much better and its all thanks to Tonic which helped gamify and open up her practice to perform live (which makes her take it more seriously too!) Thanks and keep up the great content
They did quite a great job of showing unrepresentative moments of the performances. Drummer guy actually played quite complex grooves. From what we see here it is hard to understand how well he played. Also we see it is hard for people to understand what’s good playing and what not if you don’t play yourself. If you play piano you see that the second pianist has not much in terms of trained technique, while the female pianist had those movements you only get with years of practice. But when TwoSet reacted to this video they immediately devaluated her because of the choice of music. They were on the other hand quite impressed by the second pianist starting with the fantaisie impromptu, which was quite slow and he got exactly to the point were every intermediate students stumbles when trying to play it the first time, which is bar 7 (so not at all as impressive). Also the singer does not simply _have a great voice._ It takes a great voice and good technique, training and practice to be able to do that. But the problem here is that it is hard to say what ”talent“ is. For some people this seemed to mean the ability to consequently practice until you get good, and for others this means the ability to quickly take up new things, or to come up with your own stuff (afaik the female pianist played her own composition by the way). I think blue hair guy was quite proud of playing his own song and doing this only with one week of practice. But the others just did not share his concept of talent, and rather evaluated his skill at the piano.
I felt like that guy thought that being able to say "I just picked this instrument up and I'm already this good" was what made him impressive. But . . . he wasn't that good and it wasn't that impressive. 😬
If you’re a good drummer, it is easy to notice the difference between playing loud because you want to emphasize something and playing loud because you don’t have control
I ALWAYS skip ads but this has the best ad by a TH-camr for their product I've seen to date. Prolly going to actually get it now. Smart and talented :)
@@budget6309 Ok you got me 😅 I am guilty of plugging Tonic a lot because it’s my app, but to be fair I do want you all to join because I truly believe that it will help you improve your confidence and skill when you play for others, all the while enjoying your practice sessions so much more. Plus it’s free, so might as well give it a try to see how you feel: tonicmusic.app/join-in 👈🏼
Ray asking why guitar cello guy ranked so high: Meanwhile the piece he played on guitar: Casually does travis picking and polyrhythms while singing P.S. For those who don't know "Never going back again" is a song that guitarists love and hate, the techniques used are really hard to perform and usually people say something like "it broke my fingers" I recommend watching paul davids video to see why it's so difficult.
Not a pro, but I’m somewhat a jack of all trades when it comes to instruments (piano, guitar, sax, violin) so I could somewhat gauge the difficulty and skill of musicians. I still remember the cringe I got when I watched that Jubilee video. It was pretty clear that Piano girl had a good musical background, piano guy seems to be self taught, drummer was normal for me - could’ve been better if he played jazz but it was obvious that he still lacked experience, cello guy was okay with guitar too but I think the slide guitar was too much for him, singer girl was okay - but her type would’ve been pretty common in the “aspiring musician” community, and blue haired guy was meh. It’s quite obvious that some of them may not have been too exposed to a music community that much - maybe more exposed to a non-musical friends and family environment who told them that they were great. The video would’ve been more interesting if professional musicians ranked them according to talent(?)/skill in the end.
Hahaha ya the ranking thing is messed. Talent / skill level left up to vote for non musicians or general public tends to become "which pop songs do I recognize?" And then, if the musician plays something fast, people also become impressed. The Jubilee vid is so cringe for me. For the musicians, the way they ranked each other was also messy and the reasons they gave, LOL
People rate "talent" by sympathy. It often seems like nobody understands that talent is a potential, that cannot be ranked by just listening to one song or piece.
As a drummer i thought the drummer was ... weird. He is not bad obviously but he is playing like loud and a lot of notes = better and i think it sounded too much for the people on the show and even for my taste
Instrumentalists are clueless about singing. Mary has lovely ability that she was born with, but that has nothing to do with the level of vocal skill displayed. If she put a quarter of the time and effort into singing and ear training that Summer has put into the piano, she'd be a completely different artist.
Can you put a translation in Arabic because I really like watching your videos but I cannot understand them and I like listening to your violin❤ playing?❤
This video is interesting because these are pretty much untrained musicians. They’ve never had an audition or a teacher to humble them. On another note, I think it would be cool to do a video series where you go to the other best music school in the world, Berklee, to learn basic improvisation, sit in a couple of their 350+ ensembles, and maybe work with fiddle/violin students or professors trading knowledge/techniques you have in the classical realm with what they do in more contemporary contexts. (As an aside, I hate when conservatory/classical people-not you personally, just in general-use the term “commercial music”, always with in a derogatory tone, when describing a school like Berklee, as if it’s not as important, worthy, challenging, or meaningful music as playing classical music.) I think it would be really cool to see the two worlds collide as wells as how you, as a seasoned pro, handle and approach learning new skills like improvising with a lead sheet and chord progressions. I think it would be cool to see a pro sweat a little 😉. Also, don’t say you “can’t” improvise. You can; you just don’t know how yet.
