Playing note for note.

[Munjibunga]

Getting back to the actual point of the thread, which is playing note for note, my comment is aimed at the people who seem to think that just because it's on a CD, it is good and that people that play on CDs and producers must know more about playing bass than the rest of us.

Considering that hundreds of thousands of CDs are released every year and you are naming a handful of players, it is actually your assertion that is just silly.

I consider most bass players I hear on CDs average to good; I rarely hear a bass player and think, wow that is great. If you would like to deify someone because they managed to release a CD, please feel free.

If they weren't better than the guys you see in clubs on the weekend, they wouldn't have gotten the gig. Just because they don't overplay doesn't mean they aren't good. They get the recording gigs for a lot of reasons. Skill and talent are important, but so is the ability to work with other people and give the producer what he wants. Very few songs you hear on CDs are about the bass line, so you're unlikely to be blown away by the player. The pros play for the song, not for personal glory. If you want to hear all that typewriter crap, go listen to the 14-year-olds in the bass room at GC.

 

[electracoyote]

Check out this video of Steve Tyler with Jeff Beck and Tal covering Sweet Emotion...

Steve corrects Tal's interpretation of the line because 1 note is different than the original. Apparently Steve doesn't consider 99.9% close enough.

JEFF BECK with STEVEN TYLER - Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith) - YouTube

I think Tal had it right. Apparently Steve thought he could do it better than the guy who wrote the riff.

Steven Tyler could never hack it in my cover band.

 

[Ric5]

Check out this video of Steve Tyler with Jeff Beck and Tal covering Sweet Emotion...

Steve corrects Tal's interpretation of the line because 1 note is different than the original. Apparently Steve doesn't consider 99.9% close enough.

JEFF BECK with STEVEN TYLER - Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith) - YouTube

You have to get the signature licks right.

 

[Munjibunga]

You have to get the signature licks right.

Except that what Tyler had Tal do isn't the same as what's on the record. She was doing it right. But hey, it's Tyler's gig.

 

[lfmn16]

Since it is unlikely we'll agree on this, and you are making arguments that seem to be implying things I've never said, I'll answer your post and then move on.

1. If they weren't better than the guys you see in clubs on the weekend, they wouldn't have gotten the gig. I just think you are wrong. Examples would be the bass players for Billy Idol, Billy Joel, Black Crowes, Black Sabbath, Blues Traveler, but I could name many more. I'm not saying that they aren't good, I just don't hear these guys playing anything that I don't hear from many bass players still on the club circuit.
   
2. Just because they don't overplay doesn't mean they aren't good. They get the recording gigs for a lot of reasons. I don't know where this comment comes from. I never said anything about how many notes someone plays. You just made this up to make your point.
   
3. Skill and talent are important, but so is the ability to work with other people and give the producer what he wants. I agree with this, but it has absolutely nothing to do with my argument which is about what I hear on CDs.
   
4. Very few songs you hear on CDs are about the bass line, so you're unlikely to be blown away by the player. If you can't judge someone's playing ability by what they play, then I'm not sure how else to judge it. I can only comment on what I hear.
   
5. The pros play for the song, not for personal glory. If you want to hear all that typewriter crap, go listen to the 14-year-olds in the bass room at GC. Again, nonsense totally made up to make your point. I never said anything about personal glory.

 

[etoncrow]

Be willing to bet that nearly every studio musician and recording artist cut his/her teeth in the club circuit. The Funk Bros recorded for Motown during the day and gigged the clubs in various configurations at night. Lots of people still do. Why not tap every market you can? In the fifty some years I have been playing I have known lots of musicians who never left the club scene who are equal in talent and temperment with anyone, anywhere. But, I do not know why this train of thought is relevant to whether covers should be done note for note.

 

[lfmn16]

But, I do not know why this train of thought is relevant to whether covers should be done note for note.

Sorry, I think we got a bit off track. However my post was answering a couple of posts which implied that we should play parts note for note because the bass players on recordings and producers know more, or are better than, the rest of us. I certainly don't put myself in the category with the great players, but after 40 years I can play as well as most of the players I hear on CD.

