Please ourselves or please the crowd?

[SaltyDogg]

Originally posted by Jimi Ray Halen I hear ya'. Chord charts and notes are my friend. Another way to look at covers that you don't really like - They may not mean anything to you. But they may mean something to someone in the audience. There was a woman at one gig about 3 or 4 years ago who kept requesting Behind Blue Eyes. She must have asked about 5 or 6 times. Only me and the frontman knew it. So we did it acoustic, just him and I. She came up afterwards and thanked us ten times at least. Turns out it was her Mom's favorite song. Her mom had passed away from cancer about a month prior and that was the first night that she had been up to going out since then. So it meant a lot to her. Ever since I've had a different outlook about requests. You never know about people.

 

 

 

As someone who's never been in a cover band, how are most songs actually learned?

 

Do most people go and buy the sheet music or is it purely trial and error with basic chords? I assume that the real music is necessary for all but the most experienced musicians. I am always amazed when a cover band plays a song that is brand new to the radio.

 

SD

[molehunter]

so....... what is the guy in the back supposed to get?

[BlueStrat]

Originally posted by SaltyDogg As someone who's never been in a cover band, how are most songs actually learned? Do most people go and buy the sheet music or is it purely trial and error with basic chords? I assume that the real music is necessary for all but the most experienced musicians. I am always amazed when a cover band plays a song that is brand new to the radio. SD

 

 

In the old days, we used to buy vinyl record albums and sit down with a record player and keep lifting the needle and replaying parts over and over and trying to copy them until we got it. For really tricky licks, you could slow it down from 33-1/3 RPM to 16, which was about half speed at an octave lower, and learn it that way. It was tedious, but it did develop your ear, and most guys I know who learned that way learned to "see" in their mind what is being played as they hear it. Now, it's a lo easier to learn covers or to intuitively know what they are playing when you hear it because of the experience of ear training.

[Tedster]

Should your diet consist of foods you like to eat, or foods that are healthy for your body?

With a little creativity, the answer is YES. In other words, both are true, you can have foods that you both like to eat AND are healthy for your body.

So why does music have to be any different? You shouldn't have to play songs the crowd likes that you hate...or vice versa.

Remember the old Venn diagram from your elementary school math class?



Set A is the set of all school kids that played football, set B is the set of all school kids that played basketball, and set C (where A and B intersect) is the set of all kids that played both.

So, let set A represent all the songs you love but audiences won't connect with...side one of "2112" or whatever. Set B is the stuff the audience loves but you can't stand...the "Gimme Three Steps to Old Time Sweet Home Mustang Sally".

Play the tunes in set C...the stuff both you and the audience dig.

[happydog1]

Originally posted by SaltyDogg As someone who's never been in a cover band, how are most songs actually learned? Do most people go and buy the sheet music or is it purely trial and error with basic chords? SD

 

 

Good question. Most rock songs are in a limited number of keys. If you can play a I-IV-V progression, you have the basic structure for about 60% of all known rock songs, including most of the new songs on the radio. I have seldom bought sheet music to learn cover songs, but then again I have a pretty good ear and I've been playing long enough to know or at least guess where a song is going to go. This is not a genius skill, it comes to you from playing music a lot over time.

[happydog1]

Originally posted by New Trail I KNOW this subject has been done to death so I apologize. I am in a 5-piece "Classic Rock". We're all geezers FWIW! Anyway, two of us want to try to get a good dancing crowd ...The other three want to do "challenging" music with little or no interest in playing to the crowd! ...Any thoughts on what might be seen as a new "compromise" direction for us?

 

 

1) Pick danceable songs that are more challenging musically. There are some out there. I admit that it's hard to find 'em but they're there.

 

2) Do interesting re-arrangements. For example (shudder) "Brown Eyed Girl." You could make up a reggae intro for it to fake the crowd out and then surprise them by playing most of the song straight, then at the end go back and do a reggae outro.

Don't worry too much about sounding exactly like the record. As long as you generally approximate the original, most people are happy.

 

3) I find that for me, playing to dancing girls is preferable to that one guy in the back, unless someone is into that sort of thing of course. And it's not that hard to make the dancing girls dance, really. As long as you give them a good groove and toss in some songs that they know, you can play a variety of stuff, even things they don't know (provided it has a groove).

