PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic A note to Eddie about cover songs.

Ha, ha -- I remember that! ... and yes, just because you didn't add the any reverb effect, there was still too much reverb!! It was all room reverb from, I guess, your untreated room. But that is OK, I will be 100% supportive to whatever CD material you put out. The time for critiquing is when you are putting the original takes together, not after all the final decisions have been made.

Eddie,

"Ya never gonna complete that album" if you keep getting drawn back into the "cover band" conversations man, just saying. Of course with tongue planted firmly in cheek the same time.

Later,

yeah nuff said, let hear some tunes

I don't go to listen to the local cover band unless I know the musicians - then I go to hear them. It's not my cup of tea either. That's just a matter of taste.

I am in the minority of sax players who don't like John Coltrane. I can appreciate his genius, but his sax playing just doesn't speak to me. I prefer the Lester Young, Stan Getz lyrical style of playing.

But I listen with my personal musician's ears and I play for people with audience ears. I love my audience, we have fun together.

When I go to a concert, it's a high-class cover band, the last one I went to was the Cleveland Orchestra, before that the Czech Philharmonic, and the one before that was the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

I've never gone to a tribute band concert either, but understand why others do.

You do have the right for your personal tastes, we all do.

But when typing on a forum, it's sometimes difficult to express your personal tastes without unintentionally hurting someone else's feelings. I've done that myself.

Saying a cover band musician is not a complete musician is hurtful. Saying "I don't like to see cover bands" is not.

Personally, when I listen to a musician or a band, I don't care if they are playing cover tunes, original tunes, jazz, or classical. If I like what they are playing and the way they are playing it, that's all that matters to me.

We had 3 New Years parties, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We had a great time doing it too. We played cover songs, some 'like the record' (or fairly close) some similar to the record, and some our own very different arrangement of the song (I may not be a good songwriter but I'm a very good arranger - that's what formal music education did for me). We played Auld Lang Syne three times, gave Leilani a kiss when it was finished, had well wishes from the audience members, many of them who came up and thanked us for a wonderful evening, and went home with money in my pocket. (BTW the mortgage is all paid - we own it free and clear).

Life is good.

BTW I didn't play "Brown Eyed Girl" but I did have a great time singing and improvising what I think is a nice R&B solo in "Mustang Sally".

Tonight a regular gig, Saturday a pool party (we'll get to play some Calypso, Soca and Reggae music along with the others).

I was also a first call sax player at a local studio (until the owner had a stroke and closed it). They called me one-take-Jake, but that was because I only accepted the gigs that I thought I could handle (country, rock, blues, pop, and 'inside' jazz).

There is room for more than one kind of musician, and I'm glad that you can also write songs and are happy with your music.

There are many different skills to being a musician, including writing, improvising, sight-reading, arranging, expressive playing, phrasing, technical ability, transposition, interacting with the band, pacing the audience, etc., etc. I've known very few people who could do them all at a world class level, but I've known many who have had many of those skills at a world class level.

I have a lot of respect for any musician who is reaching out to an audience, whether he/she is playing covers, originals, or whatever. If the audience is digging it, or if the public is buying the recordings, life is good for him/her too.

But that's only this person's opinion.

Insights and incites by Notes

I appreciate your insights and incites, Notes! You're a smart man, and I'm glad you are willing to share your experience here.

This is not only your opinion it is mine also.

Mine as well! Now let's talk about the weather! "The weather is here i wish you were beautiful"

OK... finally a cover band that even I can't accept:

MAC SABBATH

now I've seen everything.
Eddie.. is there room on the bus for me...?

Check for a third seat on that one

rob.. that band is in your neck of the woods.. how about checking them out and reporting back?
;-)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh NO!

I can't unsee that! Thanks Pat for ruining my vision and hearing....

At least compared to the general CRAP I heard on the CW station last night (some iHeartRadio thingy) it WAS music.


OK that will start a whole new thread - MUSIC versus rhythmic NOISE.

Larry

I don't listen to rhythmic noise and any who does, is not a real listener, and is only a hearer!


. ..... Ducks and runs away

We are rowing in the same boat!

LATER,

And now the boat gains another passenger.

One of the many things that I love about acoustic traditional American music, (aka. bluegrass), is that it takes the music from the past, (cover songs), then honors the past by having everyone in the band take their first solo closely based around the original melody, and then it encourages everyone in the band to “stretch out” or improvise on the second solo.

Then they pass that along to those coming up behind them. In the process of passing those updated songs along where they honor the past, they also make room for the present. They write new songs and make them a part of the package with the old songs. Then the “little ones” are taught the whole thing and encouraged to repeat the process.

Other styles of music creep in creating a hybrid of sorts, leading to searching for a better terminology. That’s where the “Newgrass”, “Dawg Grass”, “Space Grass” and “New Acoustic” terms came from. Then most folks just went back to calling it all “bluegrass”.

I’m convinced that’s why bluegrass has such an incredible number of exceptionally talented young musicians in its ranks. The kids are told to learn the old songs, …spice them up, …then write some new songs! Then teach the whole shebang to your kid brother/sister or the kid next door.

Danny C and Rob, right now I am at the mercy of my engineer's calendar. We will pick it up again Monday. 4 songs to go. He has the raw tracks and we are tweaking them. And trying to resist overcooking them.

and yet another

Most of the bands I played in were 99.9% cover bands...... but ...we rarely ever started to learn a cover song like the recording artist played it. Especially the three piece band I played in for a number of years.....obviously we could not replicate a 5 piece band's sound or instrumentation...so we faked it.

In the vernacular of the American Idol judges.... we made it our own.

Later in a 6 piece house band we followed basically the same formula..... learn it so the people recognized it but play it our way and style. One notable exception was a Reba M song.... Whoever's in New England.... I played the piano on that in the original key and we tried to get that one as close to the original as we could given our skill level. The piano player we had tried to learn the piano part and was having trouble so I said "let me show you the riff there". He asked me to play the song from the top and at the end said he would set that one out because he couldn't learn it any time soon like that..... There were nights when the hair would stand up on my neck while playing that and hearing our female singer wail that song out..... chills.... It was the only song I played the piano on in that band.

But yeah, mostly, we did our own arrangements. Call it lazy, or our skill level to copy a cover exactly lacking..... we had fun. Most of the arrangements kinda fell together by accident.