I agree with you Ray but just cause someone has a nice voice doesn't equal talent. I feel like it takes way more talent and hard work to play piano like the girl did than for someone to have a nice voice.
i love being aware that im trash at the violin cause otherwise it would be so embarassing to have the truth be shed like that especially from other violinists since they dont hold back
I wouldn’t discount the male pianist’s technique so much, while he wasn’t very confident, the technique isn’t too different from how Horowitz might’ve played his own piano (which had very light action and shallow keys). When playing any keyboard instrument there’s no one prescriptive technique, the goal is simply to use as little motion as possible (i.e Heavier action, slightly more forearm rotation and curved hand shape).
Just saying as a percussionist, just going crazy isn't a best way to display talent. He may be amazing but its a bit questionable for a talented musician to play like that.
5:34 I'm humbled. Let me defend myself. I do know what dynamics are. Dynamics is the shift in volume throughout a piece. For example, a piece could start at piano with the tonic chord on a major scale. With a hairpin, it could go onto the fifth and then end in forte in the diminished chord or the seventh chord. The dynamic is when it goes from piano to forte. In a casual conversation such as the one those musicians were having, I'd have just been like, "Ah yes, the dynamics, articulation, and all that was phenomenal", without really thinking. I know you can't play dynamics on an electric piano.
"I know you can't play dynamics on an electric piano." The Nord Piano absolutely allows dynamics, as do all but the junkiest digital pianos. And in fact, the Nord offers a hammer action on the keys to simulate the feel of an acoustic piano so you express dynamics similarly.
IMO, singers always get rank higher than their true abilities. Mary is a great singer, but I couldn’t rank her as #1. I’ve heard many, I mean many singers who sing just as well if not better and WITHOUT any vocal training. It’s hard to justify an above average singing voice with below average guitar playing skills. Summer is the clear #1.
Being able to discern talent/skills isn't tied to what genre you like. Let's say you love classical and hate jazz. Upon listening to a bad classical player and a good jazz player, you should be able to tell which one has more talent/skills, even if that means giving props to someone playing a genre you dislike.
They would all say they were lower and the others were higher. Experienced musicians are accutely aware of their weak points and very appreciative of other musicians' strengths.
Ray would beat TwoSet in a minute and they would agree. But TwoSet would beat Ray in a second in their incredible goal of introducing younger audiences to classical music. Ray would agree for sure~
Prodigies are born, not made. Everybody else has to practice like crazy. Think about the smartest person you know. They didn't have to study nearly as much as you to get fantastic grades.
They can also just study more efficient and think about how the brain remembers information etc instead of just blindly try to remember things. So the points youre given are invalid at least. Also smart doesnt equal high grades at all. Idk enough to actually say how it works tho. I know there is things like iq (not sure if this can be improved) and people with concentration disorder prbb going to have harder time.
I think it just takes aways from the various points one is trying to make. All the klinks and bings and bangs make me forget what I came up to watch. I will still, of course, listen when he is "in concert." @@nancyjfs 😶
Actually he has done it quite a bit recently, in connection with his "Tonic" creation. More power to him if it is working...just not my cup of tea!🙁 @@nancyjfs
As a musician who dabbles in almost every aspect (primarily a drummer), I feel pretty qualified to rank them objectively. First, the way I define talent is the amount of technical skill someone has or rather, how much *time* have they put in (ofc u can be naturally talented too but generally). I would obviously put blue hair last, then the lala land guy (not great technique nor musicality, probably self taught or a few lessons), then the drummer (he was okay, not good, not bad), then the lapsteel/cello/guitar guy (learning multiple instruments is difficult even if he wasn't proficient in all, he was def decent at guitar), then guitar girl (decent guitarist, great voice / control and confidence), and finally piano girl. Piano girl was the most talented because she displayed her musical knowledge (classically trained perhaps). She had dynamics, phrasing, tempo, technique, etc. she knew how to play her instrument and not only that, how to express herself best. Ofc this is my opinion, but I feel it is 90% accurate
I disagree with your definition of talent. I think that talent is the capability or the potential of someone to learn to play an instrument and develop his skill. Sure, the work you put in and the amount of skill you posess can be an indicator of your talent, but it doesn't necessarily has to be.
@@jere3558 I don't think that definition is helpful in this context though. I'm a strong believer that music is something anyone can do. It just takes practice. You can't explicitly measure how easy someone learns compared to how much they HAVE learned, which is why I defined it the way I did.
