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So here we go - variation on a them of the previous posts I've done regarding accompaniments for copywritten songs.

I've noticed that when I type in the name of a song I like - the recommended BB style and/or sample song sometimes - to my ear - sounds pretty darn close. Other times, not so close.

For those of you in tune (pun intended lol) with this sort of thing - what "In the style of" {insert song name} have sounded closest to the backing bands in the original recordings ?
The Norton midi styles usually can be matched reliably to a song performed by the artist the style is named after. For instance, I have a Norton Midi style identified as a Beatles style and you recognized the sgu as "Get Back". So using that style to create a performance of "Get Back" can be spot on with a little work. Any of his styles can sound very professional using any number of methods. Much will depend on the quality of the midi instruments chosen and the quality of the synth creating the instrument sound. In some of his styles, Realtracks can replace certain midi instruments and yield a nice performance. of course, live playing or a pre-recorded audio file will also work on any track to replace a midi track.

BIAB/RB has all the necessary tools to create nearly note perfect replications of most songs. Mixing midi, Realtracks, live recording, WAV or MP3/WMA audio files that can be manipulated by cut/paste techniques and chord detection by importing a midi file or an audio file using the Audio Chord Wizard are all invaluable tools.

Charlie
My experience is like yours Joe...sometimes it does pretty good but often it does not. And I really do not understand why it suggests a huge list whenafter the first one or two the styles are not even remotely close to the request. Somehow they seem to think that search quantity is a substitute for quality! smile
Well there's a problem with those tracks and styles that say "in the style of".....

The question here is .... What song of said artist is this particular style "in the style of"?

Was it the artist's big smash hit or was it a lesser known hit that sounded nothing like the big hit or was it some other song by said artist that no one knows and sounding completely unlike anything you might have heard from that artist or were they trying to simply capture the overall groove/vibe of that artist, assuming the artist in question has sufficient chart material to have established a unique signature sound?

Often, if I'm looking for a style "in the style of".... I will listen to see if I can figure out the song it's supposedly modeled on. Sometimes I can and sometimes not.
My comment was based on VERY specific criteria like a specific song by a specific artist. And the search often returns results that don't seem to match the request.
Joe, my suggestion for this training tool request and your interests of 6 months or so ago are to do this analysis yourself.

Pick one song you want to teach the kids (or perform) and "reverse arrange" it through critical listening of the song. For most rock and pop tunes this process takes me about an hour. I would be happy to walk you through my process for doing this with songs in a phone call or Skype call. In my opinion, this is a skill that every band member and home recordist needs to learn.

Send me a PM if you are interested.
Joe and JJJ, you have to understand this style function of Biab was never designed to give you a style that "matches" any one song.

A musical style is just that, a style.

James Brown is a funky musical style but is it the same as Average White Band? No, but they're both funk styles.

CCR is a rock style but is it the same as Huey Lewis or Deep Purple? No.

When you type in the name of a song all that is is another generic filter. Like Rock Ev 8 is a filter. Or Tex-Mex is a filter. That's it, that's as far as it goes. If you typed in Hotel California what happens is you get a list of medium rock styles, none of which will be specific to Hotel California but one of those might have an arpeggiated guitar part that could work for that tune if you put in the correct chords.

Biab does not advertise specific songs nor does PG say anywhere that Biab will give you covers of copywritten songs. You get basic style tracks and all the rest of it is up to you.

Bob
Hi guys,

Bob is 100% correct. The song database only contains the tempo, genre, time signature, and feel (Ev8, Sw16, etc) of hit songs from the past several decades, and filters the list so that you only see styles that match those limited parameters (often showing more if "include similar" is checked).

The styles that are listed may or may not actually sound remotely like the song you typed in, and will be the same ones that you'd see if you'd chosen the same Genre, Tempo, Time Sig, and Feel filters yourself.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music
If you want the actual song, then just download a quality MIDI file and work from there.

BIAB allows you to pick a style that provides something that an artist might do or a groove that a particular song might use, but it will never be that exact song. Otherwise, every style would be song specific, and I suspect get into a lot of copyright issues. You are just not going to be able to select a Rolling Stones Style and get the guitar riff for Satisfaction (whether you typed Satisfaction in the filter field or not).

As I read the style descriptions, selecting a song title isn't so that you get a style that mimics a particular song, but more that it gives you a style that "should work" for that song (or maybe not, YMMV, since it's someone else's interpretation).

Like Bob said, if you choose a funk artist, then you're not going to get Average White Band, but you're going to get styles that work with a funk groove.

As far as I understand it, BIAB has never been designed to provide you with "covers", but merely the ability to select something in line with what a particular artist might generally create. That can then become your version of the song. It's been this way in BIAB as far back as I can remember.

That being said, if you use MIDI, you could fairly easily create your own song specific styles by using a MIDI file as the source and then using the style wizard to create parts that mimic the riffs of the song. That would let you reharmonize a song, yet keep the original riffs in place, or make a different song sound like that song. But as far as sharing or selling that, you would be treading into copyright territory.
Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
Joe and JJJ, you have to understand this style function of Biab was never designed to give you a style that "matches" any one song.

A musical style is just that, a style.

James Brown is a funky musical style but is it the same as Average White Band? No, but they're both funk styles.

CCR is a rock style but is it the same as Huey Lewis or Deep Purple? No.

When you type in the name of a song all that is is another generic filter. Like Rock Ev 8 is a filter. Or Tex-Mex is a filter. That's it, that's as far as it goes. If you typed in Hotel California what happens is you get a list of medium rock styles, none of which will be specific to Hotel California but one of those might have an arpeggiated guitar part that could work for that tune if you put in the correct chords.

Biab does not advertise specific songs nor does PG say anywhere that Biab will give you covers of copywritten songs. You get basic style tracks and all the rest of it is up to you.

Bob


Bob, no one is expecting BIAB to provide a style that is a perfect cover! I get what you guys are saying but this makes me realize this "feature" is not nearly as useful as it appears to be at first glance. I bet if you asked 10 musicians what results they would expect from a style search feature that accepted a song name as input most would expect the styles suggested to at least be something close.

But when I type Hotel California and get 304 results (3,254 if I check Include Similar) and none, or very few of them sound even remotely like the song I entered I see this "feature" as either 1) poorly documented or 2) not very functional. I mean, why in the world is it bringing back 3,254 results for Hotel California? I guess you explained this but to my way of thinking there should be more to this filter than simply locating every style in the library that has 2 or 3 common elements of the typed song!
I have said it in other places, but if you want to see, hear, play, study and grab the midi for all of the parts of, say Stairway to Heaven, exactly as they were performed (including the drums), and take it from there, you really only need to know two words.

Guitar Pro.

Like here:

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/l/led_zeppelin/stairway_to_heaven_ver9_guitar_pro.htm

About 59 bucks. Who knows how many song files available. Maybe millions. You can import the midi into BIAB.

Peace Out.
I found "1" result here http://realband.org/usertracks.html
"Guitar, Acoustic, Hotel Style Ev 8 130"
...gonna check that out David - sounds like a really fun and useful tool.
Hi Rockstar_Not

I think that is a wonderful idea. I would really benefit from a session that ran through things like drum feels and styles etc. I am clueless when it comes to hearing those kind of things. I can usually hear and work out chord changes etc for guitar or base and melodies, but drums, Swing or Even, 8 or 16? I've no accurate idea of what it really means! I'm sure I'm not the only one. I just follow my ears which kind of works. How about a video recording of the steps you go through?

Regards


Neil
Guitar pro is great ! but if you can't afford it the is https://musescore.org/en
Guitar Pro (*.GTP, *.GP3, *.GP4, *.GP5, *.GPX)

and https://sourceforge.net/projects/tuxguitar/

both will export to midi, xml
Originally Posted By: lambada
Hi Rockstar_Not

I think that is a wonderful idea. I would really benefit from a session that ran through things like drum feels and styles etc. I am clueless when it comes to hearing those kind of things. I can usually hear and work out chord changes etc for guitar or base and melodies, but drums, Swing or Even, 8 or 16? I've no accurate idea of what it really means! I'm sure I'm not the only one. I just follow my ears which kind of works. How about a video recording of the steps you go through?

Regards


Neil


Neil - pick a song on YouTube that you would like this exercise - one with good audio quality. I won't be doing a video, but I can walk you through the steps of what I do. This isn't figuring out chords and lead lines, but more of an orchestration/arrangement/production exercise.