 

4) You can always lie and announce the song as something else. We had a guy screaming for Lynyrd Skynyrd and we had none in our set, so the drummer yells out, "This is for the Lynyrd Skynyrd guy! This is the 3rd song on the 2nd side of their 4th album!" Then we went ahead and played what we had planned to anyway. The dude was totally satisfied, or else he was so busy trying to figure out what the 3rd song on the 2nd side of the 4th Lynyrd Skynyrd album would be (while drunk) that he stopped yelling.

 

5) Keep a couple of complicated songs in your set and save them for the times when people get tired. You can tell if you look at the crowd. They have to go buy beer sometime. Cruel? yes. Factual? also yes. Just don't do 'em all night.

 

6) When the crowd is sparse and the pay is cheap and you know you won't be back there again, play whatever you damn well please.

 

7) Target your venue. Crowds differ from bar to bar. There are some bars that draw a crowd that appreciates more interesting material, and some bars that draw crowds that just wanna hear "Mustang Sally" all night long. Try to zone in to the bars that have the crowds you like.

 

Just some ideas. Hope this helps!

[cooterbrown]

Originally posted by happydog1 Good question. Most rock songs are in a limited number of keys. If you can play a I-IV-V progression, you have the basic structure for about 60% of all known rock songs, including most of the new songs on the radio.

 

 

I don't buy that argument, at all.

I'm just looking through the tunes on both my bands.

I see very few I-IV-V songs...all the popular songs we do are a bit more involved than that.

[happydog1]

Originally posted by cooterbrown I don't buy that argument, at all. I'm just looking through the tunes on both my bands. I see very few I-IV-V songs...all the popular songs we do are a bit more involved than that.

 

 

It wasn't an argument really, just helpful advice. Or at least I thought it was helpful. A good many songs are based around the I-IV-V, you must admit; the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Kinks come to mind.

 

Maybe I should have said, "If you learn the Circle of Fifths, it'll be a lot easier to figure out the chord progressions to some-but-not-all rock songs."

[happydog1]

Originally posted by molehunter so....... what is the guy in the back supposed to get?

 

 

(a) a girlfriend

(b) a life

© a few beers, so he can finally loosen up enough to get the stick out of his ***

© over himself

 

the possibilities are endless...

[FlogRock]

Originally posted by SaltyDogg As someone who's never been in a cover band, how are most songs actually learned? Do most people go and buy the sheet music or is it purely trial and error with basic chords? I assume that the real music is necessary for all but the most experienced musicians. I am always amazed when a cover band plays a song that is brand new to the radio. SD

Buy sheet music? Trial and error?

Neither of those. Just develop your ears, and improve your theory knowledge. If you know the sounds of intervals, common chords, progressions and scales, and you know which chords and scales belong to which key, it's really easy to figure out most songs. The best way to train these skills is simply to start figuring out songs, starting with the simpler stuff.

Nowadays there are MP3-playing programs that can easily slow the music down without changing the key, and that can loop between two points. So it's a lot easier now than when I started: I had to rewind tapes or CDs, with no way to slow them down. I think this is the most important skill for a non-classical musician, so better get started.

[B Money]

Originally posted by FlogRock Buy sheet music? Trial and error? Neither of those. Just develop your ears, and improve your theory knowledge. If you know the sounds of intervals, common chords, progressions and scales, and you know which chords and scales belong to which key, it's really easy to figure out most songs. The best way to train these skills is simply to start figuring out songs, starting with the simpler stuff. Nowadays there are MP3-playing programs that can easily slow the music down without changing the key, and that can loop between two points. So it's a lot easier now than when I started: I had to rewind tapes or CDs, with no way to slow them down. I think this is the most important skill for a non-classical musician, so better get started.

exactly how I do it.
I use Adobe Audition to adjust the pitch of the .mp3 to my guitar (tuned to Eb) without altering the tempo of the song. Then I quickly mark the different sections of the song, intro, verse,chorus, etc..select a section and loop it, makes it almost too easy to find the chords and riffs.
It's a far cry from the old days when I had to sit in front of the cassette boom box constantly hitting 'rewind' to try and figure out a difficult lick. Of course, my ear is also a lot better than it was back then!

[Z_Zoquis]

I IV V is overstating it a bit, but its not a stretch at all to say almost all rock songs are comprised of fairly standard major, minor and seventh chords. If you know the basic (barres included) chords and the pentatonics you are pretty much good to go. Learning by ear isn't really a black art at all. It just takes practice. I spent many years not learning by ear becuase I just assumed I couldn't do it. Now however, I find it much easier to learn a song that way than by using a tab. I'll still check a tab out for a part that I'm not getting but I quite often find the tab doesn't actually sound right either.