I don't think this note for note question will ever be resolved. I guess the difference for me is that I'm not saying that anybody should NOT play something as close to the original as possible if they want to, I'm just saying that nobody has the right to tell me that I HAVE to play as close to the original as possible, or imply that I'm somehow deficient because I choose not to. I don't know where these Note Nazis get off telling other people what they ought to do.

 

[Ric5]

Except that what Tyler had Tal do isn't the same as what's on the record. She was doing it right. But hey, it's Tyler's gig.

Aerosmith _ Sweet Emotion . - YouTube

Ya I noticed it wasn't identical ... but it was close enough to sound identical to a non-musician.

I don't play that riff exactly like the cd either ... but I am close enough to where it sounds like the cd.

 

[hrodbert696]

I ignored this thread for a while, but just a thought...

Technically, as far as I understand it, to "cover" a tune is BY DEFINITION to play your own version of it. Yes "covered" America - it didn't sound anything like Simon and Garfunkel. The Red Hot Chili Peppers "covered" Higher Ground - again, it sounded like the Peppers, not like any earlier recording. etc. etc. If a band declares that they want to "cover" a song by imitating a particular recorded version (including the first one) note for note, good for them, but there's nothing more "correct" about that than these other kinds of covers.

When the song was composed with written sheet music, say with classical music, what the musicians do is not to "cover" the song - they are simply playing it. Nobody says the Philadelphia Philharmonic is performing a "cover" of Beethoven's Fifth or whatever.

A lot of the music that members of this forum play - rock, jazz, folk - were not composed in writing the way that Mozart did. They're built out of lyric sheets, chord progressions, and laying down tracks in the studio which eventually get edited for release on the record. Even as intricate as Yes' music is, I recall that when they hired that Russian keyboard player in the 90s, they didn't give him a folder of sheet music to learn from - they gave him CDs. There was no sheet music. Of course, one can make transcriptions of the recordings. But I don't think it's worth getting twisted in a knot over playing it "correctly," as though it were Mozart.

To be sure, there are a lot of lazy or less-competent musicians out there who shy off imitating a recording because they can't or don't want to bother learning it. But there's no reason to tar everyone with the same brush just because they don't want to "play it like it's wrote" when it was never "wrote" in the first place. I've only been playing a couple years. When I play "Pump It Up," I know I don't hit the chorus note for note. I do play something that sounds pretty good, follows pretty closely, and that no ordinary audience member would notice is different. I don't see any need to apologize for that.

Besides, unless you have the exact same instrumentation as they put on the original recording, you won't reproduce it exactly anyway. Howard Jones toured through here recently and was talking about some of his challenges in interviews. His fans want him to play his hits from the 80s, but the keyboards he used to record those songs are long gone, dinosaurs, and it's not necessarily easy to get the new equipment to reproduce their sound. Sometimes playing the part live as busy as it is on the recording would produce sonic mush, sometimes the live setting leaves some space that really needs to be filled with something that's not in the recording. Depends on the situation.

 

[lfmn16]

I ignored this thread for a while, but just a thought...

Technically, as far as I understand it, to "cover" a tune is BY DEFINITION to play your own version of it. Yes "covered" America - it didn't sound anything like Simon and Garfunkel. The Red Hot Chili Peppers "covered" Higher Ground - again, it sounded like the Peppers, not like any earlier recording. etc. etc. If a band declares that they want to "cover" a song by imitating a particular recorded version (including the first one) note for note, good for them, but there's nothing more "correct" about that than these other kinds of covers.

When the song was composed with written sheet music, say with classical music, what the musicians do is not to "cover" the song - they are simply playing it. Nobody says the Philadelphia Philharmonic is performing a "cover" of Beethoven's Fifth or whatever.