Here's an example of where I did this with Beck's excellent song, The Golden Age:
Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zAT15vaFk
My 2 minute version (for a song contest): http://rockstarnot.rekkerd.org/songs/newer/rockstar_not%20-%20The%20Golden%20Age%202%20minute%20cover.mp3

The process I use is to go through the song MANY times, with a spreadsheet as a note-taking tool, with song sections in the rows, and 'parts' in the columns. I start with the drums, making notes to myself about feel (usually just kick, snare and hats as a start) in each section. Then bass, then all of the guitars, then keyboards, then vocals, sound fx, etc. On this song, I think I had about 10 tracks total. One thing that I could tell is that in the original, I think the acoustic guitars are double-tracked, and that was the primary thing I wanted to try in this recording - to see if I could actually play the acoustic closely enough take to take to get that wider than imaginable sound. I didn't get the rhythm just right. Also to keep this under 2 minutes, I cut out half of the intro. This was also the first time I ever recorded background vocals. The cool thing about the original is that some of the tracks are just dripping with reverb and that helps to cover a multitude of singing errors! But anyways, I think I got the feel and mood of the song nailed pretty well using this technique. I tweaked it quite a bit, going back and forth between the original and my individual tracks. In the cover contest I entered this into (KVRAudio.com) some folks accused me of copying. I didn't, but paid very close attention to each little audio piece of magic that is in the original song. Even though there's lots of reverb on some of the tracks, others are really dry. I wanted to see if I could duplicate the dreamy yet very present nature of this song and it's production.

That's really what Joe is asking about in his original question in the thread.

If anyone is interested, I'll put up a Google-docs spreadsheet of a song I've recently 'reverse arranged' in order to make notes on our band's cover of the song.

For a great on-line cover band where it's clear to me that they have done something like this, check out Lexington Lab Band. Lots of great 70's & 80's rock covers (Boston, Journey)
The cool thing about their covers is that they are mixed really well with great separation of the individual tracks for easy note taking.
https://vimeo.com/185352494
J*3
I am one musician that absolutely loves the song style filter and I use it everyday of life. I don't like using midi files and working with them. This is because I am actually trying NOT to sound like the original. What biab gives me in terms of feel, tempo and suggested styles is invaluable. I am busy working on a folk swing version of Greensleeves right now.

Then when I am done I can release a my own unique cover version of a song to iTunes rather than just a bad copy which does not sound as good as the original.
>> But when I type Hotel California and get 304 results (3,254 if I check Include Similar) and none, or very few of them sound even remotely like the song I entered I see this "feature" as either 1) poorly documented or 2) not very functional. I mean, why in the world is it bringing back 3,254 results for Hotel California? I guess you explained this but to my way of thinking there should be more to this filter than simply locating every style in the library that has 2 or 3 common elements of the typed song!

I just tried it on that song, and got great results. Each of the first 10 listed worked great with the chords, and would work well in the song.

So to try to reconcile that with your comment that they don't sound "even remotely like the song" .... I think this is likely the explanation.

When you see the style list, and double click the style to hear a style demo, you are hearing our pre-prepared style demo, that is a completely different chord progression than the song that you are interested in. So the demo's progression might be | CMaj7 | FMaj7 | . You are hearing that, and concluding that "this doesn't sound like the song" ... but that's because the CHORD PROGRESSION is different.

Instead, type the first 8 bars of the chord progression that you want for your song, and don't play the pre-prepared demo, press the PLAY button (after first selecting 4 bar preview. Then you will hear the style that this feature chose, along with the chords that you want. I did that, and they all sound great with your song, and this list was chosen just by typing in the song title.

Here were the first 6 styles listed when I typed that song title (these are from the UltraPAK< and some from Bonus PAKS)


_PMODGR+ <---- Here's how that one sounds for example. https://www.dropbox.com/s/worj8b03rexf5dz/PopBalladDemo-1.m4a?dl=0
_LITEPOP
_SPTRIO3
_SPOPSLW
_SPOPFNK
_PMODGR1


Try any of those with the correct chords of your song. And listen to the demo above. And tell me what you think.I'd be intersted to know why you think that wouldn't remotely work for you with that song.

Incidentally, the + on the name _PMODGR+.sty indicates that this is a mult-style, with 4 substyles instead of 2. The parts are named when you right click on the bar numbers on the chordsheet, and they are

substyle a: verse
substyle b: chorus
aubstyle c: intro
substyle d : Interlude

So I made up a 32 bar demo, using some similar chord progressions, and 4 eight bar sections (intro, verse, chorus, interlude). And for fun, chose "select realtracks - choose best soloist". And that feature recommended an elec. guitar soloist 1167 for this style, so that is added in this demo too.

SO here is that demo: To summarize, I typed in a song title, took BB's top recommendation, and added a soloist that was also BB's top recommendations. And typed in the chords I wanted. It all took about 10 minutes... This is what I got https://www.dropbox.com/s/yttthubdj7lorzi/PopBalladDemo-2.m4a?dl=0 And then pressed the generate song title button, and BiaB gave the song a title called "Unforgiving Love"


Originally Posted By: JoanneCooper
J*3
I am one musician that absolutely loves the song style filter and I use it everyday of life. I don't like using midi files and working with them. This is because I am actually trying NOT to sound like the original. What biab gives me in terms of feel, tempo and suggested styles is invaluable. I am busy working on a folk swing version of Greensleeves right now.

Then when I am done I can release a my own unique cover version of a song to iTunes rather than just a bad copy which does not sound as good as the original.

Thanks Joanne! I can see how this would be quite cool for doing unique covers. I had thought this feature would give me more of a "sounds like" selection as a starting point for my originals.
Originally Posted By: PeterGannon
>> But when I type Hotel California and get 304 results (3,254 if I check Include Similar) and none, or very few of them sound even remotely like the song I entered I see this "feature" as either 1) poorly documented or 2) not very functional. I mean, why in the world is it bringing back 3,254 results for Hotel California? I guess you explained this but to my way of thinking there should be more to this filter than simply locating every style in the library that has 2 or 3 common elements of the typed song!

I just tried it on that song, and got great results. Each of the first 10 listed worked great with the chords, and would work well in the song.

So to try to reconcile that with your comment that they don't sound "even remotely like the song" .... I think this is likely the explanation.

When you see the style list, and double click the style to hear a style demo, you are hearing our pre-prepared style demo, that is a completely different chord progression than the song that you are interested in. So the demo's progression might be | CMaj7 | FMaj7 | . You are hearing that, and concluding that "this doesn't sound like the song" ... but that's because the CHORD PROGRESSION is different.

Instead, type the first 8 bars of the chord progression that you want for your song, and don't play the pre-prepared demo, press the PLAY button (after first selecting 4 bar preview. Then you will hear the style that this feature chose, along with the chords that you want. I did that, and they all sound great with your song, and this list was chosen just by typing in the song title.

Here were the first 6 styles listed when I typed that song title (these are from the UltraPAK< and some from Bonus PAKS)


_PMODGR+ <---- Here's how that one sounds for example. https://www.dropbox.com/s/worj8b03rexf5dz/PopBalladDemo-1.m4a?dl=0
_LITEPOP
_SPTRIO3
_SPOPSLW
_SPOPFNK
_PMODGR1


Try any of those with the correct chords of your song. And listen to the demo above. And tell me what you think.I'd be intersted to know why you think that wouldn't remotely work for you with that song.

Incidentally, the + on the name _PMODGR+.sty indicates that this is a mult-style, with 4 substyles instead of 2. The parts are named when you right click on the bar numbers on the chordsheet, and they are

substyle a: verse
substyle b: chorus
aubstyle c: intro
substyle d : Interlude

So I made up a 32 bar demo, using some similar chord progressions, and 4 eight bar sections (intro, verse, chorus, interlude). And for fun, chose "select realtracks - choose best soloist". And that feature recommended an elec. guitar soloist 1167 for this style, so that is added in this demo too.

SO here is that demo: To summarize, I typed in a song title, took BB's top recommendation, and added a soloist that was also BB's top recommendations. And typed in the chords I wanted. It all took about 10 minutes... This is what I got https://www.dropbox.com/s/yttthubdj7lorzi/PopBalladDemo-2.m4a?dl=0 And then pressed the generate song title button, and BiaB gave the song a title called "Unforgiving Love"



Thank you for that detailed response Peter! I entered my chords and you are absolutely right that that makes it sound closer to my desired song. I think in general maybe I have misunderstood this feature. I am not doing covers and had thought this would give me a style very close to the sound of a song I entered. I will spend a little more time with it to see if I can get it to work for my needs. Thanks again!
As always - I learned a lot from this conversation...thanks to all for your thoughtful and detailed contributions.

BB remains in the number one spot of music programs for me - it does so many things...and is IMHO probably incredibly underutilized across the education community in terms of what it can offer.