Being able to slow stuff down on the PC is definitely a huge advantage though...

[FlogRock]

Originally posted by Z_Zoquis Now however, I find it much easier to learn a song that way than by using a tab. I'll still check a tab out for a part that I'm not getting but I quite often find the tab doesn't actually sound right either.

Same here. Somehow, whenever the licks or chords are too fast/complicated for me to figure out quickly, most internet tabs are also wrong. But published tabs are useful in this case. And powertabs are also good, but I suspect that a lot of them are actually copied from published tabs.

That's probably why they shut down those sites...

[FlogRock]

Originally posted by B Money I use Adobe Audition to adjust the pitch of the .mp3 to my guitar (tuned to Eb) without altering the tempo of the song.

Yes, that's priceless too. I remember retuning my guitar (with tremolo) whenever I wanted to figure out/play along with a song that's not in standard tuning. And there are many of those.
(It seems that every Jimi Hendrix song is in a slightly different tuning...)

[Z_Zoquis]

Originally posted by FlogRock Same here. Somehow, whenever the licks or chords are too fast/complicated for me to figure out quickly, most internet tabs are also wrong. But published tabs are useful in this case. And powertabs are also good, but I suspect that a lot of them are actually copied from published tabs. That's probably why they shut down those sites...

Yeah, true. But you know what? I don't have alot of gigging experience so don't take this as the bible truth, but I'd be willing to bet that in 99% of the cases where a particular part is giving you trouble, it really is a case of "close is close enough." I mean, in a live situation, with the vagaries of live sound, the many distractions the audience is dealing with, and given the necessity in many cases for the band to change arrangements and such anyway, there aren't going to be many people in the crowd likely to notice that part you can't quite figure out as long as you aren't doing anything totally off the map. And if they do notice, chances are they'll think you're just doing your own thing with it and forget about it anyway...

[FlogRock]

Originally posted by Z_Zoquis Yeah, true. But you know what? I don't have alot of gigging experience so don't take this as the bible truth, but I'd be willing to bet that in 99% of the cases where a particular part is giving you trouble, it really is a case of "close is close enough." I mean, in a live situation, with the vagaries of live sound, the many distractions the audience is dealing with, and given the necessity in many cases for the band to change arrangements and such anyway, there aren't going to be many people in the crowd likely to notice that part you can't quite figure out as long as you aren't doing anything totally off the map. And if they do notice, chances are they'll think you're just doing your own thing with it and forget about it anyway...

 

You're right, just for the sake of playing the covers live, it's not necessary to figure it all out note for note. I've seen cover band guitarists that never copy a solo...

 

But sometimes I still want to know exactly what's going on, in order to learn, and to expand my lick / chord vocabulary.

[New Trail]

 

Originally posted by molehunter so....... what is the guy in the back supposed to get?

 

 

That phrase refers to the idea that there's someone in the audience thats so cool and above the crowd that he appreciates the fact that your band can nail some obscure cut from some obscure cd, that only the band and him have every heard of, and then the band and he can both get off on the fact that they are both so cool. Approving nod accepted! Meanwhile all the hot chicks are going down the street to dance, leaving the guy and the band to bask in their coolness.

[Z_Zoquis]

Originally posted by FlogRock You're right, just for the sake of playing the covers live, it's not necessary to figure it all out note for note. I've seen cover band guitarists that never copy a solo... But sometimes I still want to know exactly what's going on, in order to learn, and to expand my lick / chord vocabulary.

 

 

Oh absolutely. Aside from the basic chords and a few scales, I've learned almost everything I know from figuring out songs.

[germanicus2112]

The question is do you need to make money from playing. If you do, your band will need to compromise quite a bit in all likelihood.

Im fortunate that due to my day job, whenever I play money is the last thing on my mind. I have played for pay in the past and done commercial scoring work, but now I play for self satisfaction. Im not knocking cover bands in the least, its just a different entity. The goal isnt to get chicks, make money, or gain the approval of drunken masses. For the most part I dont enjoy playing covers, because simply enough, its other peoples music.

My group plays original instrumental fusion and the last thing we care about is pleasing drunk chicks. We play music which we enjoy listening to, and the few covers we do, is stuff we love to hear (mahavishnu orchestra, old genesis). If people like our music, great. If not, great. At the same time we arent going to book into a club that expects top 40. For this type of music its a much more niche market and difficult to build a following as the type of music just isnt that popular in the states outside of the prog festival scene and jazz clubs.

