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it wouldn't matter what you looked like if you wore this sheet music dress,

That dress is hideous lol

Do you know Tom Lykis? If you are a female, he will love to have you on his show. I know what he will ask you.

Well indeed...

Wouldn't care to take her to a classy restaurant. People might get the wrong idea.

In any profession, it helps to be good-looking. The public thinks that good-looking people are smarter and better at their job. But thin? Not the same thing. Very thin women make me feel sick. So do extremely extremely fat women who are more than a hundred pounds overweight. I don't know any men thin enough to make me sick, but lots of men are fat enough to do so.

Sadly, society is not exactly the same for men and for women. Very fat men are more easily accepted than are very fat women.

Anyone who is extremely thin or extremely fat should change their habits and try to improve their health.

Anyway, the real point is, whether you are in music, or law, or plumbing, or digging ditches, people will think you are better and smarter if you are good-looking. This is no reason to change your mind about music, because everywhere else is the same thing too.

If we had to depend on just the "beautiful people" to entertain us I for one would be dying of boredom!!!

Well, unfortunately there is some truth to it.. I can think of one (very well known) pianist in particular who likes small Asian girls, and guess what most of his studio is composed of?

But then again, just because someone looks okay or good doesn't mean they are automatically crappy musicians..

Dunno. In pop music all bets are off. One of the most electrifying jazz concerts I ever saw was Flora Purim... she was outstanding. Alas, not terribly 'eye candy' territory. Google if you wish.

OTH, I've seen this one in concert a few times and was not remotely disappointed:

And I WISH I could have seen this powerhouse in concert. Long before I was born, but her singing must have been a force to reckon with. My mother introduced me to her albums:

Thanks for that post, and I concur with your assessment. I enjoyed watching her performance.

Ah ... Grace Slick. A beautiful girl with a powerhouse of a voice. Surrealistic Pillow actually wore down on my turntable.

I'm thinking of Richard Goode. Nothing fabulous to look at, but what a musician! His Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms... need I say more?

Andras Schiff never matched Zac Efron in his prime, but he certainly has his admirers, and many on this board gain much that is positive from his videos. His snobbish attitude about Liszt and Rachmaninov is a total turnoff to me, and sour memories of a concert where he played the Brahms D minor still haunt me. I never saw a pianist walk on stage with such a condescending look on his face, nose in the air. It was awful. I suppose he played well, but I don't remember.

People who are not good looking can certainly have big careers as entertainers. They probably need more hard work and more luck.

And of course good looks can be a matter of opinion.

Pillow was a great album -folkish-pop-psychedelic- but IMO Jefferson Airplane's greatest album was After Bathing at Baxters. Grace was at the height of her powers, but alas, the music making was just too sophisticated (it was called 'atonal pop'), and they left many of their listeners completely baffled. The subsequent album to that, Crown of Creation was a concession.

But of course I wasn't there at the time, though I've studied these albums, and when I look at a lot of pop music today, do people realize what was going back then?

Hmm, I don't know who that is. Should I bother checking him out?

I remember I was really enchanted by Ivo when I first discovered him. I guess looks don't play SUCH a bad part.. =)

Richard Goode, while nothing fabulous to look at, is not ugly either, just average looking I guess; and a genuinely nice man. I would love to meet him.

Courtney Love is (to me) positively ugly, and I wouldn't jump at the chance to meet her, but she makes big bucks as an entertainer.


I'm not sure what Jane Eaglen looks like; the camera seems to have a tough time getting close enough to get her face in focus. But sometimes she sounds like the most beautiful woman in the world.

Ivo's picture on his recording of the Tchaikovsky concerto was... well a knock out.

Jane is enormous... I have heard her live at Covent Garden... glorious singing, but we got that from Jessye Norman and Rita Hunter too, LARGE women! Birgit Nilsson proved that one didn't need to be built like Israel Kamakawiwoʻole to sing the great dramatic soprano roles.

I would love to meet Richard Goode. For some annoying reason I have yet to hear him live in concert. But I will be back stage when that happens...

In almost any endeavor, attractiveness is rewarded.

I'd imagine that in piano competitions, which are evaluated very subjectively, attractiveness is especially rewarded.

Not to bad looking on this album either! I bought this record the year it came out -1982, when I first heard about Ivo. I was so sad a few months later , when the record warped, no longer playable, when I left it sitting on a sunny spot in my place. I saved the record cover , just the same.