I especially like the things it offers that absolutely no other program offers - in terms of rockstar_not's comments about analyzing a song for the overall feel, production, mix, and 'audio magic' in it - and the exercise of analyzing it and trying to get that feel yourself using the tool. Also for lambada's comment about using it in the way I do - to really learn how those instruments you don't play complement each other to create the groove and the feel of a song, and to communicate to other musician's articulately with respect to this.

As always - loving this program and the wonderful community here on the forums.
Pardon me for not reading all the previous posts. I might be repeating another. But I have an early lunchtime gig today, and time is short.

Here is my take:

1) When there were very few styles, both PG Music and myself made judgement calls. A particular style might be the best style at the time for a particular song, but not really that close. But when there were only a hundred or so styles, it was "close enough" and at that time the best way to do the song. I've removed and replaced a lot of those assignments in my styles, but there are plenty of others lurking that I haven't noticed yet.

2) BiaB styles are generic by design and not song specific. Years ago I had a few requests to do a style for Elvis Presley's song, "Don't Be Cruel."

"Don't Be Cruel" uses a song specific guitar lick and without that lick, you don't have the song. I soon realized that that particular style was good for one song and one song only. Put it in any other song and as soon as you hear that signature guitar lick, you think "Don't Be Cruel".

So I realized what is the use of making a song-specific style that only works for one song? It's actually a lot easier to do the song in a DAW or Sequencer than to write a style and jump through the hurdles to overcome the limitations of Band-in-a-Box.

With zillions of styles, it sometimes makes it difficult to find the best style for that song. I know, we create fake 'disks' for BiaB. It takes longer to find the best style for each song than any other part of the process. And even then, when new styles come out, what we chose for a fake 'disk' last year might be replaced by an even better one next.

Band-in-a-Box is a tool and a toy. We play music and so try to think about it as playing, enjoy the process, and think about it as the journey as much as the result.

Insights and incites by Notes

Peter,

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE those Plus styles and all the other unusual time signatures and amazing "non +" styles that pull up when you just type in +. Wow!!!!!!! So glad I was reading this thread. My life has just changed--again!! Get ready world!! Weird cross-over Bollywood Space Age Celtic Rock is on the way in multi-styles! Be warned!

But ok, I have to say this is funny:

Are you saying that if Hotel California goes Bm, F#m, A E, G, D and the demo is G, C and D that it isn't going to sound like Hotel California...?? are you saying that you have to actually type in the same chords as the song...so it will sound like it?

Oh my goodness, I see it now! I think I get it!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

That was funny.

smile
A very nice copy of Beck. I would be interested in seeing the Google Doc.
Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Band-in-a-Box is a tool and a toy. We play music and so try to think about it as playing, enjoy the process, and think about it as the journey as much as the result.


This is a big part of it for me too. I have a large collection of midi files that are almost perfect copies of some great tunes and I have the skills with Biab to use those to make all kinds of song specific styles but have no interest in doing that. Sometimes I'll que them up and play along after I've muted the keys part but for me part of the fun is messing around with Biab or RB to create something myself.

Also for live gigging, I don't play with tribute bands and could not give a rip if I do a song exactly like a record or not. For the gigs I play nobody cares about that. We do different changeups on the fly like just a week ago I suggested Take 5 as a reggae. We looked at each other and the drummer went what? I said do it something like this so I started a reggae feel riff using the intro to Take 5. The rest of the band just jumped in and it sounded pretty good. This was in a restaurant and the people who were paying attention really liked it.

Bob
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
I'll put up a Google-docs spreadsheet of a song I've recently 'reverse arranged' in order to make notes on our band's cover of the song.
I would like to see the spreadsheet very much.

Thanks Dr. Gannon for adding your voice to the conversation. The demonstration is very impressive. How you created the demonstration is most informative.
Originally Posted By: Jim Fogle
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
I'll put up a Google-docs spreadsheet of a song I've recently 'reverse arranged' in order to make notes on our band's cover of the song.
I would like to see the spreadsheet very much.


The most recent one I did was for a song called "This Is Amazing Grace" which is a pretty popular worship song right now. I can post that, or perhaps what might be more useful to you and the community would be to go through this exercise with a more well known song? I would be willing to do this even though it takes about an hour for a typically instrumented rock song. It's good practice. Every time I go through and do this with a song I learn something new.

Would you be interested in a group exercise? You pick the song, I will do my version and put it aside, then walk through a live session with a Skype call or something, then compare the group notes with my held aside version.
))) Would you be interested in a group exercise? You pick the song, I will do my version and put it aside, then walk through a live session with a Skype call or something, then compare the group notes with my held aside version.

This would be great. Thanks Scott!
Sounds great. Might be a good idea to record the Skype session as people are logging in from all over the world. I'm in Hong Kong. When I post most people are asleep! grin
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
Originally Posted By: Jim Fogle
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
I'll put up a Google-docs spreadsheet of a song I've recently 'reverse arranged' in order to make notes on our band's cover of the song.
I would like to see the spreadsheet very much.


The most recent one I did was for a song called "This Is Amazing Grace" which is a pretty popular worship song right now. I can post that, or perhaps what might be more useful to you and the community would be to go through this exercise with a more well known song? I would be willing to do this even though it takes about an hour for a typically instrumented rock song. It's good practice. Every time I go through and do this with a song I learn something new.

Would you be interested in a group exercise? You pick the song, I will do my version and put it aside, then walk through a live session with a Skype call or something, then compare the group notes with my held aside version.


Here's a link to my Google Sheets (Had to convert it from Excel just now) for Bethel Worship's version of "This Is Amazing Grace" - mostly notes for doing this song with a modern worship band. Link to the YouTube song is included in the file.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ag83fKGHjw-6xi3p7C_tdhMuyOSSnAWkzTh7RTNXcaY/edit?usp=sharing

This is the first time I've made a file public in Google Docs, so let me know if the link works or not.

I will probably write a blog post on this exercise, as I think doing this has made me a better band member as well as helped me to make arrangement decisions for my own songs.
How about we do a Tom Petty song - 2 of his big hits that I really liked were "I Won't Back Down", and "Free Fallin" - were they big up North too, eh ?
David Snyder, thanks for opening my eyes to all the midis freely available with all parts pretty true to the original songs. I had no idea there were so many.

There seem to be 2 choices to access these:
1.) and Ultimate Guitar Subscription - to TabPro
http://plus.ultimate-guitar.com/tab-pro/?utm_source=UltimateGuitar&utm_medium=Header&utm_campaign=UG+Tab+Pro&utm_content=Main+Index


2.) Guitar Pro subscription
https://www.guitar-pro.com/en/index.php?pg=tabs

This gentleman did a review and seemed to prefer the GPro - as David suggested (though he shared a link to the Ultimate Guitar website).
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1597210

With tech moving so fast - I completely missed the huge library of accurate midis available for such low cost. And imported and played in BB - that's the icing on the cake - to slice and dice them up - view and play those tracks separately, in combination, or with different volumes.

I'm actually curious to know how they got all these midis together with such accuracy. I know there are books out there that have been transcribed and are sold as "authorized transcriptions", etc. - do they actually have a tool to scan these pages in and/or just generate the midis as the transcriptions are done in Sibelius or some similar program ?

And I would bet there's something interesting going on with the copyright in that domain too lol
Originally Posted By: Joe V
How about we do a Tom Petty song - 2 of his big hits that I really liked were "I Won't Back Down", and "Free Fallin" - were they big up North too, eh ?


OK - "Free Fallin'" it is. I pick that one over "I Won't Back Down" because I think it's got better application to this method; that is, it has more variety of 'parts' particularly to start the song and the new parts that get introduced are pretty stark and very clear when they occur.

By the way, when you do this reverse arranging activity, it's best to listen via headphones. You'll hear how the mixing engineer/producer placed tracks on the sound stage much better than over speakers.
The Google Doc worked fine. I'm looking at it while listening to the song on YouTube from your link. It's a whole stage of analysis that I have never really bothered to do. Interesting and will be integrated into my own backing tracks creation as I'm feeling ready now to create closer copies of songs. Sitting here listening to Free Fallin'. I'm not very familiar with Tom Petty, but it seems very contemporary sounding given how long he's been around. Maybe we should try to do an analysis similar to yours and see what we come up with? confused
Originally Posted By: JoanneCooper
J*3
I am one musician that absolutely loves the song style filter and I use it everyday of life. I don't like using midi files and working with them. This is because I am actually trying NOT to sound like the original. What biab gives me in terms of feel, tempo and suggested styles is invaluable. I am busy working on a folk swing version of Greensleeves right now.

Then when I am done I can release a my own unique cover version of a song to iTunes rather than just a bad copy which does not sound as good as the original.


