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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 387
Location: Whitecourt, Ab | JW's "Great remake, or cover" thread brings up a question I have for the musicians on this board.
Some songs I play/copy from my songbook sound reasonably like the original...spelled: someone as drunk as me can usually sing along with the chorus at the campfire. However some, whether from lack of real talent, or on purpose are quite different.
My question is: when you do a remake/cover do you try and totally redo it, put a little of your own signature on it, or try to copy it as close to the original as possible? |
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Joined:
October 2007
Posts: 2711
Location: Vernon CT | I try to keep the song about 85-90 % true with a little of "ME" in it. Why do it exactly like the "original". Make a peice of it "your own". |
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Joined:
June 2008
Posts: 33
Location: Bay Area, N, California | It really depends on the song I am covering. If I feel that I can match the original vocals close enough, then I try to cover it as close to 100% as I can. If not, I just put my own spin on it to make it my own.
LM |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | The youth band, of which I am one of the adult members, strives to make the song recognizable. We try to make it as accurate as we can, given a short rehearsal cycle and a changing band membership. Mostly we add a lot of harmonies to the vocals, and cut out complicated transitions or other parts that take too long to get polished. |
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Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Sometimes Brian & I try to duplicate a song a close as we can.
Sometimes we change it because of the limitations of being just two guys with acoustic guitars. For instance.... we have been working on "Won't Get Fooled Again". It works well as long as we remember not to try and do an arena rock version.
I've been trying to learn how to "turn a song on it's ear" with limited success. I'm having the best luck with "Things We Said Today / Beatles", slowing it down and making it sound desperate.
Here's and an example of putting a different twist on something. Even tho it's the original group doing it. Two Of Us
And then there are the two versions of "Revolution". |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | Originally posted by Slipkid:
I've been trying to learn how to "turn a song on it's ear" with limited success. I'm having the best luck with "Things We Said Today / Beatles", slowing it down and making it sound desperate.
Here's and an example of putting a different twist on something. Even tho it's the original group doing it. Two Of Us
And then there are the two versions of "Revolution". |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Ooooo... The perfect example!! |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | For me, the determining factor is almost always the vocals. I have almost always judged my voice against the originals.....bad idea! Even singers who I think sound great doing their own stuff can really suck singing someone else's songs.
Therefore changing the key, changing the arrangement, slowing things up, etc., can make a song much more interesting than having the crowd think it is a "bad version".
Matt Smith did some rearranged covers at the AI clinic that were just freakin awesome! I learned a lot just listening to him. |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Jeez... how did we forget Matt's cover of "Love The One Your With"? |
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Joined:
March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | I like to change most songs and make them my own. I play mostly jazz, and it's fun to take a rock song, or a country song, or especially Christmas music, and make it jazz. Then there was a classical piece that my ex used to play. I made up a classical duet part that sounded good, and one day when I was bored, I made up a jazz duet part, and them a bluegrass duet part. He would still play his part the normal way, but we'd go through it three times, and I'd play my three different parts behind him. Believe it or not, it sounded pretty good, and we'd get lots of compliments on it. Weird, I know, but fun. |
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Joined:
July 2005
Posts: 3411
Location: GA USA | Originally posted by FlySig:
The youth band, of which I am one of the adult members... I do that sometimes too, Sig. Count yourself lucky to find youth who understand harmony. When I was a teenager, I could harmonize with anything. Teens I know can't harmonize at all. I guess they didn't spend muchos horas listening to Loggins & Messina as I did. |
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Question relating to JW's thread