Don't Stand So Close to Me

[Brettymike]

^^^ Absolutely +1 ^^^

 

Brett

[ksoper]

How about this: At the bridge, break into a fast swing with the bass player walking his ass off and the drummer's ride cymbal ka-ching-ching-ching-ing it like the devil is chasing him. And on top of that...an organ solo.

[NoahZark]

I think it's the subtle stuff, whether it be an accent here, or a riff there, or a harmony here, that separates the upper echelon bands from the others, and at some level this resonates with the audience.

 

I'm not sure we're saying something all that different from one another. First, my "close enough" was not meant to suggest that I don't take playing the song seriously or that I half-ass things. I wasn't suggesting, for example, that getting 50% of the way toward the record counts as "close enough." In most cases, I'm talking about the difference between, say, 90% or 95% and 100%.

 

Second, the very things you mention above -- an accent here, a riff there, or a harmony here -- are typically the very same "signature elements" I was referring to in my post. I think we all know intuitively (even better than most audience members) the parts of a song, including the subtle ones, that must be delivered for the song to satisfy the audience. I'm not suggesting that anyone should sacrifice those elements for the sake of "close enough." I am, however, willing to listen to a song like, say, Born To Run, which my current band plays, and recognize that I am only one guy, not two, and that I can't play as well as either Danny Federici or Roy Bittan. As a result, I need to make some choices about what to play in that song, and I try to make those choices as wisely as possible from the perspective of audience expectations. For me at least, covering everything they did simply isn't possible. Maybe that makes me a member of Band #1 in your example, but I can live with that.

 

Noah

[JeffLearman]

Hey, of course there's nothing wrong with Dan asking for a little help here. I often have a lot of fun trying to duplicate parts. I'm not bad at it, but I bet Dan is amazingly good at it. (IIRC, he posted some vids of his previous band, and I was very impressed. Way over my pay grade!)

 

IMHO it's far more important to make the song work than to duplicate all the parts exactly, but I also know that Dan knows that. I didn't mean any disrespect by saying we don't have to be jukeboxes if we don't want to. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with being jukeboxes when we want to. It also doesn't mean we want to phone it in, either.

 

Whatever floats your boat, A lot of different things float mine. Sorry for the derail.

[Reezekeys]

For the record, my mini-rant was more about those secondary parts, not any "signature" elements of a song. Of course I'm going to cover a prominent synth riff in the hook of a song. In general, my approach is to make a judgment as to what part or parts should be covered, vs. what I'm technically capable of doing with ten fingers and my current rig. Actually, thanks to Bidule's flexibility with zoning and transposing I've been able to cover three or four parts of a song on my small 61-note controller when I thought it was worth the trouble to do it.

 

Also, for me the context is exclusively in the "club date band" world. (Here in the New York City area, "club date" means wedding/corporate). The audience is there for the event, not specifically to listen to the band. So I can see that, in the latter situation, a keyboardist might want to make the extra effort to cover every little part as faithfully as possible. I have never been in that kind of band and will never be it's not my thing at all, but I can appreciate the bands that do it well.

[I-missRichardTee]

Not to derail, but seeing where this discussion might be going, having been part of a wedding/corporate event band where the leaders wanted to sound as much as possible "like the record", I have formed an opinion on the matter.

 

--In the case of the band I was in, for some strange reason sounding "like the record" seemed to apply much more to the keyboard player than anyone else! For instance, while 98% of the top-40 songs we did used drum machines, our drummer did not get any such advice when he played his acoustic drum set on them. They did not insist he buy and bring a pad kit or triggers, along with a module with the appropriate "contemporary" drum samples. They were equally lenient with the guitar player but that may have been because he was a co-owner of the band! All those synth bass parts? Why, it was perfectly OK to play them on a Fender Jazz Bass! No problem there.

 

-- Of course, all these top-40 songs had multiple layered synth tracks. I was expected to grow another set of arms and hands. (Actually, they were visibly disappointed at my first gig with them when I showed up with nothing but my tiny 61-key controller).

 

-- Now, what may be germane to this thread: in all my years playing these gigs I have never seen or heard of anyone giving a rat's behind as to whether we "sounded like the record." Hell, we had a few tunes where we mimed along to an mp3 and I never saw anyone give a second glance at the band AAMOF they seemed to enjoy the music even more!