+1 Joanne!
Ian
If anyone wants to make cover song backing tracks, I use a midi or a midi from a Guitar Pro file, open in RealBand then match the midi tracks to RealTracks or a good Virtual Instrument.
That's still a lot of time and at the end of the day you would be better with multitracks from:

http://www.karaoke-version.com/custombackingtrack/the-eagles/hotel-california.html

https://www.jamkazam.com/landing/jamtracks/the-eagles-hotel-california

http://www.karaoke-version.com/custombackingtrack/tom-petty/free-fallin.html

http://songgalaxy.com/Multitrack/The-Eagles/Hotel-California/CRG3233.html

http://songgalaxy.com/Multitrack/Tom-Petty/Free-Fallin-/RE09981.html

https://www.jamkazam.com/landing/jamtracks/tom-petty-free-fallin-acapella

Ample Guitar plays Guitar Pro files, but for the price I think you are better waiting for Guitar Pro 7 as it is suppose to support VSTi's rather than the RSE (Realistic Sound Engine).

If anyone wants to cover a song, there are plenty of MIDI file vendors who sell cover version MIDI files, Tran Tracks, Midi Hits, BandTrax, Peter Solley, Geerdes and more. I found these with a Google search, so I can't tell you whether they are great or not, but I did listen to a couple of demo files, and they sound good. (I used to re-sell some of Tran's work back in the 1990s and he did a great job back then, so I'm sure he still does.)

This seems like it would get you a more accurate cover version of the song than BiaB would do.

I heard a local band do Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire" as a Reggae song. It went over great with the audience. If you want to do something like this, Band-in-a-Box is the tool to use.

We do Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" as a jazz swing tune, using zzjazz almost stock out of the box (only a few edits in a sequencer) and people really like that.

We do Jimmy Buffett's "A Pirate Looks At 40" and "Son Of A Son Of A Sailor" like a Caribbean band with a steel drum player, also with big help from BiaB, and people tell me they like them better than the Jimmy Buffett versions.

Band-in-a-Box is an extremely powerful tool if you want to re-imagine songs, if you want to do a note for note cover, there are better ways to do that. This is in no way a criticism of BiaB - I absolutely love BiaB and it is one of the most important tools in my musical tool box. But there are other tools as well. Different tools for different jobs.

When I do cover songs myself, I do them by adding a track at a time into a DAW or Sequencer. I do this for a few reasons (1) I can (2) by doing this I know the song inside and out (3) I can leave an instrument or two out to play live on stage (4) I can make subtle or drastic changes that I think would enhance the experience. But if I didn't have the skills to do them myself, I'd probably buy the MIDI sequence if I wanted a close cover.

Insights and incites by Notes
A wee bit off topic.

Quote from Peter's thread

Instead, type the first 8 bars of the chord progression that you want for your song, and don't play the pre-prepared demo, press the PLAY button (after first selecting 4 bar preview. Then you will hear the style that this feature chose, along with the chords that you want.

Is this function available in Realband?
If not can I open a SEQ file in BiaB, or do I have to key in the chords from scratch?
Originally Posted By: sinbad
A wee bit off topic.

Quote from Peter's thread

Instead, type the first 8 bars of the chord progression that you want for your song, and don't play the pre-prepared demo, press the PLAY button (after first selecting 4 bar preview. Then you will hear the style that this feature chose, along with the chords that you want.

Is this function available in Realband?
If not can I open a SEQ file in BiaB, or do I have to key in the chords from scratch?


In realband, It isn't available from the stylepicker but you can do it in realband.
In realband, you would choose the style that you want, and then exit the stylepicker, so that the style loads into realband . Then type in the chords for 8 bars, and set the song duration to 8 bars.

Note that this only works if you have a blank song, because you'd be wiping out existing work. If you want to do it with an existing project, to prevent wiping it out you could save it prior to doing this.
Originally Posted By: lambada
The Google Doc worked fine. I'm looking at it while listening to the song on YouTube from your link. It's a whole stage of analysis that I have never really bothered to do. Interesting and will be integrated into my own backing tracks creation as I'm feeling ready now to create closer copies of songs. Sitting here listening to Free Fallin'. I'm not very familiar with Tom Petty, but it seems very contemporary sounding given how long he's been around. Maybe we should try to do an analysis similar to yours and see what we come up with? confused


I have my analysis of Free Fallin' about 2/3 done.

It does get tedious listening through the same song over and over, but this is also part of the discipline needed to make covers that sound authentic (if that is the goal).
If someone want's covers backing tracks just do a YT search using the name of the song followed by backing tracks. There's tons of free ones. These are not midi, they're audio files but some sound really good.

If you want studio produced pro quality then check out all the commercial websites. To me audio tracks are better because it's real players doing the tracks but midi gives you control over the tracks. You have to have a high quality sound source for midi.

Bob
It's not necessarily covers that causes Joe V to post the original post, but an educational process for students. Ripping off covers isn't really the goal as far as I understand it.
Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
I don't play with tribute bands and could not give a rip if I do a song exactly like a record or not.


There isn't a high enough percent for me to agree enough!! 1000% I don't care in the slightest about sounding like someone else. When you see major acts, you get a CLOSE approximation of the original but it is never exact. I have spoken to people in major acts and they have told me that after a CD comes out they have to go back and learn the solos as the producer pasted them together because that's what the listening public knows.

I am actually, while working on writing for CD #2, working on a bunch of cover tunes done in completely different grooves from the originals. Should be a fun thing when it's done.
Hey - to be clear, I like doing covers because I'm not half the musician I wish I was, and I can rarely play a cover that sounds as good or better to my ear (not even close) to the original. Also - many people like hearing songs they know and love. ANd of course - many students are interested in emulating their favorite artists.

There is no doubt that creating new and appealing music takes far more creativity and musicianship than playing covers. I wish I was more inclined to do that myself. It's just not where my personality and music take me. And thank God, I don't have to depend on music for a living...so I can do just what I enjoy without the stresses that any full-time occupation brings.

Again - really enjoying and learning from all the posts. Thanks.
There some covers here http://www.theguitarband.com/sgu-files-2/
http://www.theguitarband.com/instant-full-download/
In our duo we do a mix of covers and re-interpretations (for lack of a better word).

I'm not opposed to covers, I make my living playing music, they pay me money to do covers so I don't need a 'day job', and the enthusiasm and positive feedback from the audience is rewarding. Besides, when I was in a concert band, we played music by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and others. Sure they weren't direct covers, as we used band instruments instead of strings, but we tried to recreate the music true to the composer's inspiration.

I don't think there is any shame in doing covers, nor is there any loss of artistic integrity.

But we don't live on covers alone. First of all, even the covers slowly drift away from being covers. Sometimes we'll listen to a recording of a song we've been playing a while and think "Wow! Have we changed that one!"

Others are intentionally done either slightly or radically different from the original (see earlier post for a couple of examples).

Someone mentioned buying cover tracks recorded by musicians instead of MIDI. We have some competitors that do this. They buy Karaoke tracks, and that means someone else playing the solos, no parts left out for themselves, there are 'ghost' background singers, and so on. The audience knows they are Karaoke Jockeys and in the clubs that we play that they also play, we make more money.

Besides, recorded tracks sound like recorded tracks because they are mixed like recorded tracks. If you are playing your music at super high volumes (115dba or higher) it doesn't matter, but at lower volumes, a mix for a recording is all wrong for live. At low to reasonable volume settings you need more snare drum, louder crash cymbals, more kick drum, more bass, and for some parts like horn stabs or "answer parts" of any kind to the lead, they need to be pumped up. The dynamics on a recording are compressed while the dynamics of a live performance need to be exaggerated.

So even if you have an adequate but not great MIDI tone module or synth, you can do better with a MIDI track where you can control the dynamics.

Tone is nice, but it isn't everything. Expression is more important, and the dynamics are one of the most essential parts of expression. If you think tone is more important, how do you explain the popularity of Dr. John, Stevie Nicks, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and hundreds of other pop stars with bad to mediocre voices? I can, they express themselves well, and the audience relates to expression, not tone.

Tone is important, but always remember, you should be chasing expression first, because without expression, even the best voice in the world will not get you anywhere. That doesn't mean we shouldn't chase tone at all, but if there is a choice to be made between tone and expression, choose expression and IMO it will get you farther.

Insights and incites by Notes
This is turning out to be a great learning post - thanks to all for sharing the very valuable links to great song files and resources; quite a few are new to me, and they're all filled with great backing tracks....
Notes, those people who buy tracks, at least in my experience, take that path because they are not musicians, just singers. They simply CAN'T make their own tracks. There is a duo in my area that does this. They are both very good singers, but not players at all. Both of these gals know that their voice is their instrument. The problem is that they acquire only free backing tracks, many of which are quite poorly performed, and 2 outstanding female voices sing over very sloppy tracks.

