How To Play ‘To Be Alone With You’ by Sufjan Stevens
[audio:Sufjan-Stevens-To-Be-Alone-With-You.mp3]
CHORDS (I’ll fix soon) & LYRICS * MP3 * Album: Seven Swans
(Basic chords: F Am G F + C F Am D + C G F Am)
(Capo on 4th fret)
GUITAR DEMO ON YOUTUBE (by Doron)
And Now, How To Make An Album, by Keith Handy
Keith Handy, good new/old net friend of mine, has begun writing something which I think should appeal to all you aspiring home-recording artists like me.
Himself, a maker of albums and musical scores, and generally well-versed in musical things, I believe he has much experience and insight to pass on, and has set about doing so in his new ongoing series,
“So, You Want To Make An Album.”
Best to let him introduce it in his own words…
“In this multi-installment posting, at least partly inspired by a new/old net friend who is embarking on an exciting and treacherous creative journey, I aim to recollect my personal experiences with the combined thrill and agony of recording original music, and hopefully pass on a few useful words of wisdom along the way.“
So far, intrigued, and anxiously awaiting installment three (as of this writing). Knowing Keith, it should all prove to be quite as entertaining and insightful as it is educational. Bookmark it. Read it. Ponder it. Follow along. Learn. And most importantly, if making an album is what you really want to do, get to it. It’s okay to be scared. I am, and let me tell you, I’ve played some tough, badass characters in my lifetimes. Sword fights are one thing… bearing your soul in song is quite another.
But we do it anyway, because we are brave souls.
And with that, dear ones, inspiring dreams and a fond good night.
How to Play ‘The Killing Moon’ by Echo & the Bunnymen
[audio:Echo-And-The-Bunnymen-The-Killing-Moon.mp3]
TAB & LYRICS * MP3
Album: Songs to Learn and Sing
Also: the Donnie Darko Soundtrack
(Basic Chords: Em C + G Cm)
GUITAR DEMO ON YOUTUBE (by Me)
BONUS MP3 (’Killing Moon’ cover by Pavement, from the EP, Major Leagues
Why Do We ‘Cover’ Songs? (Part 3)
(Continuing on from Part 2)…
Finally, what’s the deal with all us Youtubers who are posting our dinky covers online? Are we that desperate for attention? Well I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can tell you why I do it. And yes, I’m sure there’s a slight element of attention-seeking to it, that I think most performers-at-heart are inherently blessed/cursed with. But aside from that, and everything else I’ve already covered (pun totally intended)…
The initial reason I started posting mine was to have them serve as ‘guitar tutorials’ - something of use to people that I could offer on my website that I didn’t see anyone else doing, outside of Youtube itself. And that’s still the main purpose for doing them.
At first, they were just straight guitar demos. I didn’t even show my face. I was recording videos of myself singing as well as playing, but I didn’t intend to post those online. I was too chicken. Those were only meant as self-feedback for me, in my own shy, reclusive efforts to determine whether I could ever be a decent singer (under the strong presupposition that I definitely was not, yet).
The first video of me singing that I actually put online was only meant for this one friend of mine, who’d taken singing lessons and taught them to her friends. She needed to hear me sing before she could give me any custom pointers (and she lived in a different town). I truly meant to take it down as soon as possible.
But much to my surprise, comments from strangers started rolling in, and even more shocking to me was how overwhelmingly positive they were. This gave me a newfound level of confidence I’d never felt before, about my voice (I already knew I was a kickass guitar player, or I wouldn’t have been making guitar tutorials in the first place), and now I needed to find out of it was just a fluke.
At the same time, I simply realized it was time to stop being such a chicken and just put myself out there, regardless of what people might or might not say. It was the only way I was ever really going to find out once and for all whether or not I ‘had something’ worth pursuing, or if I was just deluding myself.
And that last point is so important. That feedback I get on Youtube, based as it may be on ‘mere’ ‘unoriginal’ covers of ‘other people’s songs’, has been the final push I needed to do what I’ve wanted to do all along (and secretly knew deep down that I could do, all along): to get serious about my own music. Until the Youtube thing, I lacked the confidence, and even when I felt confident, I didn’t trust my own judgment. I woudl fluctute wildly between high hopes and harsh self-deprecation, on a pretty much daily basis.
Turns out I just needed to hear from some people who weren’t me, who didn’t know me and didn’t feel any pre-existing need to be nice to me. Now, in a very short time since getting me some of that, I’ve taken giant leaps in getting set up to record my first record.
I’ve always had bits and pieces of songs floating around in my head. I’ve come up with great compositions and just not bothered to record them or write them down. Belief in self makes all the difference. I’ve always sensed my potential to make really great, original music, but it was ultimately the willingness to go ahead and do something as silly and ‘unartistic’ as throwing up my dinky covers on Youtube, ‘just to see what happens’, and all the wonderful feedback I’ve received through that, that can be thanked for the album I’m now finally creating.
And of course, I can’t leave out the part about all the fun and friendships (those other, equally important values of mine) that I’ve also gained in doing this. There’s a real, genuine sense of community and mutual support amongst all the aspiring musicians besides myself, who are also using Youtube to get their musical feet wet — or simply to ham it up, as we all like to do from time to time (admit it). This support network is truly wonderful. There is no music scene where I live, neither existing nor emmerging, that I’m aware of, so that makes this all the more valuable to me.