@@RBDrums I agree that this defonition isn't helpful in this context, but I also believe that the entire premise of the video is flawed. What they are trying to rank themselves by is musical ability, not talent. But all this is wordplay.
It's interesting seeing egos being destroyed haha I would definitely rank just as Ray did, except first and second places: the classical piano girl would be in first place and mary in second for me. Not that I think singing is easier than playing piano, but actually I got more into the technical stuff - the dynamics she created on that piano are way too hard, also the way she sang to me sounded very flat on dynamics besides the melismas. taking the melismas out what would last? but both of them are amazing!
I agree this Jubilee video has no value. I had seen it quite a while ago and I thought back then it's rather cruel. These people clearly have very different levels of proficiency, so it was obvious from the start who would rank last... I'm not sure...but it feels like someone's "brilliant" idea for how to get rid of that guy's overconfidence - and I wouldn't be against that, if it was done privately, among friends. But this kind of public humiliation is just too much from my point of view. 😐 (BTW, even if I were the best musician in such a group, I would not rank myself 1st, just because I wouldn't want to appear like I'm exalting myself 😅). And what is talent? For me, talent is one's natural strengths, like stable hands, sense of rhythm (and not being tone deaf), physical strength, good memory, mental resilience, empathy, quick instincts, creativity, and so on... But talent alone is NOTHING, unless you build upon it by putting in effort, time & dedication to truly excel. A person may be given all the talents in the world yet utterly fail at making any good use of them (though why that could happen is too big of a topic to write about it here 🙂). Go PRACTICE!!! 😊
I think the multi instrumentalist guys touch on guitar was definitely overlooked and the drummer’s talent was WAY overblown (no hate, honest well-informed opinion incoming). If you really play drums or any rhythm section instrument professionally you would understand the drummer did the equivalent of playing the intro to Für Elise with poor technique 🥹 In terms of talent I’d say; 1) Summer (or Mary) 2) Mary (or Summer) 3) Multinstrumentalist guy 4) La La Land guy 5) Drummer 6) Blue Hair Homie Sincerely, A professional musician
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Definitely fun to watch musicians destroy their own egos but we already do that on a daily basis. Build your confidence and awareness with Tonic: tonicmusic.app/join-in 🎵
So would you let Ross (on the show Friends) call himself a musician? Check him playing the bagpipes or his keyboard "composition" (which he describes as "wordless sound poems" - basically using the preset sounds on a Casio keyboard)
@@jamesrawlins735 Of course! A musician is just a term used for someone who's playing music. It doesn't define your level or whether you make a living from it :)
These aren’t high level musicians.
I think the drummer MAY the most talented! Very rare to find someone that good.
There is nothing special about anyone else except the girl with the guitar is beautiful.
I am a (good) amateur violinist. However I would not even be able to accurately discern all other classical instruments in the orchestra. For example I would recognise a good flute player but not instantly detect a professional one. It’s kind of easier for people to appreciate technically if they actually play the same instrument. I am not a drummer that’s why I qualify my answer with MAY!
We all know the real solution is Tonic 😎
Hey Ray, can you update the app for Android users so we can access the new clothes, studios, and hair? Right now, only Apple users can access. Thanks!
It's so insane that the female pianist got ranked 5th by the audience despite being the only one of the group who showed some advanced musicality. The fact that most people in the audience are unable to perceive that is kind of shocking. Then again, looking at the sort of music most people listen to, it's not that surprising.
I watched the reaction video of the female pianist and she mentioned that the instagram poll asked the audience who was their "favorite musician" not who had the most talent or skill.
Singer gal showed plenty of advanced skill in her singing dude
@@Myztyrio Not really. No difficult high notes, simples runs, no difficult lyrics to introduce melodically at all basically just hummed some runs with easy vowels. She did have decent support but seemed more like raw talent rather than a real demonstration of vocal skill, like she didn't sing an opera piece with rapid whistle notes or anything, not sure what you got out of that.
@@Belial-jv5tq what you listed here is fluff to impress people with. You don’t need anything overly fancy to qualify as good at singing - just plenty of experience, a good ear and creative/emotional evocation
@@MyztyrioI think she’s pretty good but everything she’s doing is not very difficult. That is kind of what musical skill is in a sense, is being able to play difficult things well. Singing is different in that more difficult things do not necessarily sound as good as simple things. What she did just was not extremely impressive, but it did sound good. In terms of actual instruments, she sounds kind of amateurish. It does not take that much effort in comparison to the other people to get to where she is, which is literally the whole point of this video. Musical skill is definitely partly how good it sounds, but in practice it is basically just how good you are at playing extremely difficult things, improvising, and to a much smaller extent understanding your tool. Whether thats learning theory, or just being familiar with your tool. Nobody is denying she sounds great, but in terms of skill she does not stand out as a person that’s in the top 50% of the people in this video.