I will always be in the school that if you want horns and backing vocals, hire some of those musicians and singers that are home and would rather be working. In my area though, clubs are so cheap that bands defer to the gods of the dollar sign and cheap out. The majority of bands around here are trios with a front singer, and nobody else can sing. Rarely do you see a keyboard player. Thus we have a LOT of bands that play with sweetening tracks. As soon as I hear vocals or keyboards or horns that are not on stage, I leave.

But that's just me and I am somewhat of an elitist snob when it comes to music.
In our area, clubs are cheap too. Places that used to have 4 or 5 piece bands 6 nights a week are hiring duos two nights, putting in a karaoke night, an open mic night, and an amateur comedy night.

I'd love to play in a full band, and I did that for many years. The duo is a compromise. The other compromise would have been to get a 'day job' aaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh. wink

We have a few karaoke jock duos and trios in the area. They undercut live musicians too.

Some sing pretty well, but often the tracks aren't in their key, or poorly recorded, and none of them seem to be mixed for live performance.

But they get work, so it's obviously a way to make money.

There is a KJ trio in the area, the guy can't sing, his wife barely sings, and her sister is OK. But they are entertaining, and they work the crowd, learning everybody's names and personal situations - one schmoozing the tables while two are on stage. They make friends, and that keeps them working.

It's survival, and you have to do what you need to do to survive. So to compete with the KJs, we end up having to learn more new songs, many of which are disposable in a month or two (like "All About That Bass" which doesn't work anymore.

Since I sequence my own backing tracks, it's a lot more work for me, but I like playing, and don't want to be a KJ for a living. So whatever it takes is what I'll do, and as long as I'm enjoying myself gigging for a living (and I do), I'll keep on doing what it takes.

At one time in my life I wanted to play jazz (art music) and quickly found out if you play jazz for a living around here, you need a day job. I tried the 'day job' while gigging with the jazzers, and found out that being 'normal' and having a real job wasn't for me. I'd rather play pop music.

But that is just me. I have a friend who still plays 'art music' and is very good at it. He has a day job and it suits him fine.

We all gotta do what we gotta do.

Insights and incites by Notes
Notes, your message struck a chord with me. Around here bands are playing for the same amount of money that I did in the early to mid 60's. That is if you can find a gig as KJs and DJs have taken over.

In the late 60's I was in a B3, drum and guitar trio playing jazz. We sounded great but couldn't get many gigs. That's when we went into the wedding band business. DJs took over that business also.
Talking about DJ's, Castle has been our favorite TV show for the last few years. One episode Castle and Becket wound up at a high school prom dance and while dancing they were talking about wedding music when the DJ played a Sinatra tune. Castle mentioned hiring a live band and Becket said why does she want to hear someone trying to sound like Sinatra when she can hear the real thing by hiring a good DJ?

This was just a throw away line in a TV show but it caught my attention.

My father was a college radio DJ in the early 40's and knew all the big bands and commented that some of the unknown traveling bands coming through Michigan were better than the big name ones. He was not happy when they started to die out having been replaced by Elvis and the Beatles.

Now we've been replaced. Who knows what live entertainment will look like in another 10 years much less 30.

Bob
why does she want to hear someone trying to sound like Sinatra when she can hear the real thing by hiring a good DJ

The reverse is also true. I tried out for an R&B band a few years ago and the leader wanted every song to sound exactly like the original. I asked why then would anyone hire us if they could get a DJ and play the record? My bands rarely played exactly like the originals and that did not stop us from getting more gigs than we could book.
Attention JoeV, Peter and lambada,

I have my 'reverse arrangement/production deconstruction' complete for Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'". If you are interested (I think you were the only folks from this thread interested), I can share a link to the Google Sheets that I made for it.

Joe, for your students, this might be of particular interest to see how much ISN'T being played.

It might also be of interest to them to see how much the dynamics of this song deal with the drops and the relative level changes of tracks, section to section in the song.

This could be instructive to BIAB users to hear this major hit and how few tracks are actually used to accomplish it.

Hit me up if you want the link.

-Scott
Hi Scott. I would love to take a look. Thanks for doing this.
I just loved Bob (Notes)'s description of some contemporary songs as "disposable".
Back in the 1960s, before loud DJs we tried to sound exactly like the record. It was what cover bands did.

Then when DJs started getting a share of the business, we drifted away from that. As mentioned, "who wants to hear the Sinatra tune imitation when you can hear Sinatra?"

As a live band however, we had the advantage of being less compressed dynamically than the recording. The crack of the snare drum was much louder with greater attack and diminish qualities (better accent). Other instruments have this quality as well. So unless playing at 110dba or higher where your ears start compressing everything, the band still had an advantage for many people.

Then came downsizing frown

After that it became about trying to add some value to the song that a DJ cannot do. One way was to extend the arrangement. Two and a half minutes might not be long enough.

Plus using MIDI files I can still get more dynamic range than a DJ, and since I play for an adult audience with volumes around 85dba to perhaps 100 right in front of the speakers, my MIDI files carry much more energy than the Karaoke files that the KJs purchase.

In some songs I've even doubled snare drums and/or mixed a high timbale with the snare to get that crack effect that doesn't come through on recordings. I've doubled horn stabs too, one for tone and another for the attack. There are lots of tricks you can use with MIDI that can make the sound more dynamic than a prerecorded track.

We learned a line dance song for a private club we play regularly ("Get Into Reggae Cowboy") and our KJ competition does it as well. The dancers thanked us and told us that we do it even better than the record. It's because I expanded the dynamic range of the song, louder accents on the snare and the syncopated guitar part, another on the bottom for the first beat of the measure, a few more tricks like that, and we also extended it to 4 minutes. The instrument sounds aren't as good, but the song goes over much better because the expression is better.

But still, many customers and worse than that, many entertainment purchasers don't know the difference. Fortunately there are enough to keep us working, and enough so that we can still charge a little more than the KJ acts. One club we play often gives us $50 more a night than the KJ trio and there are only two of us. It's not a lot of money, but it is good for our pride.

And yes Matt, most songs are and have always been disposable. I would guess fewer than 10% become 'classics' that will be good for a long time.

The difference between today and decades ago is that the record companies have been making the life cycle of the disposable song shorter and shorter in an effort to sell more 'records'. If a song stays at number 1 for 8 weeks, the public isn't replacing it fast enough.

I was in enough Top40 bands to remember learning a song a week to keep up with current trends. During that time when I spoke to older musicians, they told me that once they moved into the country club / adult market they never wanted to go back to Top40.

In the 1990s I moved into that market, and they were correct. And the nice thing about playing that market is that I didn't have to learn the 90% disposable songs, because they were already disposed of. Any song I learned would last for years. Good value for my time.

But playing the 'adult' market I find that especially the ladies like a little new music. So we still have to learn some and we try to pick what we think will last. We aren't always right. "Love Shack" lasted a long time around here, it looks like "Uptown Funk" is here for a while, but "All About That Bass" faded in a few months.

But still, it's not a song a week like it was in Top40 bands. More like a new song every few months, and the rest of the time I can learn new 'old' songs that have already stood the test of time.

I enjoy the adult market.
  • Most gigs are 3 hours,
  • there is no pressure to draw a crowd because they are members or invited to a party,
  • instead of a manager not appreciating you on a slow night, there are no slow nights and at the end of it people come up and thank us for giving them a delightful evening
  • the pay for one-nighers is better per night
  • we get to play a wide variety of music from many different genres, making it musically very interesting
  • we are not required to do 'like the record' covers and can reinterpret songs and sometimes have them enjoyed even more


On the con side, we do have to schlepp our gear around a lot.

I'll never go back to Top40, and frankly, I'm too old for that now anyway. So the covers I do can be close to the record or radically different. I can do rock, Caribbean, Latin American, country, jazz, disco and plenty of other genres in the same gig. And I like that.

Insights and incites by Notes
Yep... the live music scene is depressing. Back in the 70's and 80's is was easy to put a band together, book it properly and make a really nice income that was livable or really added some cash to your pocket.

In the town I was in, there were about a dozen working bands at any given time and someone always trying to put something together. And most importantly, there was work available. Enough clubs of varying levels to keep the beginning bands as well as the established road bands working. And this was the situation in neighboring towns. Every town seemed to have a "big" club that booked the regional acts and the good locals, as well as several other clubs.

