Feeling?

How does one play an instrument with feeling?

Rock music seems to be held in a state of arrested development by its own fans.  Any time a band or musician demonstrates some level of virtuosity they are ostracized.  For some acts fans state that what the band is playing is no longer rock n’ roll.  In other cases fans deride artists for playing without feeling.

I find this criticism most often directed at guitarists who play quickly and accurately.  I am by no means saying that playing as many notes as you can as fast and clearly as you can is synonymous with playing with feeling, but I cannot outright dismiss a musician who does use speed and accuracy within a passage as not playing with feeling.  There will always be someone who sneers at such a guitarist and says something like, “somewhere there is a kid wailing on one note who is playing with more feeling.”  Based on this example, am I to believe that bending a note out of tune while making guitar-face is what playing with feeling is about?  Stevie Ray Vaughn must have been the most emotive guitar player who ever lived, except for the fact that he played quickly in some parts of some songs so he is, therefore, rejected as playing with feeling.

The concept of playing with feeling seems nebulous and subjective.  There must be some qualitative definition which many people share.  So many people who label musicians as playing with no feeling are attacking the same characteristics, so there must be some agreement on what playing with feeling is.  Why is playing quickly automatically not playing with feeling?  Why does incorporating some aspect of music theory into a composition drain the piece of its soul?

It seems that knowing how to play your instrument and understanding composition is detrimental to playing music with this mysterious quality known as feeling.  This can’t be universally true.  There are so many jazz musicians who have incorporated technique to great effect in songs that are much more emotive than anything rock n’ roll has ever created.  Virtuosity alone can’t be the exclusionary factor.

So, what is it?  What does playing with feeling mean?