Do you...

[Silenced Fred]

Just wondering. I play covers, but work on my own stuff. I need to get back into writing.

[Cruznolfart]

In another lifetime, when I was still giggin', I played almost exclusively covers, very little original material. Now, it's mostly original stuff I'm working on with the guys who have the studio, and they wanna do an album. Probably won't be one cover on it. It's all good.

[DWP37]

I write and record my own songs now. I'll have 11 new songs finished in a few more weeks. I'll post when they're finished. I don't really learn cover songs until it's time to play out

[Thundergod]

Both.

[EVOL!]

At home or when I am monkeying around I might play covers. For my band originals only because

 

1. I am not good enough to play other people's stuff

2. Have no interest in playing other people's stuff note for note

3. Did the cover/bar band thing in college and hated it

4. Doing covers is like giving Thorazine to the creative part of my brain

5. We can never agree on what song to do

 

Not knocking the cover band guys. I know a lot of cats here have a killer time and rake in serious $$$ on weekends doing 3hr sets of classic rock songs. It's just *really* not my thing.

[matiac]

I voted "both". I can play a ton of cover songs, but prefer to do my own thing.

[Shnate McDuanus]

I do both, and I enjoy both.

 

Lately I've had a dream of starting up a small combo (guitar/tenor banjo, percussion, double bass, piano/vibes and ither clarinet or sax would be ideal) and doing some interpretations of 20s-30s standards and such. It might be cool (I think it would be a lot of fun, personally,) but with the huge rock influence that I've already subjected myself to, I fear that it might eventually devolve into the most hackneyed and absurd of jazz fusion bands. Also, I doubt I'd be able to really find other musicians interested in doing the whole "standards" thing.

[FirstMeasure]

Both, that's the Blues Tradition, and in my own little way I've been trying to bring that sensibility to Rock and even Metal.

 

In Blues Circles you have to pay homage to the masters that came before you and give the music something new of yourself. In fact you won't hear Blues Guys call it covering, just playing. It's all about building on the foundations of the those that came before you.

[L5Larry]

Both' date=' that's the Blues Tradition, and in my own little way I've been trying to bring that sensibility to Rock and even Metal.

 

In Blues Circles you have to pay homage to the masters that came before you and give the music something new of yourself. In fact you won't hear Blues Guys call it covering, just playing. It's all about building on the foundations of the those that came before you.[/quote']

 

Great point, AND very true.

 

The "covers" thing ONLY applies to Rock & Roll music and it's ethnic offshoots such as the original R&B and Soul, where listeners EXPECT to hear it played like the record. In jazz and blues the well known songs are known as "standards", and doing standards is NOT the same thing as doing covers. In blues and combo jazz it is all about interpretation and improvisation, and the listeners EXPECT to hear something different done with the song.

 

Formal jazz big band arrangements have it covered both ways. In R&R a "lead" and a "solo" are thought of as the same thing. In jazz, a lead and a solo are completely different parts. The "lead" is the written part featured prominently in the song that usually contains the melody line, the part of the song that the listener is familiar with and remembers from the recorded version(s). The "solo" section is the improvised part with one instrumentalist at a time wailing over the rest of the band.

 

This is how in jazz songs by Gershwin, Ellington, Basie, Jobim, and so many other songwriters have endoured for 70+ years, through original arrangements and hundreds of independent recordings.

[milod]

Larry...

 

You pretty much nailed it. I think until the 50s started turning into the 60s - even then among older or shall we say "more sophisticated" musicians playing for older crowds, you may be playing the same basic tune, but it's yours.

 

For example, I've done "Nobody Knows You When you're Down and Out" for over 45 years. Different every time I play it and it ain't at all like anybody else's that I know of. I'm certainly never gonna sound much like Bessie Smith and Clapton "unplugged" was closer to a flatpicking version of what I do and I'm assuming that's largely from a folkie influence that hit both of us since we're roughly the same age even though raised across one awfully big lake.

 

I love the swing "Deep Purple," but the original with Larry Clinton's orchestra and Bea Wain singing is way different from the Artie Shaw and Helen Forest version - or the"rock" version later on.

 

I think the Beatle thing kinda blew stuff for "rock" in that they had done a lotta well-known songs, but in their own way. After that, it seems audience expectations were for the Beatle version. Then as other Brit bands came in, the real "cover" mentality hit.

 

Before that you'd do stuff from a cupla dozen sources through a night, but there was no question it was "your" music, but done your way. That was the audience expectation, too, so everybody was happy.

 

But Larry - sorry, some of the country crowd of the same age group were just about as bad as some of the rock folks. It hadda sound the same as Merle Haggard or whomever.

 

m