General Music Chat

ZXYZ-Excellent examples,gotta love The Kinks,I believe The Kinks praised Halens version,could be wrong,and for The Beatles tune were you talking about Twist and Shout by The Isley Brothers?I thought alot of bands take it as a form of respect when you cover there song.Well as long as they don't try to claim they wrote it themselves.

Quote of the day and oh so true.

of course it does seem that most bands that make it lately arent real bands anyway so you cant realy expect much out of them.

A ot of the issue is simply what you do with the material and if doingit makes you happy.

I really am not an accomplished enough guitarest to make a "good" cover player.

Oh sure I could sweat and spend hours learning some songs, but my heart would never really be in it.
For myself this would not meet my creative need as well as writing and along with our band composing original music. When I play a cover song the power of the guitar does not flow through my veins like playing "my own music".

In some aspects IMO the comment about doing covers being the easy money just would not ring true in my case.
Perhaps for the more accomplished musicians who can just pick uptheir guitar and play covers on the fly it is easier.
For me it is easier to just play what I feel within the confinesof my ability.
Then practice to continually encrease that ability.

Through the years I have found it hard to find groups that only wanted to do original music. There are alot of people who want to do covers. Am I realy alone in the world in not wanting to do covers?

You know, if I had a collection of good originals, that would be my primary source of music, although not the only source.

Well I dont want people to think that doing covers are " the devil " lol i mean music is a journey in and of itself. I just love to see people trying to take it somewhere else rather than being content with what others have already accomplished use others as a stepping stone and see what else is out there

I'm in a cover band. So I'll lend my perspective here... I've got a lot of thoughts on this subject.


We do covers because we want to play music we like listening to. We just love to play and we find a lot of covers enjoyable to play. That's the bottom line - when we perform it has to be fun. Our band has discussed the possibility of someday writing original material, but we want to be a great cover band first.

Being a cover band is a pragmatic decision as well. Learning 40 cover songs is a lot easier than writing 40 quality original songs. And having a big catalog of songs gets you gigs at bars and the like. Most quality bands I listen to, it takes them years to write 40 original tunes that end up on albums. An average album now has 10-14 songs on it. That's at least 3-4 albums worth of material. That's a lot of original music for a newly formed band to write in a short period of time so they can start gigging. The obvious result of that is a lot of crappy original songs.

So for me, the whole idea of covers vs. originals comes down to this simple fact: I do not want to get up on stage and embarrass myself by playing sub-par material.

I believe that writing good original music is hard and time consuming. I do not believe it is easy. I think anyone who beats out an original song every five minutes and thinks they're writing great material is fooling themselves.

I've got really high standards when it comes to original music. And I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to half-ass anything. So in order to write an original song I want to put in to the time and effort to get it right. And that takes a whole other level of energy and focus and effort than learning a cover song.

I also tend to think the music that many original bands write just plain sucks. People think they're great song writers, but they have the same problem that vocalists on American Idol have - they're delusional. They suck, but they don't know they suck. I don't want to fool myself into thinking I'm some great songwriter when I'm not. I'm a realist about my abilities both on the guitar and as a songwriter. But I don't think many people are realists. I think most people writing original music are overestimating their songwriting abilities.

The other thing is - I think original music is really a young person's game, if you're trying to eventually make a living at it. After you've reached a certain age, the A&R people aren't looking at you anymore.

Final thought: For me, writing an original piece of music is a creative outlet. It's a way to bring out my innermost musical ideas and turn them into something I like. But that process is not a speedy one and does not lend itself to mass production. It requires patience, dedication, effort, concentration and a lot of love. I don't want to try and mass produce creativity for the sake of a gigging band. The songs come as they come. Which is why I think if our band ever does write original material, it will be one song here, one song there, and we'll mix those in with covers over time.

But for us, we're past our youthful days. We're not going to be "discovered" by anyone and get famous. So we have one big rule in our band - it has to be fun. And we have fun playing covers.

Very interesting points Fade. It would appear you have given this subject considerable thought.
It may well be statisticly true that being a "pop god" is a "young persons game" however I would like to add my own observations / oppinion.
If you produce a song or songs that people enjoy and can relate to they will listen to and talk about your music. If that talk is in the right ears one may get "discovered" no matter the age of the individuals playing said music.
Your chances may be deminished, well yes.
But to say you have no chance of being"discovered" because of your age I feel simply is not true.
An artist (the individual) may get recognition and gain great opportunity by how well he / she performs covers.
But I have serious reservations about the possability of a "group" being picked up based on playing cover songs. Yes I know it has happened before. Van Halen has been held up as example. It must be noted that VH's growth into phenom was greatly due to the Columbian cocain dance club culture of 1970's Southern California .

While you are playing covers, you can still be writing and learning originals.
If you had started writing originals 10 years ago, you could by now (quite probably) have had 10 - 15 good songs.
I usually 'shelve' 9 out of 10 of my originals, and only work with my favorites.
Writing 1 or 2 new good songs a year should be in everyone's grasp . . . if you have the determination and the time.
My band does all originals, but once in a while we'll do a cover, if we like it a lot. Maybe 1 out of 15 or 20 songs we do will be a cover.
But . . .
I have found that when I learn more cover songs, I have less time to write originals.
I made my choice, and I'm happy with it.

This subject has been beaten like a rented mule but I'll say it again: there is no shame in being a cover band, an original band or a band that does a mix. It's just as easy to play a bunch of covers badly as it is to play a bunch of bad originals. The trick is to play quality music regardless of the composer.

Only originals for me too.... I have been done learning others peoples stuff since '85 unless its for fun or there is something I am trying to pick up.

The reason it is so hard to find people is that it doesn't pay unless your really good, have some luck and a willingness to sacrifice for a long period of time... to many people want to make music their sole source of income before they really have anything to sell...

Stay with the originals but be willing to play whenever and wherever for free until you get a fan base... originals start to pay off big when you can get a couple hundred people or so that will go to all your gigs.... Cover bands don't get the call to play the local Ozzfest or whatever you have in your area.... that is for original bands....

X!

Rented mule LOL. I resemble that remark.