Through these silly videos, I’ve already made some true friends and musical mentors, and discovered some truly talented musicians that few are yet aware of, but will be. I’m involved in collaborations with a couple of these guys already; and these were people that contacted me just to tell me they liked my covers, and wondered if I’d sing on their album or co-write some songs with them. Since I happened to really dig what they were doing, I decided to go for it. You only live once. You must “seize the day” as Charlie would say. But the point is, if stuff like that, alone, isn’t good enough reason to make silly cover videos and put them on the interwebs, people, I don’t know what is. So get to it.
Peace out.
Why Do We ‘Cover’ Songs? (Part 2)
(Continuing on from Part 1)…
All this thinking about my own motivations in this area got me wondering about all the other possible motives people have for covering music. I looked far and wide across the interwebs (okay, mostly this Wikipedia article, which is quite good by the way, if you’re interested in the subject) and ended up with a list over a page long of various reasons why covers are done. In (almost) closing I’d like to share some of my miscellaneous notes from that here (then wrap this up so I can salvage what’s left of my Saturday):
The cover is often done as a tribute to those gone before, to ‘the greats’, or to any influences, past or present, who’ve inspired and helped shape an artists’ own work. There are a lot of tribute albums out there (see the Wikipedia article).
Somewhat conversely, there is the song parody, in which the artist may or may not change the lyrics (depending on whether he’s Weird Al or Richard Cheese), but will always change the style in such a way as to make the song seem silly or absurd. Either way, it is a form of cover song.
There’s also the ironic cover, or the ‘reverse-parody’ (to use my own made-up term) which involves taking a song generally disliked or looked down upon by a particular subculture and remaking it into something ‘cool’ to said subculture; cool for two reasons: 1) because it’s ironic - a shared inside joke, and 2) because the song has received a makeover - it’s been ‘coolified’ yo - made aesthetically pleasing to the tastes of the demographic it’s meant for. Think White Stripes covering Dolly Parton, or any number of ‘coolified’ renditions of cheesy 80s tunes (though, for most of us who grew up in the 80s, I think cheesy 80s tunes will always carry a certain nostalgic charm all their own)…
That ‘coolification’ aproach is a subcategory of a broader and longer-standing tradition of cover songs which is the “crossover”: taking a song from one genre and remaking it in the style of another in order to appeal to a new audience (and allowing the owner of the song to make more money).
A further variation on that would be taking old songs from a previous era and ‘contemporizing’ them. This often has the effect of reviving a song, and in some cases, reviving dead careers (Fleetwood Mac getting back together after the Dixie Chicks’ covered Landslide and made it huge with ‘the kids’ comes to mind). This can be good, not only for the band who gets to make a comeback but for the ‘people’, because it exposes a whole new generation to good music that they might otherwise never appreciate, either because they weren’t aware of it or because it’s ‘their parents’ music. Appreciation for the past is always a good counterbalance to the over-embracing of the new.
Then there are the people who just like to perform for the fun of it, and perhaps for money, but don’t consider themselves songwriters. Here you have the ever-present local cover band. I used to be down on this brand of musician, but I realize not everyone wants to be an ‘artist’. Some just want to entertain. And people in bars usually just want to be entertained, with familiar songs.
Not everyone’s a songwriter, and that shouldn’t preclude anyone from using the talents they do have and making a living from those talents in whatever way works for them. Cover bands bring many good old songs to life again, in a live setting, including music you literally can’t experience live otherwise, because the original artists are, you know, dead.
Some cover bands do branch out beyond local bars and get really creative with their covers, as you’ll see if you make it to near the end of the Wikipedia article. (Example: the Easy Star All-stars. I hear good things).
Most if not all aspiring musicians use other people’s songs as ‘training wheels’ in the initial stages of their development, whether it be learning an instrument, learning different styles or techniques of playing, training one’s voice, ‘finding’ one’s voice, or just generally building confidence. It’s part of a natural maturation process for an artist, progressing from imitation, to interpretation, to deconstruction and re-invention, to pure innovation.
You learn a lot about music from playing other people’s songs. You learn a lot from comparing various versions of a song. Just as you learn what makes good writing by reading a lot of writing, both good and bad, and then also, preferably, writing your own interpretations and tangents based off of the things you read, so there is a musical equivalent. Ultimately the best writers are the ones that finally f#$% it all and write their own books, in their own voice, but that, too, is in part a culmination of all the reading and writing-about-what-they-read that came before. Likewise, there is the musical equivalent.
It’s worth noting here that many of the ‘Greats’ (ie: from the late 60s on) began their careers as bar bands doing mostly covers. Covers can be an effective means of endearing yourself and your personal style to a new audience, by first mixing it in with enough familiarity to get people to pay attention at all.
In that sense, cover songs act as gateways between unknown artists and potential listeners, in that while the band or artist may be relatively unknown, they can use a song that is well known as leverage; as a way to showcase their own style, distinct from songwriting or composition. If that style is appealing enough, people will then be drawn to check out that band or artist’s originals. If the originals suck, well, covers will only get them so far, but if the originals are good, the covers have served as a useful means of self-promotion. This kind of thing ultimately serves the proliferation of really good, original art that otherwise might be lost to obscurity.
And last but not least, Part 3…