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

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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