 

So, J. Dan, if replicating a part as faithfully as possible floats your boat then by all means go for it. I've enjoyed the challenge of figuring out a hard-to-hear part a few times myself. Transcribing from a recording is a good and useful skill so any time you do it you're exercising that muscle and might make the next time easier. I just want to say that when I do it, it's really just for myself. Am I stating the obvious? I mean, does anyone here really think Joe & Jane sixpack are gonna know or care? I'm pretty sure that the reason audiences liked the band I was in was because the rhythm section players listened to each other, played well together and knew how to groove. Not because I managed to play both the high & low string parts along with the keyboard ostinato on "I Got A Feelin'."

 

Figures we are from the same neck of the woods ( Ok North joisey ain't quite the Apple, but neither is Brooklyn ha ha ) but your words resonate with me, not only because of the unfairness aspect, but just in general. I have always noted this obsessive "like the record" mentality as creatively limiting.

I wish more people would feel like you feel. The live music would be that much better. This industry has been F ing dominated by F ing producers, engineers, marketing people, media, FAR TOO LONG. Bring the "power" back to the Live musician.

Ha ha Note: "power" is so sixties, I never talk this way.. funny to me, but I do believe it is time for a change.

[cphollis]

Interesting discussion. It all gets down to goals, doesn't it?

 

If I were to go back 10 years or so, I remember every band I was in wanting to sound "just like the record" -- if not as a goal, then certainly as something to achieve first before messing with perfection.

 

The good part was that an awful lot of dodgy homegrown chord progressions got smoked out in the process. The bad part was that you set yourself on an ultimate goal of being nothing more than an imperfect reproduction of the original.

 

And as Reezekeys points out, that often results in other band members wondering why you don't have three pairs of hands, eight different keyboards all pre-programmed, etc. Frustrating at the time, so I tended to gravitate to jam/improv bands who had different goals.

 

Now it seems the bands I play with wants to make a familiar song their own -- the audience can often recognize it, but it might be only passingly familiar with original(s).

 

Examples? A deathmetal version of "Paperback Writer". A reggae take on "Hotel California". A modern drum track and spacey improvs on "Suzy Q". Uptempo ska for "Walking On The Sun".

 

Take a familiar song from one genre, and forcibly transplant it to another. Sure, some of the original lines/hooks/riffs end up in the result, but that's not the goal.

 

All I can say is that the audience seems to consistently appreciate the originality when this is done well. They listen closely for a bit, and then everyone smiles when they recognize a familiar tune done entirely differently.

 

This works much better for me, as a) you're not being implicitly measured against a long-ago studio recording, (b) you're free to recolor as you see fit around the band's strengths, and © it gets a whole lot less boring over time.

 

Being musically interesting and selling a lot of drinks for the establishment don't have to be mutually exclusive goals

[I-missRichardTee]

Playing "just like the recording" , goes back way way before a decade ago. While I understand it, and see "some" of its value; it significantly hampers creative spirit.

CREATIVE SPIRIT... The spirit to create. aha :-)

Non musicians, "took the play" ( I just watched Miller's Crossing, again ) away from the musician. I have long held a resentment for old disc jockey, radio personalities, the whole business aspect surrounding the spirit of music.. they have held it hostage, so to speak. Sure, we were seduced by the power of world wide marketing, multi million dollar studios, etc... but the bottom line is this kiddies.. it boils down to the fire in your belly, on any given night, on a given stage/ bandstand/// THAT is what "sells' DO not listen to these wannabee batards ( Fr spelling ) . i am happy they have been deballed, with the advent of technology that bit them in the ass, yup.

It is the songwriter, the singer and the band that should always have the ultimate power... not the recording, THE LIVE band and their little coterie of avid followers. THAT's the place where the magic happens.

Was that a rant, or what?

[Reezekeys]

Let me just say that, again, for me this was part of being in a particular club date band, something I considered a "day gig" . I have worked for other similar bands and most of the time I was never specifically asked to learn exact parts and sounds they left it up to me to figure out what to play. This band was different but I knew that going in, so I am not really bitching about doing their gig, just pontificating a little about the general idea of copying parts & sounds to "sound like the record." There are plenty of other gigs I do where I get to exercise my "creative spirit." Unfortunately, most of those gigs don't pay the mortgage!