As a trio, bass, drums, guitar and two of us sang.... we had no problem pulling in between $600 on the low end to upwards of $1000 for a weekend gig, depending on the club, and often playing Wed & Thur for $250 or more per night. Not bad for 3 guys in the late 70's. And we stayed booked solid and working every weekend and throughout the week.

There was a military base there as well that would book every night of the week but the pay was lower and they paid based on the number of members on stage. Supposedly, we were the highest paid band (per member) in that circuit. We used those gigs as practice to work on new tunes in front of a live audience and our stage act. We never used our lights or large PA. We could set up in 25 minutes and be out in 15.

I no longer hang out with musicians who are still gigging live but I talk with a few buds who are still playing and the situation is dire. Gigs, good paying ones especially are hard to find. And the ones out there in this area are paying the same kind of money or less, than we were making playing 30 years ago.

In that town where there used to be a club with live music on every corner, there are now a handful that use live bands, and the military base has stopped booking bands totally.

From what I understand, most of the gigs that are available are low pay..."for the exposure" kind of things. Don't get me wrong, I played many like that. But you can't make a living doing it and often, you don't even cover gas and expenses for the work and time involved.

The music business has changed. Those who can find niche markets and unique ways to make a buck are the ones who will survive. The internet and digital formats like MP3 have forever altered the way people consume our product. You either find a way to change, adapt, and survive, or you get out of the business... or end up playing free gigs.
If all are honest, most pop tunes over the decades are disposable. Pick a decade, doesn't matter, lots of same old same old copy of whatever was hot prior month.
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
If all are honest, most pop tunes over the decades are disposable. Pick a decade, doesn't matter, lots of same old same old copy of whatever was hot prior month.



I agree. However, I don't think pop has a monopoly - it's equally true of all genres.
The only thing that makes the good stuff sound good - is all the really bad or mediocre stuff it's surrounded by ; )
LOL! Good one Joe. I haven't played covers in a long time but when I did, we'd play current songs and oldies because that's what our audience liked. So I might not like a song and consider it disposable but I think only time really tells what songs most of the public wants to keep hearing.

My own personal taste is that if I'm going to see a tribute or show band then I expect to see and hear a live rendition as close as possible to the record. Otherwise I don't care if a cover is exact and usually enjoy it unless the new arrangement is so different that the song is unrecognizeable to me or so far from my taste that I just don't relate to it.

When I was a kid I fell in music love with a BJ Thomas' song called Hooked On A Feeling. It played in my head night and day. Then several years later another group had a radio hit with the same song where they added this weird boom a chacka chanting throughout the song. I hated what they'd done to the song I had loved so much. Apparently somebody liked it because that monstrosity was a radio hit. Me, I'd change the station whenever it came on. That version still grates my nerves to this day. So if you should ever cover Hooked On A Feeling please don't add the booma a chacka or warn me ahead of time so I can opt out of hearing it. grin
There are definitely 2 camps of listeners - the average listener, IMHO, likes to hear the song the way the producer arranged it on the record; when I like I song - I'm as in love with the arrangement as I am with the harmony, melody, and words.

Many musicians, however - much prefer to change it and put their own stamp on it. Generally, IMHO, the AVERAGE listener would prefer the recorded arrangement. The REALLY good musicians (and I know we have a few on here) - they can change it around and put their stamp on it, and the song will STILL sound really good. But the average musician is not as good at this - and will put their own stamp on it because they really have no choice - they are not good enough to copy it closely to the recorded version, and their rendition is often not equal to or better than the original production/arrangement.

...just one man's opinion....but who else agrees with me ?
Jim Fogle, Joanne Cooper, Peter and Joe V - I will send the link in PM. Check your messages.
Scott sorry to jump in so late but I've been following this thread and I'd love to see the arrangement for Falling as well. Great song and interesting approach you have to deconstruction.
Originally Posted By: Joe V
There are definitely 2 camps of listeners - the average listener, IMHO, likes to hear the song the way the producer arranged it on the record; when I like I song - I'm as in love with the arrangement as I am with the harmony, melody, and words.

Many musicians, however - much prefer to change it and put their own stamp on it. Generally, IMHO, the AVERAGE listener would prefer the recorded arrangement. The REALLY good musicians (and I know we have a few on here) - they can change it around and put their stamp on it, and the song will STILL sound really good. But the average musician is not as good at this - and will put their own stamp on it because they really have no choice - they are not good enough to copy it closely to the recorded version, and their rendition is often not equal to or better than the original production/arrangement.

...just one man's opinion....but who else agrees with me ?


I have to disagree with you on this one Joe. Certainly I may be one of those musicians who does not have the musicianship to be able to reproduce the exact note for note arrangement of a cover. To be quite frank I do not want to sound like the original. (This would disqualify me from covering all of John Denver, Bob Dylan and many other male artists whose songs I like to sing.) I want to sound like ME. I don’t want to sound equal or better than the original. I want to sound like ME. I love to produce these songs and I love to perform them and if there are only 10 people in the world who like my music, so be it.

Just think of an artist like Eva Cassidy. She is a great guitar player but I doubt very much she would have the musicianship to able to play Stairway to Heaven note for note and if she had tried I doubt we would ever have known about her. You can also bet your bottom dollar that when she started out she was not able to produce her outstanding interpretations of popular classics. The jury is probably still out about whether her versions are "equal to or better than the original production/arrangement" depending on whether people like the music of EVA CASSIDY (not the music of John Lennon, Sting or the multitude of artists whose songs she choose to cover).

My opinion is a little like the Nike advert, Just do it. Don’t try to copy. Do your own thing and do it with conviction and the chances are it will rub off on others.
Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
If all are honest, most pop tunes over the decades are disposable. Pick a decade, doesn't matter, lots of same old same old copy of whatever was hot prior month.

Definitely. I guesstimated 90%.

But if your market is not Top40 pop or Top40 country, you don't have to learn every week's disposable song. The ones that faded in a month or so are optional, and already faded. You can concentrate on the 10% that have become classics for the generation.

Insights and incites by Notes
Originally Posted By: Sundance
LOL! Good one Joe. I haven't played covers in a long time but when I did, we'd play current songs and oldies because that's what our audience liked. So I might not like a song and consider it disposable but I think only time really tells what songs most of the public wants to keep hearing.

My own personal taste is that if I'm going to see a tribute or show band then I expect to see and hear a live rendition as close as possible to the record. Otherwise I don't care if a cover is exact and usually enjoy it unless the new arrangement is so different that the song is unrecognizeable to me or so far from my taste that I just don't relate to it. <...snip...>


Tribute bands have taken the pressure off the rest of us. When I was new to Top40, we had to be a Beatles tribute band, Elvis tribute band, Orbison tribute band, Motown tribute band, BeeGees tribute band and so on. We had the biggest agent in Miami, Walter B Walters who said in his gruff voice, "They made a million dollars on that record and you think you can do it any better?" whenever we tried to change something.

Personally, I don't mind doing cover songs and trying to sound like the original recording. In time they all seem to drift away in varying degrees. My personality and style slowly sneaks in.

I enjoy reinterpreting songs as well. Back when I was in a Jazz band, and the song "Misty" was required, we did the A A section in a Jazz Waltz style, the B section in a nice Jazz swing, last A waltz. They we did the solos in all swing. To close it was A A waltz, B swing and last A swing as well. It was never better than that.

Today I like doing Jimmy Buffett's "Son Of A Son Of A Sailor" as a Reggae, Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" as a jazz swing and so on. I like doing covers too.

It's all music, it's all good, it's all fun.

I play to the audience, whatever works for them is good for me. I feel I'm both an artist and a craftsman and don't even bother to think about when I cross the line from one to the other or even know where that line might be. All I know is that playing music for a living is the most fun I can have with my clothes on, and I've been blessed with enough luck to be able to do that for the vast majority of my life so far. When the sax is in my mouth, the guitar in my hands, the microphone in my face and I'm making music, there is no place, there is no time, there is no me there is just the music and the bliss. It doesn't get any better than that.

Insights and incites by Notes

Originally Posted By: Notes Norton


...........

When the sax is in my mouth, the guitar in my hands, the microphone in my face and I'm making music, there is no place, there is no time, there is no me there is just the music and the bliss. It doesn't get any better than that.

Insights and incites by Notes



Absolutely, playing music is the ultimate high for me also.
Joe V,

Sometimes the recording that is original to you (i.e. the first recording of the song you heard) is NOT the original song recording.