A lot of the music that members of this forum play - rock, jazz, folk - were not composed in writing the way that Mozart did. They're built out of lyric sheets, chord progressions, and laying down tracks in the studio which eventually get edited for release on the record. Even as intricate as Yes' music is, I recall that when they hired that Russian keyboard player in the 90s, they didn't give him a folder of sheet music to learn from - they gave him CDs. There was no sheet music. Of course, one can make transcriptions of the recordings. But I don't think it's worth getting twisted in a knot over playing it "correctly," as though it were Mozart.

To be sure, there are a lot of lazy or less-competent musicians out there who shy off imitating a recording because they can't or don't want to bother learning it. But there's no reason to tar everyone with the same brush just because they don't want to "play it like it's wrote" when it was never "wrote" in the first place. I've only been playing a couple years. When I play "Pump It Up," I know I don't hit the chorus note for note. I do play something that sounds pretty good, follows pretty closely, and that no ordinary audience member would notice is different. I don't see any need to apologize for that.

Besides, unless you have the exact same instrumentation as they put on the original recording, you won't reproduce it exactly anyway. Howard Jones toured through here recently and was talking about some of his challenges in interviews. His fans want him to play his hits from the 80s, but the keyboards he used to record those songs are long gone, dinosaurs, and it's not necessarily easy to get the new equipment to reproduce their sound. Sometimes playing the part live as busy as it is on the recording would produce sonic mush, sometimes the live setting leaves some space that really needs to be filled with something that's not in the recording. Depends on the situation.

Well put!

The argument comes when someone says that we HAVE to play it like the recording because [insert reasons here] or someone say that people copy the original recording because they are mindless drones with no creative abilities.

 

[etoncrow]

IMHO everything hrodbert696 just wrote I would cover note for note like I wrote it myself and call it gospel. well said.

 

[poskey]

The following is said with the understanding that my experiences are heavily biased towards the Rock\Alt\Funk\Metal type genres. And that I've now memorized 250+ songs note for note in the past 14 months.

If you're going to be in a cover band where you learn 50+ songs it's much more productive and time efficient if every single member learns each song, on their own time, near note for note.
You show up, play together and have 5-10 songs in the can. Next week you do the same thing. My belief is that the songs were recorded and performed in a certain manner and it's a nice challenge as a musician to reproduce that as well as give the crowd something familiar to hear.

When I see other cover bands I notice:
Guitar players are most guilty for just putting their "own spin" on everything. Which basically means making everything into a power chord, having a vague understanding of the rhythm and melody.
Bass players dumb everything down. Seriously guys, the songs are easy enough. Challenge yourself some and at least learn how to lay down what's on the original recording. If you need to modify it some it's easier to afterwards.
Vocalists love to just make up lyrics, repeat verses, mix up verses. Get that stuff right. There isn't a lot of wiggle room on lyrics. Everyone in the audience is a vocalist. Not everyone is a drummer\bassist\guitarist.
Drummers tend to dumb stuff down a lot too but they are usually less guilty of this than bassists.

My overall experience when playing and auditioning for other cover bands has been that the bands that really abandon even being close to note for note are a bunch of lazy musicians. The songs tend to lack a lot of the drive and urgency that make them an individual song because it's just Rock Beat 2 with 4 chord Guitar riff 3 matched with 8th note bass line 1.

THE GOOD NEWS is there is no right way to do this. If you want to be in a band where everyone just wings it there are plenty available. If you want to be in a band where people toe the line between the two extremes a plethora of those exist. If you want to be in the almost exact recording crowd, well we got those too.

For the crowd complaining that live, bands don't even play their songs the same as recorded...they do almost always play the song the same way live from night to night.
A good compromise is learning live versions of songs.

The last thing I'll say is most cover bands perform the same songs over and over. If you've been playing a song for 6 years it shouldn't sound off when you play it; no matter if you're playing note for note or someway else.
Knowing something note for note gives you far more flexibility. You should be able to play with any band.

this^ this was pretty much my experience for 20 odd years of playing in cover bands.

 

[ChrisB2]

Doesn't matter that some Big Name Act remade a popular song into another version that itself became popular.

We're not talking about Big Name Acts, we're talking about local bar cover bands here, and MOST people listening to them want to hear something as close as possible to the "popular radio version."