[cphollis]

Good point -- when it becomes a job, you do what the man wants you to do.

[Moonglow]

....In most cases, I'm talking about the difference between, say, 90% or 95% and 100%.

....and what Im talking about is precisely that difference!

 

Second, the very things you mention above -- an accent here, a riff there, or a harmony here -- are typically the very same "signature elements" I was referring to in my post.....

Ah, sorry about that. I interpreted signature element as a "hook" or something more obvious or centrally identifiable. I'm referring to more subtle factors. For example, we recently had a discussion in my band when we were learning the song Harden My Heart by Quarterflash. In addition to the signature parts (e.g., the melody line played on alto sax), there are these subtle guitar fills that are a sort of counter-point to the vocal line. Our guitar player was playing fills that were close, and certainly worked with the chord structure, but they lacked the mojo of the original recording. So I guess I'm arguing that extra 5-10% resonates with the audience at some level, and the accumulation of that extra proportion of variability impacts the overall evaluation of a band.

 

....I am, however, willing to listen to a song like, say, Born To Run, which my current band plays, and recognize that I am only one guy, not two, and that I can't play as well as either Danny Federici or Roy Bittan.

Agreed! Same goes for songs where there are multiple keyboard tracks. The difference is that in these instances we are forced into playing less than 100% of the original recording. So then the issue becomes trying to capture what is "essential".....which can be a "more or less" proposition. My god, when my band plays "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga my upper keyboard is split into two zones (one for the thick chords during the chorus, one for a sound effect) and the lower keyboard is split into three zones (synth bass, polysynth pad, lead synth). Sure, I could easily eliminate the sound effect or the synth lead, but then my underwear would crawl up my arse worse than Walter White. Sorry for that lovely image....

 

[Moonglow]

Just to complete the thought:

 

http://cdn.pophangover.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/335_2.jpg

 

[NoahZark]

Just to complete the thought:

 

http://cdn.pophangover.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/335_2.jpg

 

 

Boy, this thread just went from taking a left turn from Dan's original question to a truly disturbing place.

[AnotherScott]

Boy, this thread just went from taking a left turn from Dan's original question to a truly disturbing place.

I think we ended up back where we started. To me, that pic says "don't stand so close to me."

[NoahZark]

I think we ended up back where we started. To me, that pic says "don't stand so close to me."

 

Well played, sir.

[Moonglow]

Boy, this thread just went from taking a left turn from Dan's original question to a truly disturbing place.

+1

[Moonglow]

I think we ended up back where we started. To me, that pic says "don't stand so close to me."

 

Well played, sir.

HA!

[richforman]

ReeseKeys and Moonglow, I agree with both of you. Reese, you're so right - I've long noticed that the other band members will very often become much more particular and critical about the keyboard sounds not recreating the record identically, than any standard they seem to apply to themselves or other instruments. Very frustrating! With your one or two instrument rig, they think you should be able to exactly duplicate all the synths, patches, layers, and production effects (and the real horn sections of course!) of every high end studio used to create hit records throughout the decades, but they're just playing the same guitar with the same sound all night long. And Moonglow, I emphatically agree with you too - there are huge business benefits to being really particular about recreating sounds and parts as close and accurately as possible, and I strive to do so within my limited means, because even if they don't consciously notice or think about it, overall the more accurate/faithful cover band recreation will just create a better overall impression on even the most casual listener.

[J. Dan]

I don't mind being expected to work miracles...it's part of what I enjoy about playing keyboards. I like the challenge. Go ahead and play your one trick pony while I play all kinds of cool sounds.

 

I really do believe that, whether they know the reasons or not, all of the little details are what push one band out above the rest of the pack. I don't care if they know it's because of the keyboard swoosh or not. I don't do it so that they say "wow, that keyboard player made the swoosh". I do it so that they think "wow, this band sounds great".

 

When there are far more parts than are humanly possible to play, then you have to pick the best parts that will contribute to the song. You can't always do everything. But in a song like this where it's one of the only distinguishable keyboard parts in the entire song, and I'm the keyboard player, I can't imagine why you wouldn't play it.