Many artists re-record a song the artist help make famous. Sometimes because the artist does not own the performance copyright and other times because the artist recorded multiple versions but only one was released at the time the song was popular. Randy VanWarmer wrote "Just When I Needed You Most" and recorded it as a pop song in 1979 and rerecorded the song as a country song. Country artists Tim McGraw and Dolly Parton also have had hits with the song. BJ Thomas had a huge crossover hit (pop, rock and country) with the Hank Williams song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". The hit version had horns and violin backing tracks. An alternate release was intended for the country audience. It replaced the horns with pedal steel guitar but did not sell.

A song sometimes is so good the song will be recorded by multiple artists. Examples include "Mother Nature's Son" by The Beatles & John Denver or "Got To Get You In My Life" by The Beatles & Earth, Wind and Fire. Guitar player Duane Eddy had an instrumental hit with the Peter Gunn theme song in 1959 and again in collaboration with musical group The Art Of Noise in 1986. All are excellent song versions but you most likely favor one version over the other of each song.

So when you ask how close to the original can BiaB get; which original are you asking about? smile
Good points Jim.

Sometimes the cover version became a hit by copying the original such as:

Elvira

Or steeling not only the melody but also the riffs:

Susie Q

to name a couple.
Originally Posted By: Jim Fogle
Joe V,

Sometimes the recording that is original to you (i.e. the first recording of the song you heard) is NOT the original song recording.

Many artists re-record a song the artist help make famous. Sometimes because the artist does not own the performance copyright and other times because the artist recorded multiple versions but only one was released at the time the song was popular. Randy VanWarmer wrote "Just When I Needed You Most" and recorded it as a pop song in 1979 and rerecorded the song as a country song. Country artists Tim McGraw and Dolly Parton also have had hits with the song. BJ Thomas had a huge crossover hit (pop, rock and country) with the Hank Williams song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". The hit version had horns and violin backing tracks. An alternate release was intended for the country audience. It replaced the horns with pedal steel guitar but did not sell.

A song sometimes is so good the song will be recorded by multiple artists. Examples include "Mother Nature's Son" by The Beatles & John Denver or "Got To Get You In My Life" by The Beatles & Earth, Wind and Fire. Guitar player Duane Eddy had an instrumental hit with the Peter Gunn theme song in 1959 and again in collaboration with musical group The Art Of Noise in 1986. All are excellent song versions but you most likely favor one version over the other of each song.

So when you ask how close to the original can BiaB get; which original are you asking about? smile

Exactly Jim. You hit the nail on the head. If you don't at least try to create something "original" from someone else's song how will you ever make progress?
secondhandsongs.com is a good place to go if you want to see who actually did the original, and often it's not the one you know. It could be from an obscure artist or it could have been a hit for an older generation.

Even The Beatles "Twist And Shout", "'Till There Was You", "You Really Got A Hold On Me", "Rock And Roll Music", "Roll Over Beethoven" and others were covers or reinterpretations of previous versions.

The one that was popular when you were young tends to be the one you think of as 'original'.

Insights and incites by Notes
Joe Cocker comes to mind.

Bob
Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Even The Beatles "Twist And Shout", "'Till There Was You", "You Really Got A Hold On Me", "Rock And Roll Music", "Roll Over Beethoven" and others were covers or reinterpretations of previous versions.


Do you know how many people thought 'Til There Was You was a Beatles original because they had never been exposed to theater and never saw The Music Man? I wonder if Meredith Willson made any money on that? He was only 60 something when the Beatles cover came out in 1963. The Beatles made no bones about being huge Chuck Berry and Little Richard fans. And Harrison loved the rockabilly guys like Carl Perkins. They did a lot of cover music early on. I never cared about this until college when I started taking some songwriting classes. That was when I developed the attitude that I would never be fulfilled playing only other people's songs any more than I would sit at my (then) typewriter and type in A Tale Of Two Cities verbatim. It's someone else's thoughts, and I feel like a much more complete musician when I can express my own thoughts. Now, I haven't done that much if that yet (I wrote 15 songs for that first CD and used 9) as for my whole playing career I played copy music. (I retired from that in 1994.) But that's just my opinion. I am aware that 99% of the players out there don't agree, and I have heard every opposing point of view. "Clubs don't want you to play originals." "People don't want to hear originals." "The crowd wants to be able to sing along." And all the similar yada yada. My reply to that is always "Then book clubs that promote local songwriters and be willing to accept that your money will come from CD sales IF your songs are good enough. The singer from the band I play reunion shows with (who is a user here) wrote all of the 14 originals we play. The people have been listening to them for so long, and they all own the CD, that they sing along to every one of them and nobody throws empty bottles at us when we play them. That is because they are outstanding songs. Your average audience member doesn't want to hear BAD originals. In my area the songwriting circles are well attended and well received. A few clubs, one owned by an awesome woman, prefer original bands and won't book tribute acts. Of course on blues nights you head the Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson stuff, but even those bands pull out maybe 40% of their own stuff. I just don't go see copy bands because they all play the same 50 songs, and why would I drive to hear somebody play stuff that I own on CDs performed by the real band? I won't even go see Journey sing Don't Stop Believin' because Journey is now a tribute band to themselves. But again, that's me. I prefer to hear songwriters.
Personally, I'm glad I don't have to rely on originals to work. grin
Originally Posted By: 90 dB
Personally, I'm glad I don't have to rely on originals to work. grin


That's a very important comment. If I made my living playing music I might feel differently. However, I would never be happy, and I would never cave in to the trend of having 3 people on stage and 8 prerecorded tracks being mixed in from the board, though I have done that in a 3 song set at songwriter night. I would be very unhappy playing what amounts to live karaoke, so I don't do it. Nobody wants to go into a club and see a guy with a long face on stage "entertaining" them.
We all have different tastes and desires.

I am an excellent musician and a very good arranger. I can improvise moving solos, but I am a lousy song writer. I haven't come up with anything that pleases me. My big weakness is lyrics. They always sound corny and trite.

I have done a couple of comedy songs though, but we play them for fun. It seems if I'm being goofy and not trying to be serious more comes out.

I use my arranging skills and creativity to make aftermarket Band-in-a-Box styles. I get great satisfaction by creating a style and tweaking it until it works with BiaB. I've also done a bit of 'for-hire' work for a couple of other auto-arrangers, but they aren't as much fun as BiaB because BiaB's StyleMaker gives me more tools to work with and makes a better end product when used in a song.

I do enjoy putting my take on other people's songs and when it comes time for me to improvise a solo, it's bliss.

When I was in cover bands, I enjoyed playing songs 'like the hit record' but my solos were almost always improvised. Many were like what Santana did to Peter Green's "Black Magic Woman" solo; take some of the themes from the original and build a new solo around them. Others complete complete improvs, and a few of them nailing the original. It was all fun. I still do it like that but more are complete improvs now. Sometimes I take the opening phrase from the famous solo and then go totally me after that. I think that gives the audience a good intro to an improv solo.

To denigrate someone who plays cover tunes is a slam to every classical musician and most jazz players - telling them their art form is not worthy. (And I definitely know that is not you are doing Eddie - others have and I'm just making a point).

Song writing and song playing are two different skills. Some people are blessed with both. Irving Berlin wrote a zillion songs, some of them great ones, and he could only play the piano in one key, and I've heard couldn't play it well in that key.

I have nothing against the musician who plays his/her own songs. Actually, I'm impressed and a little envious of those who can do both. I do know it's tougher to get work that way, as most people who hire bands hire them to play memories. But to some people the creation is more important, and that's good.

It's all good, and it's all a matter of preference. There is more than one right way to make music.

The important thing to do is to play music.

Insights and incites by Notes
Well I think (though I agree its nice to be able to write and maybe perform some of you own songs to an audience) that it would probably be annoying to have to go out for a nights entertainment and have a band push mostly their own little known songs into your face

Even some of the well knows people who have made it do this, and I find myself thinking please play some thing we know.

Musiclover
I had a guy request that we play a song called "Somewhere Else". I said we didn't know it, and he said "Couldn't you play somewhere else?" grin
)))
Irving Berlin wrote a zillion songs, some of them great ones, and he could only play the piano in one key, and I've heard couldn't play it well in that key.

Yes, Irving Berlin only played in the key of Gb. But he invented a transposing piano and used it to play in all keys You can see him demo it here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8VZoRw214
Originally Posted By: musiclover
Well I think (though I agree its nice to be able to write and maybe perform some of you own songs to an audience) that it would probably be annoying to have to go out for a nights entertainment and have a band push mostly their own little known songs into your face.