If you can destroy your self-esteem slowly, you can destroy it quickly.
😂
TwoSet bleeding all over the place
@@probag8414 I mean... are you that surprised to see TwoSetters comment under Ray Chen's videos ? They probably represent at least 80 % of his audience. 😅
@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia Not surprised at all, as a fellow TwoSetter :)
Me every day I try to practice
Hey @RayChenViolinist ! Summer-the female pianist from the Jubilee vid-here :)
I believe I initially heard about you from TwoSet a while back, but I recently saw a clip of your Playing God cover! I played + co-wrote the piano part on Playing God Acoustic, and was so blown away by your cover, so it’s wild and unexpected to see this pop up. Thanks for your kind words, they mean a lot coming from you!!
I’ll try to respond to a few things you brought up in your commentary.
First off, I was honestly expecting at least one or two other musicians to be closer to your / Tim Henson / Yuja Wang level, so was initially taken aback by the overall skill level. I’m a studio/touring musician and composer/arranger who was classically trained, so you were spot on with that assessment. I didn’t go to conservatory / didn’t major in music (B.A. Legal Studies), but did grow up taking classical piano lessons for 10 1/2 years and violin for about 6 years too (I was pretty terrible at violin).
To explain my ranking of the other musicians, I have to note that in the touring backing musician world, multi-instrumentalists are very sought after, especially by artist management with tighter budgets, so Michael (guitar/backing vocals/pedal steel)’s skill set would rank highly in that sense …but that doesn’t necessarily equate to talent, I realize; I just wasn’t expecting him to have any intonation at all (I was expecting worse tbh, so was surprised. He was not a cellist that I would personally hire as my string contracting standards are high/pro, but he still played cello far better than what I’d expect from a guitarist who picked up a cello). His voice was also pretty solid and better than my own singing voice (I’d never sing lead vocals publicly; I know my strengths and that isn’t one of them lol). For instance, my tour with Kings Elliot, I both played keys and ran triggers; my tour with Chon, I played keys, sang backing vocals, wrote the string arrangements, contracted the string players, and music directed the show, etc. The more you can do at a high level, the more employable you are as a touring backing musician.
Another important note: Jubilee had IG rank us all based on who was people’s “favorite musician”-yup, they used a different metric. Why? I don’t know, and imho, comparing rankings by different metrics kinda invalidated the social experiment, but I digress…
I also believe that if I’d played something recognizable-like you mentioned-instead of an original composition (my piece “JFN”), I possibly would’ve ranked higher with IG.
Another pertinent note, the keyboard that Sèdo an I played on was a Nord Electro HP which has fully weighted keys; it certainly doesn’t feel quite like a Steinway / Bosendorfer / Fazioli / Shigeru Kawai, but any trained pianist could easily play expressively effectively on it because of it’s high-quality fully weighted keys:)
That all said, I enjoyed hearing your insight! If you ever want a non-classical pianist to collab with, plz lemme know; I absolutely love working with violinists - and/or I also would love to interview you for my AAPI Musicians blog if you’re down🙏🏽🙌🏽🎵
All the best to you and yours regardless!
waiting for part 2 of your reaction to the Twobilee video :-)
Thank you for giving extra context. I hope Ray sees this!
Summer!
wait you did the piano on playing god acoustic thats fire
hope Ray sees it:)
I used to be Julius, I can relate how he feels, but one day he will grow up and realize how insignificant his 'skill' is and how much more he can improve or correct his past ignorance about music making.
I also think Julius was emotional about what he played and couldn't be remotely objective.
What a thoughtful response. I judged him a lot, but you've made me realize he deserves some kindness - maybe no compliments, but at least some empathy hahaha.
being julius is an important part of being a musician. Hopefully that inspired him to practice and develop a skill set. it's unfortunate to have this revelation made in such a public medium, but it's an important revelation - humility - and so vital to growing as an instrumentalist/songwriter/composer/etc.
Thank you for making clear that the biggest issue with a format like that is that the term „talent“ is not defined properly here. Most people vote following a feeling of „I like the type of music“ or „well, I think I cannot do that“… both are not very meaningful approaches to judge a talent.
Is it a bug, or is it how people write ,, " instead of this " " i always feel weird when i see this
@@filoue2583 I can't comment on the technical side of how youtube deals with the different symbols and the standard quotation mark (youtube puts both like this " " for me, but in a german word document they are instead „ “) but quotation marks differ wildly between languages. E.g. German uses „ “, French « », some use » «, etc.
