General Music Chat

I hear ya Crip..$$$..doing covers are fine if you're doing them justice and you can actually play them, but the guy I'm talking about was just plain bad. I'm not even trying to be "begrudging" of the poor sap either, I'm just saying that it's sad how an audience can overlook consummate musicians in favor of an obvious amatuer.

I'm pretty much what Phil said, give the people a show and they'll react. Give them something to look at, interact with them, throw them some swag, you can get people going with a sense of humor and putting on a show. Chances are, people will turn on when they hear something they know vs. songs they don't know, but if you give them a chance to know it, they'll sing along and join in if you invite them.

I had people joining in with Miranda the other night. It was cool! I got told that a few peeps were singing it on the way home. Ha ha.

Chaeya

By the way, M67, I'll bet you can't name a single act that hasn't played &/or recorded cover material...& sometimes it wasn't even in a new or interesting style. Beatles, Stones, Zep, Nirvana, Phish, hell, Peter Gabriel just released an entire album of covers.

I couldn't have done what I've done if I went at stuff half-fast, bub. I had to be serious, but without taking myself too seriously. When you do that, you lose sight of your goals, & all you can see is yourself.

One thing;s for sure - you really know how to make friends & influence ppl!

I 've never played professionally. I play covers as warm ups. When my stars are alligned and sounding good, covers are the last thing on my mind. There is an opportunity for the entertainer of this century. I don't believe it's me.lol. But I do want to get in the mix. I can't think of many artist in the last century that didn't take and or borrow. Someone that actually DOES THAT wil start a new Genre'.

Like most here, I play covers and write my own material. I like twisting covers all out of shape to get a reaction from audiences. So covers are a lot of fun for me.

When I was gigging the band would have me play instrumentals for about 10 minutes while they got off the bandstand early for break. But I only did finger picking covers while doing a solo. It was fun. I miss it sometimes.

Never had any complaints about my picking from audiences. Sometimes a picker who was full of himself might say something derogatory about it. I've met a couple that would have the attitude that they set the standard. But I always considered they wouldn't have brought it up if there wasn't a bit of insecurity involved.
Audiences always liked to watch me play, and they liked to hear the whole band play. So it is as some said already: If it is entertaining people will like it whether it is either great sounds or simply just something entertaining.

We've had old dudes who couldn't hardly get up on a bandstand by themselves come into a club to see if they could sit in and play a couple songs on their fiddle or uke or guitar. At paid gigs. The club owners would usually let them up. Most of the time they were way out of tune and could only hit a few right in succession. But they'd be playing and dancing all over the bandstand, grinning ear to ear, like they were at Carnegie Hall or something.
People would throw money at them. Sometimes they even got standing ovations. Made no difference where we played, or how nice the clubs were, they would follow with the rest of the people who liked our band.
Sometimes the adoration for those older musicians made a picker wonder if he would have done better not knowing how to play an instrument.

Elvis has left the building