Faked Incompetence

Camille Saint-Saens wrote Le carnaval des animaux in 1886, but it wasn’t published until 1922, the year after his death; he felt it would tarnish his reputation as a “serious” composer. He was right: it did. I consider it the best thing he ever wrote, though I do have a soft spot for his Third Symphony too. At any rate, the eleventh movement of the Carnaval is entitled “Pianistes” (the recording posted here features Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire on pianos and a group of nine other players including Gidon Kremer on violin). In the score, Saint-Saens put asterisks by the “1er piano” and “2d piano” indications, and footnoted them as follows: “Les exécutants devront imiter le jeu d’un débutant et sa gaucherie” (or, in English, “The pianists should imitate the hesitant style and awkwardness of a beginner”). In other words, Saint-Saens was asking them to fake incompetence. (In this wonderful recording, the rest of the orchestra follows suit.)

In Shakey, Jimmy McDonough’s brilliant biography of Neil Young, Young asks Nils Lofgren to play piano on the After the Gold Rush sessions. “I can’t play piano,” Lofgren says. Young responds, “Perfect. That’s the sound I was looking for.” This happens over and over again--Young wants incompetence. Real incompetence is, of course, best, but how real is it if he deliberately tries to have his musicians (and himself) be as incompetent? Incompetence makes it sound realer, Young thinks. About Tonight’s the Night, Young comments, “They didn’t even know the song--what could be better?”

Bob Dylan has always done the same thing. He prefers the first take, mistakes and all, to a more polished performance. Again, he’s not necessarily faking his incompetence, but leaving mistakes in on purpose when it’s easy to take them out amounts to pretty much the same thing.

Compare this to Elvis Presley’s method in 1956, doing take after take after take of every song until it was exactly the way he wanted it. The music sounded no less spontaneous and full of energy for all that.

If you have any suggestions for other instances of faked incompetence, please leave a comment below.

Oh, and please excuse the hiatus between this and the last few entries--I’ve been in Florida and Chiapas (Mexico), without access to computers or recorded music. I hope to post something about Chiapanecan music soon.

- Yuval

Comments

[Douglas]

How about the guitar solo on the Bonzo Dog Band's "Canyons of Your Mind"?

Specific example with Dylan: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," for which he had the musicians switch instruments.

[Yuval Taylor]

I'm afraid I haven't heard that guitar solo. But I'll take your word for it, Douglas. And thanks for specifying the Dylan example--I was too tired to look through all my Clinton Heylin books last night.

[Matos W.K.]

Wouldn't the Police's early career count for this? They were prog-rock guys with serious chops who downplayed their ability to ride the punk wagon.

[Yuval Taylor]

Yes indeed. The Stranglers are another good example for exactly the same reason, and one which we discuss in passing in the book (p.290). I should have brought up the business of faking incompetence in punk rock--it's rife with such examples.

[BlindJoeDeath]

Young is not looking for incompetence when he places Lofgrin at the piano. He's hoping Lofgrin will play something different, something pianist would not play.
He's not looking for authenticity or incompetence, he looking for something creative and unique.

[Yuval Taylor]

You're right that he's looking for something new, something a pianist would not play. But he's also looking for incompetence and authenticity. Young's entire aesthetic for certain recordings, especially Tonight's the Night, was predicated on avoiding anything that sounded professional. Don't get me wrong, though--I'm a huge Neil Young fan.

I checked out your website, by the way, and in my opinion Blind Joe Death is a clever fabrication of Fahey's. Do you think he really existed? Fahey was a master at faking things.

[BlindJoeDeath]

Yuval,

Actually, I am not the authentic Blind Joe Death, I just play him in blog comments.

I've entered my real website in the URL box.
If you visit you'll see why I use the name BlindJoeDeath.

Yes, Blind Joe Death was sheer fabrication. The question is did Fahey use it as a joke or as a means to capture authenticity? Probably both.

I’m still not convinced that Young is seeking incompetence as opposed to the creative spark of found in discovery. He was looking for the sound that matched the theme of Tonight’s the Night, clearly the shine and polish of Harvest wound not be appropriate.
You can't make a film noir in Technicolor.

[Yuval Taylor]

The analogy isn't precise enough. Jim Jarmusch is not faking incompetence when he makes black-and-white films, even though Technicolor is widely available. Nor is Lou Barlow faking it when he plays (or used to play) a beat-up $20 guitar rather than a state-of-the-art one. Using inferior equipment is a different matter from asking your band to deliberately refrain from playing to the best of their ability. Don't get me wrong--Tonight's the Night is one of my favorite records of all time, and I wouldn't change a note on it. I just think it's important to recognize that there's a degree of deliberate perversity involved.

[Mark Rubin]

Incompetence or superstition?
Producer Willie Dixon was famed for making certian that there was a musical clam in every track he signed off on and it drove his musicians nuts. His superstition was that if the track was "perfect" it wouldn't be a hit, so he would make his bands play it over and over again until they made a mistake, then that was the take he would print. Maybe like the Native American weavers who leave a purposefull flaw in a rug to allow evil spirits to pass by. Or maybe he was a nut job, who can say?

[Yuval Taylor]

Thanks, Mark--that's brilliant. I hadn't heard that one before. Perhaps Willie Dixon and Saint-Saens shared some sort of aesthetic vision . . .