Musicianship

Lately I have been searching for a definition of "musicianship." Being a musician myself it's a subject that interests me, and I think about often. The problem with thoroughly defining 'musician'  is that every "musician" is drastically different. When I say 'define' I mean something beyond saying, "oh he owns an instrument." For a while I was looking at it something like this:
     
Music is a theory, so then a true musician studies the theory, and essentially is a theorist.
                    Music = theory
                    Musician = one who is skilled in music
Deductive reasoning would suggest that a musician is one who is skilled in the theory, which makes sense, right? I love to study musical theory, so I definitely fit into this grouping. The problem is that this disqualifies a lot of people from being musicians. I know lots of people that make great sounding music without understanding the theory behind it.

So you can make great music without knowing what you're doing. We call that "playing by ear." The problem with playing by ear is that it really limits your potential when playing with other musicians. If you don't know what they're doing it's difficult to collaborate with them, especially if you're just jamming, or playing ad lib.

So, you can be a musician without even knowing theory, but you would most likely be a better musician if you knew what you were doing(this helps you communicate it more efficiently also).
I recently realized that I was actually defining what a 'good' musician was, not actually 'musician' itself. I think that the title of musician comes with the intentions and accomplishments behind the skill. How good you are is a separate issue. I think that being a musician means that you use the music you make. I think that a good musician understands the music he makes.

But really it all comes down to this:
I needed to something to write about so that I could publish a Tuesday blog.