Someone I know had said online recently that they were going to see their favorite sax player, and I joked, “Kenny G?”

Someone else commented along the lines of, “Don’t go there.”

I found this interesting. I was joking, of course, but it dawned on me that many of the negative responses to Kenny G comes from the position that his music is cheesy and bad, while if one were to make reference to him purely regarding his playing skill, the responses would more than likely be the same.

This lead to the reaffirmation that people generally have a hard time separating one issue from another.

Back when I worked for Tower Records, we did employee profiles for the website to pair with employee recommendations. For my guilty pleasure, I put down Kenny G’s “Live” album. I got a bit of crap for that from a few co-workers, but you know what? That album is good. Every single musician on that album is playing his/her ass off, including Kenny G himself. And I liked a lot of the music on that album.

Yeah, I admit it.

I was younger when I was exposed to his music so I was basically growing up with it, during what I would call the peak of his public career. But, as time went on, I noticed a few things.

First, his music did get cheesier and very cookie cutter. Second, he employed a lot of the same tricks: the sweet, slow melodies, the long-held notes, the super-fast runs, that soprano sax, and all within an instrumental pop format. At some point, his music held little interest for me.

But, no matter how much his music was more and more disliked by the public (who, by the way, liked his music at one point, proven by his previous popularity), he still remained an extremely skilled saxophone player. His tone is absolutely sweet and bright. He’s agile. He knows how to turn a musical phrase.

Technical skill is the foundation for a musical performer. Think of skill like a toolbox. The toolbox can be big or small, and it can have high quality tools inside – sub-skills – like Craftsman brand drills, screwdrivers, pliers, etc., or it can have no-name generic brands that aren’t necessarily the best tools but they can get the job done.

With those tools, you can build a house or repair a car engine. Maybe you can put together some furniture. This is very much like a musical performance: performance is the manner is which you use those tools. Performance is its own skill but also uses technical skills – the tools in the toolbox – to get the job done. You can be a great performer, but if you can’t play the saxophone it doesn’t matter how heartfelt your performance is. Chances are you will not have an audience again.

A heartfelt performance is subjective, by the way. Maybe the performer will tell you he or she put all of his heart and soul into a recording or a show, but an audience member might think the performance stale and soulless.

Now, it’s difficult to build something without some sort of blueprint or schematic. Throwing up a teepee on the fly might be easy to accomplish, but a three-bedroom house? A skyscraper? A 4-person sofa? An elegant dining table? Even with an improvised teepee you need some knowledge of a table framework, knots, and measurement. The design of these things must be taken into account before building; the aesthetic, the function, the stability – all are things that must be considered before construction can begin. This is akin to music composition – again, it’s own skill. Without composition, whether improvised or written, is the construct upon which performance is made, and a good performance utilizes technical skill in order to convey the intent of the composition.

Blah, blah, blah, right? As a friend of mine would say, “If it’s good, it’s good, so why does any of that matter?”

It matters because if I needed a sweet, bright sax tone and rhythmic agility to perform one of my compositions, I’d consider hiring Kenny G. Not a joke.

Let’s talk about Peter Buck, the guitarist for REM. A long time ago, I was listening to a radio commentary about his skill as a guitarist. The commentator was saying how his knowledge and technical skill of the guitar is actually very limited, but what he does with his limitations is very effective. So, is Peter Buck a bad guitar player? That depends on what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t hire him to play a difficult classical guitar piece, but I might hire him to write guitar parts for a song.

A lot of people like to look at the big picture. They want to see the whole of something and judge that result. The problem with this is that you don’t really see how the picture was constructed. You don’t see how objects were carefully placed in frame (to stick with the picture theme); you don’t see how colors were selected; you don’t see how, if a painting, certain brush strokes were used to convey something and that any other type of brush or stroke would convey something different.

Some people are parts people. They want to focus on the details of the big picture rather than the whole, final result. But when you don’t see the big picture, you don’t see why the details are important: how the objects in frame contribute to the composition; how the colors convey a specific mood; how the brush strokes cause the big picture to have a specific overall aesthetic.

I prefer to think about both. The details and the results are both important. I think this can help people appreciate more things, learn to think about things from multiple perspectives, and even have higher standards. In the case of music, it’s okay to hate someone’s music, but it’s disrespectful to have that same reaction to that same musician’s skill or performance. There are plenty of musicians I cannot stand. But there’s often at least one redeeming quality. Not always, but often.

So, make fun of Kenny G. Hate his music. Call him cheesy. But I challenge you to sincerely call him a bad saxophonist.