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.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 01/03/15 04:13 AM.
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