@iioxy7530 im french and we use " " too
For TH-cam I cannot change the language settings for each comment (and I don’t want to switch everything to English), so the German quotation marks appear automatically when I write. It has never come into my mind that they could cause any trouble. Take it as an exercise in mental flexibility 😊
6:51 that transition to Tonic was CLEAN
Went down like a gin and tonic. Smooooth
a fun note to add is that with jubilee, most of these people actually sign up for these videos months before. they have to go through a questionnaire and acceptance round and all that before filming. so the fact that the blue hair guy said he just learned it a week ago is strange because that would mean he signed up with no experience?
Maybe someone couldn’t make it and he filled that person’s position
I noticed that a lot of the performances were cut from the final video. At 10:34, you can see blue hair guy singing without piano in the Instagram compilation. I think this means that the final video cut the clips of him singing unaccompanied and just left in his original song. My guess is that he considers himself a "singer" and signed up as thus, even though he only recently learned to accompany himself on the piano.
Hey Ray! I just wanted to say love the content you make and wanted to thank you for introducing me and my 5yr old daughter to Tonic. I was having a tough time to get her to practice her violin even once a week.. Now she just got to a 20 day practice streak!! She's gotten much better and its all thanks to Tonic which helped gamify and open up her practice to perform live (which makes her take it more seriously too!)
Thanks and keep up the great content
They did quite a great job of showing unrepresentative moments of the performances. Drummer guy actually played quite complex grooves. From what we see here it is hard to understand how well he played. Also we see it is hard for people to understand what’s good playing and what not if you don’t play yourself. If you play piano you see that the second pianist has not much in terms of trained technique, while the female pianist had those movements you only get with years of practice. But when TwoSet reacted to this video they immediately devaluated her because of the choice of music. They were on the other hand quite impressed by the second pianist starting with the fantaisie impromptu, which was quite slow and he got exactly to the point were every intermediate students stumbles when trying to play it the first time, which is bar 7 (so not at all as impressive).
Also the singer does not simply _have a great voice._ It takes a great voice and good technique, training and practice to be able to do that.
But the problem here is that it is hard to say what ”talent“ is. For some people this seemed to mean the ability to consequently practice until you get good, and for others this means the ability to quickly take up new things, or to come up with your own stuff (afaik the female pianist played her own composition by the way). I think blue hair guy was quite proud of playing his own song and doing this only with one week of practice. But the others just did not share his concept of talent, and rather evaluated his skill at the piano.
It’s the one Brett and Eddy reacted to right? It was so funny!
yes:
'Reacting to Musicians Ranking Themselves by Talent'
Yeah! Wanted to add a bit more from a professional musician's perspective on why I believe they gave themselves those ratings.
OMG I missed theirs... will check it out
@@RayChenViolinistoof, breddy isn’t professionals 🤣
@@RayChenViolinist ah, that makes sense
Julius's self esteem went down so much in that short period it was so funny watching him at the end
That was one of the best transitions to a sponsor I've seen! Great video
But… who signs up for a competition as a musician after playing an instrument for a week?? I mean… what result would you expect??
I felt like that guy thought that being able to say "I just picked this instrument up and I'm already this good" was what made him impressive. But . . . he wasn't that good and it wasn't that impressive. 😬
Message to all drummers. Playing loud does not mean you are good
It does to non musicians half the time though.
If you’re a good drummer, it is easy to notice the difference between playing loud because you want to emphasize something and playing loud because you don’t have control
You can easily tell the difference between dynamics control and just some ego driven or beginner player. So I can agree@@Puhckaaaa
This felt different to your usual style of videos. I liked it very much.
I ALWAYS skip ads but this has the best ad by a TH-camr for their product I've seen to date. Prolly going to actually get it now. Smart and talented :)
Blue hair guy EPITOMIZED dunning kruger effect
ray's tonic is like coach greg's cookbook lmao
At this point, one of the main reasons i watch his videos is to see how he will find a way to plug tonic lmao
@@budget6309 Ok you got me 😅 I am guilty of plugging Tonic a lot because it’s my app, but to be fair I do want you all to join because I truly believe that it will help you improve your confidence and skill when you play for others, all the while enjoying your practice sessions so much more. Plus it’s free, so might as well give it a try to see how you feel: tonicmusic.app/join-in 👈🏼
hey I saw you in Eindhoven at the show, you really are amazing, you're incredible ❤
how in the world the purple girl didn't get first is beyond me. that was exceptional playing...
Ray asking why guitar cello guy ranked so high:
Meanwhile the piece he played on guitar: Casually does travis picking and polyrhythms while singing
P.S. For those who don't know "Never going back again" is a song that guitarists love and hate, the techniques used are really hard to perform and usually people say something like "it broke my fingers" I recommend watching paul davids video to see why it's so difficult.