That's what I strive for, although I don't believe 100% note-for-note perfection is practical (or even possible in some cases), but I try to make the audience believe it is.

You may play it however you wish and I would never tar you with a brush or call you a mindless drone!

 

[electracoyote]

Doesn't matter that some Big Name Act remade a popular song into another version that itself became popular.

We're not talking about Big Name Acts, we're talking about local bar cover bands here, and MOST people listening to them want to hear something as close as possible to the "popular radio version."

That's what I strive for, although I don't believe 100% note-for-note perfection is practical (or even possible in some cases), but I try to make the audience believe it is.

You may play it however you wish and I would never tar you with a brush or call you a mindless drone!

Good point. When Yes covered "America," they weren't targeting any audience--other than their own and people who would appreciate their spin on the song.

Few local bands have the skills and creative juices to do something like that, though they talk themselves into believing how cool they are for re-working an original.

If you're playing for an audience that largely expects and appreciates a reasonably faithful cover, that should be your goal.

If you think you and your band have chops like Yes and can re-work covers into prog rock classics, and you have an audience for it (or don't care if you don't have an audience for it), then go for it.

 

[dvh]

We're not talking about Big Name Acts, we're talking about local bar cover bands here, and MOST people listening to them want to hear something as close as possible to the "popular radio version."

If you're playing for an audience that largely expects and appreciates a reasonably faithful cover, that should be your goal.

I've read this a few times now and I have to ask - how many people are we really talking about? My own experience suggests they are a minority.

The majority of people just want to hear a decent band play decent music. The accuracy of covering the original isn't a concern to most.

 

[lfmn16]

You may play it however you wish and I would never tar you with a brush or call you a mindless drone!

You will be assimilated. You will play note for note; resistance is futile!

 

[DanNowhere]

I've read this a few times now and I have to ask - how many people are we really talking about? My own experience suggests they are a minority.

The majority of people just want to hear a decent band play decent music. The accuracy of covering the original isn't a concern to most.

WHEN I WANTS TA HEAR ME SOME SKYNRD YOU BOYS BETTER PLAY THAT DANG THANG RIGHT

 

[electracoyote]

I've read this a few times now and I have to ask - how many people are we really talking about? My own experience suggests they are a minority.

Short of cold hard facts, all we have are our experiences.

I have read several common scenarios outlined in this thread where getting it right and faithful to the original is a definite advantage.

It's not the be-all and end-all of playing covers, it is one philosophy and business model (business, as in playing certain events and venues for $$$).

Also, some bands think they really have something going with their re-worked versions, and to most people they are shite.

Then there are bands who actually have chops like Yes and can put that kind of creativity into a cover and really wow a room. In MY experience, THOSE bands are in the minority.

 

[ChrisB2]

really wow a room.

Yeah, I think this is the crux of the issue. If you can really make people perk up and say "Dayum, you're better than the original" then okay, you win this round.

However, I think almost all of your workaday cover bands are not going to be able to do that, myself included.

So once we peel off the Big Name Acts and the rare local band that CAN wow the room, the discussion boils down to, does the "average" cover band do better with faithful recreations or remakes? There I think the answer is the former...

 

[lfmn16]

Short of cold hard facts, all we have are our experiences.

Good point; the rooms I play may not care if you take liberties, the rooms someone else plays may want a more faithful rendition of the original songs.

Then there are bands who actually have chops like Yes and can put that kind of creativity into a cover and really wow a room. In MY experience, THOSE bands are in the minority.

I don't think that I need to have Chris Squire's chops to come up with a different version of a song. Look at the early Beatle's reworks of Rockabilly tunes and the early Stone's rework of Blues tunes. It's not always a matter of coming up with a BETTER version, maybe it's just different. Is Joe Cocker's version of A Little Help From My Friends BETTER than the Beatle's original? I think we could have an entire thread debating that. Actually, we probably aren't that far apart. I'm not advocating a completely different arrangement of every song. I'm just saying that I don't think you have to play every note exactly for every cover song you do.

Different strokes for different folks and it's the audience that gets the final vote.