[justcrash]

Originally posted by Bozak Why not both? Have people become so watered down in there musical taste that only cheesy cover bands are acceptable? Is it so bad for a band to try and get people into something else besides Brown Eyed Girl? I think the whole idea of bands feeling like they have to be inside the box to be an acceptable live act sucks and is very telling.

Of what? That they like to eat?

[guitarmook]

Originally posted by germanicus2112 The question is do you need to make money from playing. If you do, your band will need to compromise quite a bit in all likelihood. Im fortunate that due to my day job, whenever I play money is the last thing on my mind. I have played for pay in the past and done commercial scoring work, but now I play for self satisfaction. Im not knocking cover bands in the least, its just a different entity. The goal isnt to get chicks, make money, or gain the approval of drunken masses. For the most part I dont enjoy playing covers, because simply enough, its other peoples music. My group plays original instrumental fusion and the last thing we care about is pleasing drunk chicks. We play music which we enjoy listening to, and the few covers we do, is stuff we love to hear (mahavishnu orchestra, old genesis). If people like our music, great. If not, great. At the same time we arent going to book into a club that expects top 40. For this type of music its a much more niche market and difficult to build a following as the type of music just isnt that popular in the states outside of the prog festival scene and jazz clubs.

 

 

How do you reconcile this with the fact that your 'job', according to the barowner is to do something to help his business - whether that's bring people in the door, or even just keep the regulars in there? If you're not working to please the clients (the drinkers, and the owners), HOW do you keep getting work?

[germanicus2112]

My "job" is not to please the bar owner. I dont keep it a secret what type of music we play. If they dont like it, we neednt come back. Hasnt been a problem yet because we arent hiding what we play. If they are surprised by it they are idiots who shouldnt have booked us in the first place after hearing demo.

[THX1138]

Originally posted by germanicus2112 My "job" is not to please the bar owner. I dont keep it a secret what type of music we play. If they dont like it, we neednt come back. Hasnt been a problem yet because we arent hiding what we play. If they are surprised by it they are idiots who shouldnt have booked us in the first place after hearing demo.

 

 

Best of luck. Sounds like a great business plan.

[Fulham Fallout]

Originally posted by germanicus2112 My "job" is not to please the bar owner. I dont keep it a secret what type of music we play. If they dont like it, we neednt come back. Hasnt been a problem yet because we arent hiding what we play. If they are surprised by it they are idiots who shouldnt have booked us in the first place after hearing demo.

 

 

I agree 100%.

 

But the point is that it's horses for courses. A covers band that plays for 2 or 3 hours in a bar are there to give people what they want to hear for the most part. Comfortable foot-tapping, dancing fodder. An all-original artrock band, say, will be playing 30-45 mins in front of fans of more underground music. There, the role of the band is to sound good (obviously) while trying to carve out some original territory. Also, the audience here does not want to be spoonfed the obvious. They want surprises. They want to be left thinking 'what the hell was that?' or 'I don't know if I liked them or not, but I want to see them again!' I know which I prefer, but I wouldn't want to rely on it to pay the bills.

[MartinC]

Originally posted by germanicus2112 My "job" is not to please the bar owner. I dont keep it a secret what type of music we play. If they dont like it, we neednt come back. Hasnt been a problem yet because we arent hiding what we play. If they are surprised by it they are idiots who shouldnt have booked us in the first place after hearing demo.

 

 

Amen, same here. Life's too short to play music you don't like. The money's not good enough to play music you don't like. There's too much good music out there to play music you don't like. My experience has been that if the players are good enough, you can play any kind of music you want and make good money too. The money thing is more about your contacts than the kind of music your playing. I realize this may be harder in some parts of the country. It may be tough to get a gig playing Indian music in Ohio, but who knows.

 

Thurs I'm going to do a trio gig and we are going to play our own music, jam a bit, and I'll play some stuff that nobody ever heard of and can't even tap their feet to, much less dance to. We will throw out a few bones in the way of covers, but only a few. It's a corporate and were gonna get good money. The other two guys are pros and I know people will respond positively to their performance. And if they for some reason don't, oh well. Not going to change a thing I do as far as music in the future. It's not going to stop the agent from calling me. We are the musicians, we decide what to play. If someone wants to hear a band do brickhouse, they can call a band who does that. There's room and money for it all, if it's done well, IMO.