I absolutely love watching you, I absolutely love the way you play violin you are amazing!
that has got to be the smoothest ad segway I've ever seen
"I also play the microphone, that's what i do" part that Ray Chen did proves that he's been in the dark side of twitch more than once :))
很喜歡看你拉琴，很融入感覺非常好，很自然。希望，台灣的年輕小朋友能跟你一樣的學習正確的學習。
Not a pro, but I’m somewhat a jack of all trades when it comes to instruments (piano, guitar, sax, violin) so I could somewhat gauge the difficulty and skill of musicians. I still remember the cringe I got when I watched that Jubilee video.
It was pretty clear that Piano girl had a good musical background, piano guy seems to be self taught, drummer was normal for me - could’ve been better if he played jazz but it was obvious that he still lacked experience, cello guy was okay with guitar too but I think the slide guitar was too much for him, singer girl was okay - but her type would’ve been pretty common in the “aspiring musician” community, and blue haired guy was meh.
It’s quite obvious that some of them may not have been too exposed to a music community that much - maybe more exposed to a non-musical friends and family environment who told them that they were great.
The video would’ve been more interesting if professional musicians ranked them according to talent(?)/skill in the end.
three people that play instrument(s), one singer with a guitar, one musician, and a guy with blue hair
Hahaha ya the ranking thing is messed. Talent / skill level left up to vote for non musicians or general public tends to become "which pop songs do I recognize?" And then, if the musician plays something fast, people also become impressed.
The Jubilee vid is so cringe for me.
For the musicians, the way they ranked each other was also messy and the reasons they gave, LOL
People rate "talent" by sympathy. It often seems like nobody understands that talent is a potential, that cannot be ranked by just listening to one song or piece.
Smoothest advert I’ve ever seen 😂
My ranking would be 1 piano girl, 2 guitar guy, 3 Mary, 4 drums, 5 lala land guy and 6 blue hair guy
i'm literally mad after watching this 😭😭😭
As a drummer i thought the drummer was ... weird. He is not bad obviously but he is playing like loud and a lot of notes = better and i think it sounded too much for the people on the show and even for my taste
ray laughing for the blue haired guy rating himself as 2 is funny as hell 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Wow you play The PHONE.. and! The MICROPHONE
ray's editor is top notch lol
While I will never rank myself, this video was very funny. :)
Hey, why didn't you link the video anywhere?
As a cellist…oh lord
Dude, you have got to react to this piece by Xavier Foley - Soul Bass Concerto [Full].
Instrumentalists are clueless about singing. Mary has lovely ability that she was born with, but that has nothing to do with the level of vocal skill displayed. If she put a quarter of the time and effort into singing and ear training that Summer has put into the piano, she'd be a completely different artist.
I'm overly confident when I hear beginners play, and overly humbled when I hear pros play.
Can you put a translation in Arabic because I really like watching your videos but I cannot understand them and I like listening to your violin❤ playing?❤
Tysm new amazing video and tips!
Pls we are still waiting for the trombone on tonic. Hope we'll get it soon😊
Also love your videos❤
Bună ! Sunt din România și aș dori să vă întreb dacă ați auzit de o piesă foarte frumoasă , cântată la vioară : " Balada " de Ciprian Porumbescu 🤔😘👌.
im a drummer and im not saying im a great drummer but that drummer deserves 5 imo he just didnt do anything crazy moving quickly doesnt mean good
This video is interesting because these are pretty much untrained musicians. They’ve never had an audition or a teacher to humble them.
On another note, I think it would be cool to do a video series where you go to the other best music school in the world, Berklee, to learn basic improvisation, sit in a couple of their 350+ ensembles, and maybe work with fiddle/violin students or professors trading knowledge/techniques you have in the classical realm with what they do in more contemporary contexts. (As an aside, I hate when conservatory/classical people-not you personally, just in general-use the term “commercial music”, always with in a derogatory tone, when describing a school like Berklee, as if it’s not as important, worthy, challenging, or meaningful music as playing classical music.) I think it would be really cool to see the two worlds collide as wells as how you, as a seasoned pro, handle and approach learning new skills like improvising with a lead sheet and chord progressions. I think it would be cool to see a pro sweat a little 😉. Also, don’t say you “can’t” improvise. You can; you just don’t know how yet.
Im not a musician at all and i knew the piano girl was the best by farrrr
I agree with you Ray but just cause someone has a nice voice doesn't equal talent. I feel like it takes way more talent and hard work to play piano like the girl did than for someone to have a nice voice.
i love being aware that im trash at the violin cause otherwise it would be so embarassing to have the truth be shed like that especially from other violinists since they dont hold back
11:20 yeah WHAT
where can i take lessons to be a microphonist?
