What are your unpopular Stevie opinions

[David]

Originally Posted by cliffdweller

Based on whose standards?

I guess standards that I perceive to be widespread. Just like everybody else, I glean intelligence from another person's words & thoughts & the marshalling of mental elements. We do the same thing with George Bush, don't we? We listen to him speechify & we hear his views & both the expression & the content of those views give us a sense of his intelligence. We do this with virtually everyone we hear, know & meet.

And not being able to read music after all this time isn't really a good example, I mean, how do we know that she doesn't at least have an elementary knowledge anyway? Even if she DOESN'T know how to read ANY music, that still doesn't mean she has a learning disorder.

Yeah, the inability to read music is a red herring in the argument. It means nothing. Most rock musicians probably don't know how to -- & don't want to -- read staff notation. For the most part, it simply isn't necessary for what they do. I would imagine a good many jazz musicians don't read notation, either, although that might have changed substantially from the old days. Rock & jazz traditionally aren't notational arts: they're improvisatory. Christine & possibly Bob Welch are probably the only two members of the band since the beginning who actually read music.

What is far more germane to the discussion, to me, is that Stevie, having played piano for 35 years or thereabouts, hasn't improved with that particular skill (I base my perception on a comparison of old '70s demos with her at the piano & demos through the decades up to the present). I teach piano, & that's pretty unheard-of to me.