There you have to ask the question "What are you going out looking for?" If you are going out to hear your favorite songs from the 80s, you can find that, and don't go to see a band who does their own stuff. If you prefer to hear originals (which I am) then don't go see the oldies band. But for person v1 to go out to a v2 kind of room and then sit and complain or criticize, that's completely wrong on every level. Like a vegetarian going to a steak house and complaining that everybody around him is eating meat and it is his choice to not eat meat. Good copy bands are staffed by very good players. It just isn't what I go out to hear. I am extremely fortunate to have a room 3 miles from my house, a VERY nice room, that on Wed/Thur usually has acts that are of the singer/songwriter variety. In fact on a lot of nights she will have a 6pm act, an 8pm act, and on weekends also a 10pm act. Everybody in northeast Ohio knows and loves Jill Bacon-Madden of Jilly's Music Room as a HUGE supporter of local musicians and artists. She has turned her place into the kind of room that the grapevine of indy bands across the country knows about, and she gets a lot of different stuff in there. She'll get Nashville rockabilly one night and then NY City folkies the next, and maybe gypsy folk the next. There is Wednesday jazz night. Some nights she has movie night where she shows old classic movies, usually of the D-rate variety, and cult movies. Some nights she has a big trivia night. Still other nights she will bring in local artists and have an art night (Dr Sketchy!). The food in that place is amazing, and it's just a top shelf kind of place to go. Music is king though, and she rarely, if ever, has a bad act in there. So the point of all those words was that there is a place for everybody to go for music where they can find their happy place. Plenty of music pizza and everybody can get a slice.
Originally Posted By: PeterGannon
)))
Irving Berlin wrote a zillion songs, some of them great ones, and he could only play the piano in one key, and I've heard couldn't play it well in that key.

Yes, Irving Berlin only played in the key of Gb. But he invented a transposing piano and used it to play in all keys You can see him demo it here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8VZoRw214


I've heard of the transposing piano. Thanks for the link. Today he could do it with a button or dial.

But his lack of fluency on the piano certainly didn't affect his ability to write great music.

Notes
It's tough for a lot of people to go out and listen to a singer-songwriter doing his/her own songs. Lack of familiarity is the problem. Others love it. There is certainly room for both in the world.

The important thing is to play music and be true to your own desires, whether it is cover tunes or your own, or even both.

I know a few bands that play covers and then after they have the audience already on their side for the evening, include a couple of originals. That works too.

I don't see why it should be an either/or situation.

Notes
To me it's not lack of familiarity, it's that the songs are bad.

There's a reason the classic songwriters are stars.

On KKJZ here in LA they have the "Indy Hour" on Saturday and Sunday afternoons as part of the blues programming. The music is always kickin, smokin hot stuff. That's because over the last 30 years there are literally hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of players who are in various stages of good. From merely good to awesomely good. They're all just like me or I'm like them, whatever. Good solid players who can't write for [*****].

All the lyrics going over this killer music is way too obvious, cliched, banal and trite. Did I cover all the possibilities?

A real song has lyrics that make you think. Good lyrics is poetry and poetry is not obvious. It catches your ear because you can't understand it right off, you know you like it but can't quite catch it so you listen again and again and even read about it.

That's a real songwriter.

Bob
Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
To me it's not lack of familiarity, it's that the songs are bad.


Do you think Diane Warren sat down at her piano and started writing hits immediately? Those of us who do try to write know that you are going to write about 100 awful songs before you write one that is anything close to not as bad as that first 100. Does that mean you quit trying? Quit performing your songs to see what is received and what is not? How did you sound on your first piano lesson?

There isn't a songwriter out there that doesn't think everything he writes is gold. The people will let you know if it's gold or pyrite by about the first chorus.

The way you get to be good at anything is to do it bad for a while first. Remember, even if you hit .300, you fail 7 out of 10 times.
Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
...............................

A real song has lyrics that make you think. Good lyrics is poetry and poetry is not obvious. It catches your ear because you can't understand it right off, you know you like it but can't quite catch it so you listen again and again and even read about it.

That's a real songwriter.

Bob


Bob I never thought of it that way but you are right. You have a great insight to music and lyrics.
Great song are aural, intellectual and visceral, meaning that the have to be pleasing to listen to, make you think, and make you feel. The best example I can give is Sting. He tells stories in song as well as anybody, and after all, what are songs if not stories set to music?

There is a woman who is from the Cleveland area but now lives in Nashville. Her name is Anne E. DeChant. She is one of the best songwriters I know. Her lyrics are incredible from the standpoint that she paints pictures with them. Her use of metaphor is phenomenal. One song from her last album, entitled The Sun Coming In, is called Sunday Morning Drive (which charted well on the Americana chart). It's a story about a family piling into the car after church on a Sunday morning and just driving to nowhere. As the song passes you can just SEE the kids in the back playing, goofing around being kids, laughing.... and if any of you ever did that when you were kids, the relation to the lyrics will be palpable. Give her a listen on YouTube. Just search for her name. Song titles to look for are the aforementioned, Running Red Lights, Better Than This, Water in Whiskey, and Into Me. That's the starter kit. Many of you may want to visit her web page and buy some music after you hear her. She is someone I admire deeply and I am happy to call her friend.

THAT kind of music is what I go out to hear. ANYBODY can play Free bird, as evidenced by the fact that EVERYBODY does.
When I listen to a song, I listen to the music first, hearing the words only as articulations with no meaning. If the music interests me enough to give it more listening, I eventually get to the words. Which is probably why I suck at writing lyrics.

I'm interested in the melody, counter-melody, and how all the background parts interact with each other to support the melody. If there are themes and variations on those themes, it gets even better.

But I admit it, I'm weird.

Notes
Actually, I'm the same way. I'm a player, not a singer so I never paid the slightest attention to lyrics except for certain musical cues which is why I never paid any attention to Dylan. All I heard was crappy folk guitar strumming and some neck harp with nasally bad vocals so I just turned it off. I can't count the times someone says here's one of my favorite songs and he tries to sing the first phrase and I have no clue. As a keyboard player starting with organ, if I can hear the musical hook for it, no problem. Oh yeah, that's the intro to Gimme Some Lovin or Oye Como Va or Elizabeth Reed. What's the words for that? Who cares. Like you said I'm listening to all the musical cues.

Bob
There are songs where I listen in anticipation of a single riff, or a brass hit, or vocal inflection that may appear only one time in the song, because it really grabbed me (not that I don't like the rest of the song).

I do listen to lyrics, but I also generally listen to the music first (melody, interesting harmonies, interesting accompaniment, etc), and then the lyrics. And in general, I prefer songs that you can both play instrumentally as well as vocally and both ways are engaging.
Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Which is probably why I suck at writing lyrics.


I used to suck at free throws. Then one summer I spent the whole summer shooting free throws. I learned how to shoot free throws.

The however here is that in that case I WANTED to learn how tho shoot free throws. If you don't care about writing songs that have lyrics, that would be time wasted for you to sit and write lyrics until you get the prosody aspect down, where you say what you want to say and the lyrics fit the cadence of the music properly. It can be hard to make things rhyme and still be coherent and carry your thought. Somebody at your level though, Notes, your MUSIC tells the story, like Grover Washington's Winelight or Let It Flow. Those songs did not need lyrics. You know exactly what Grover wanted to say from hearing that melody. However, not everybody gets that concept.
Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
Actually, I'm the same way. I'm a player, not a singer so I never paid the slightest attention to lyrics except for certain musical cues<...snip...>

Bob

I ended up being a singer by necessity. After years of dealing with bands and depending on singers I decided that I need to learn this myself.

Some of the singers were diva/divo types, some were great, most were in between, but sooner or later a band broke up and it was easy to find musicians, but difficult to find professional singers.

It took a lot of practice. Fortunately as a trained wind instrument player I know how to breathe with my diaphragm and I know how to use breath support. That got step one of learning to be a singer out of the way.

Then was learning the muscle control needed to sing on pitch and use expressive devices so that it comes out like "SINGING" instead of singing (if you know what I mean.

I'm still not a great singer. I think I am physically challenged for that, the voice is a little nasal, and it lacks the 'edge' (opposite of muddy) that is all so important.

Fortunately, my wife is a first class, excellent singer, so she gets the hard songs. I sing about half of them in our duo, and if need be, I can do a single (I'd rather not).

The songs that I sing I pay attention to the lyrics so that I can try to get across what the songwriter is wanting. Singing a torch song like a pretty ballad doesn't really work. I use the same singing instincts that I use when playing sax - but I'm better at sax.

Still, when listening to something new, the music is what I hear first. The vocals are articulations with no meaning at first with the possible exception of a repeated hook. I'm listening to the music, how the voice interacts with all the other parts, how the other parts support the lead lines, and how the rhythm instruments interact with each other. I even listen to the vocal expressive devices as a musical instrument, and the attacks simply as articulations. If the music of the song can hold my interest enough, I'll get to the words.

But I know, I'm weird.

Notes
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