❤❤❤❤❤❤
I wouldn’t discount the male pianist’s technique so much, while he wasn’t very confident, the technique isn’t too different from how Horowitz might’ve played his own piano (which had very light action and shallow keys). When playing any keyboard instrument there’s no one prescriptive technique, the goal is simply to use as little motion as possible (i.e Heavier action, slightly more forearm rotation and curved hand shape).
I personally think that there is a third way to perceive talent: expressivity.
Talent is one thing but practiceakes a serious musician
Just my little opinion!
I agree 🙂
Practice is what makes others perceive someone as talented.
Such an awesome performance bro just astounding all I can say is damn bro I’m just blown away by the performance I need to practice!!
I always see the drums ranked lower just because of the instrument...😢
Did Twoset react to this video as well?
'Reacting to Musicians Ranking Themselves by Talent' - two years ago
Blue hair guy is about to hunt down ray
I bet if TwoSet making reaction to this video, it would be not too much different.
I am a musician. I don't know what "dynamics" are in terms of music.
Just saying as a percussionist, just going crazy isn't a best way to display talent. He may be amazing but its a bit questionable for a talented musician to play like that.
alright, my turn, number 6 Joshua Bell.
Bro said versatility and expertise was same thing 💀. He used the = isn’t is a part of talent? Like what?
5:34 I'm humbled. Let me defend myself. I do know what dynamics are. Dynamics is the shift in volume throughout a piece. For example, a piece could start at piano with the tonic chord on a major scale. With a hairpin, it could go onto the fifth and then end in forte in the diminished chord or the seventh chord. The dynamic is when it goes from piano to forte. In a casual conversation such as the one those musicians were having, I'd have just been like, "Ah yes, the dynamics, articulation, and all that was phenomenal", without really thinking. I know you can't play dynamics on an electric piano.
"I know you can't play dynamics on an electric piano." The Nord Piano absolutely allows dynamics, as do all but the junkiest digital pianos. And in fact, the Nord offers a hammer action on the keys to simulate the feel of an acoustic piano so you express dynamics similarly.
Uhm yes you can play dynamics on a digital piano lol
😄
Love from india 🫶
Well that was needed for the blue guy...his voice and piano scales even didn't match!
IMO, singers always get rank higher than their true abilities. Mary is a great singer, but I couldn’t rank her as #1. I’ve heard many, I mean many singers who sing just as well if not better and WITHOUT any vocal training. It’s hard to justify an above average singing voice with below average guitar playing skills.
Summer is the clear #1.
@2:56, don't call it NOT the best technique! Vladimir Horowitz, one of the greatest Pianist ever! played that way :)
Unfortunate nobody played Flight of the Bumblebee, or else they would have been ranked instantly first
Jay Chou actually plays with pretty flat fingers though 😅
But, there is a thing called genres not everyone wants to play the same music that you do.
Being able to discern talent/skills isn't tied to what genre you like.
Let's say you love classical and hate jazz. Upon listening to a bad classical player and a good jazz player, you should be able to tell which one has more talent/skills, even if that means giving props to someone playing a genre you dislike.
just shows you that public opinion is not very accurate with what appears to be true vs what actually is true.
Julius makes it obvious why his last girlfriend broke up with him.
Day 1 of asking Ray to give me one of his violins
You should collaborate with twoset violin and rank yourself and other professionals. Basically do the same thing with actual musicians.
They would all say they were lower and the others were higher. Experienced musicians are accutely aware of their weak points and very appreciative of other musicians' strengths.
Ray would beat TwoSet in a minute and they would agree. But TwoSet would beat Ray in a second in their incredible goal of introducing younger audiences to classical music. Ray would agree for sure~
these ranking videos always give me second hand embarrassment lol-
For all we know, the piano guy could have messed up thumbs and can't do proper technique 😢
There's no talent. Just effective practice.
Prodigies are born, not made. Everybody else has to practice like crazy. Think about the smartest person you know. They didn't have to study nearly as much as you to get fantastic grades.
They can also just study more efficient and think about how the brain remembers information etc instead of just blindly try to remember things. So the points youre given are invalid at least.
Also smart doesnt equal high grades at all.
Idk enough to actually say how it works tho. I know there is things like iq (not sure if this can be improved) and people with concentration disorder prbb going to have harder time.
All I've learned is that people don't have ears.
For me drummer was the best. I am very surprised that he was so underestimated
The drummer was intense, for sure. Hard to tell actual skill level.
he wasn't very advanced but he played with a lot of passion and energy which makes up for a lot
The blue guy should not be a musician
All of them are average as hell. 😂😂😂
“musicians” yeah okay ☠️
Oh darn...Too much cartoony stuff. I hate to do this: Ray Chen is a superb violinist, and one of my most favorites...but it's time to unsubscribe. 😪
😮
Too bad. He doesn't normally do kooky videos like this.
I think it just takes aways from the various points one is trying to make. All the klinks and bings and bangs make me forget what I came up to watch. I will still, of course, listen when he is "in concert." @@nancyjfs 😶
I agree Bobbie, but this isn’t typical of Ray’s videos.
Actually he has done it quite a bit recently, in connection with his "Tonic" creation. More power to him if it is working...just not my cup of tea!🙁 @@nancyjfs
I mean this is a copy of 2 set
TwoSet’s video was better.
Y’all know more than one person can react to the same video, right?
'Reacting to Musicians Ranking Themselves by Talent' two years ago
dude the song he played on guitar is impossible to play
thank GOD a musician finally reacts to this video, I was so cringed out about it😭
Really curious where Ray would rank himself if you named five other currently performing soloists
See his recent video evaluating renditions of Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. They are all great, just different.
As a musician who dabbles in almost every aspect (primarily a drummer), I feel pretty qualified to rank them objectively. First, the way I define talent is the amount of technical skill someone has or rather, how much *time* have they put in (ofc u can be naturally talented too but generally). I would obviously put blue hair last, then the lala land guy (not great technique nor musicality, probably self taught or a few lessons), then the drummer (he was okay, not good, not bad), then the lapsteel/cello/guitar guy (learning multiple instruments is difficult even if he wasn't proficient in all, he was def decent at guitar), then guitar girl (decent guitarist, great voice / control and confidence), and finally piano girl. Piano girl was the most talented because she displayed her musical knowledge (classically trained perhaps). She had dynamics, phrasing, tempo, technique, etc. she knew how to play her instrument and not only that, how to express herself best. Ofc this is my opinion, but I feel it is 90% accurate
I agree. Although he wasn't the best at drums.. I always see people rank drums lower cause they think its easy..
I disagree with your definition of talent. I think that talent is the capability or the potential of someone to learn to play an instrument and develop his skill. Sure, the work you put in and the amount of skill you posess can be an indicator of your talent, but it doesn't necessarily has to be.
@@jere3558 I don't think that definition is helpful in this context though. I'm a strong believer that music is something anyone can do. It just takes practice. You can't explicitly measure how easy someone learns compared to how much they HAVE learned, which is why I defined it the way I did.
@@RBDrums I agree that this defonition isn't helpful in this context, but I also believe that the entire premise of the video is flawed. What they are trying to rank themselves by is musical ability, not talent. But all this is wordplay.
It's interesting seeing egos being destroyed haha
I would definitely rank just as Ray did, except first and second places: the classical piano girl would be in first place and mary in second for me.
Not that I think singing is easier than playing piano, but actually I got more into the technical stuff - the dynamics she created on that piano are way too hard, also the way she sang to me sounded very flat on dynamics besides the melismas. taking the melismas out what would last?
but both of them are amazing!
I agree this Jubilee video has no value.
I had seen it quite a while ago and I thought back then it's rather cruel. These people clearly have very different levels of proficiency, so it was obvious from the start who would rank last...
I'm not sure...but it feels like someone's "brilliant" idea for how to get rid of that guy's overconfidence - and I wouldn't be against that, if it was done privately, among friends. But this kind of public humiliation is just too much from my point of view. 😐
(BTW, even if I were the best musician in such a group, I would not rank myself 1st, just because I wouldn't want to appear like I'm exalting myself 😅).
And what is talent?
For me, talent is one's natural strengths, like stable hands, sense of rhythm (and not being tone deaf), physical strength, good memory, mental resilience, empathy, quick instincts, creativity, and so on...
But talent alone is NOTHING, unless you build upon it by putting in effort, time & dedication to truly excel.
A person may be given all the talents in the world yet utterly fail at making any good use of them (though why that could happen is too big of a topic to write about it here 🙂).
Go PRACTICE!!! 😊
I would place purple woman 1st cuz hers was way more mature and the phrasing was very well made
I think the multi instrumentalist guys touch on guitar was definitely overlooked and the drummer’s talent was WAY overblown (no hate, honest well-informed opinion incoming).
If you really play drums or any rhythm section instrument professionally you would understand the drummer did the equivalent of playing the intro to Für Elise with poor technique 🥹
In terms of talent I’d say;
1) Summer (or Mary)
2) Mary (or Summer)
3) Multinstrumentalist guy
4) La La Land guy
5) Drummer
6) Blue Hair Homie
Sincerely,
A professional musician
As a musician this gave me so much anxiety. I would cry if I had to be there lmao
Julius needs self awareness. He is awful. Truth. The female pianist took 1s for me. The drummer tried to sell it with his contorted faces. Turn off.