I don't play in a band, but I do have a thought on singing though. I remember I started with songs that don't rely on much of a voice that you can kinda talk your way through, like Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles and Johnny Cash's When the Man Comes Around. After that I was kinda hooked and now I don't really enjoy playing/won't practice songs that I don't know all the lyrics to.
This thread reminded me of a band called Love Canon (see youtube). I think when everyone is all in, and everybody shares singing duties, and everybody has serious chops (see the mandolin player), and maybe it's a side project for some of the band members, and nobody takes themselves too seriously, it works pretty well.
Last edited by MadMountMan; Aug-24-2015 at 3:03pm.
-Brian
Just an acoustic guitar player that wanted to learn tunes upside down...so I bought a mandolin. Kentucky KM270 to go with a '78 Alvarez Yairi DY57S, a '76 DY57 tuned CGCFGC, and a Gretsch Jim Dandy
This is so true. The world is full of singers without conventionally "pretty" voices,
without much range etc. For example Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Dr John,
Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix etc. [You could sing their songs... ]
Here's the key, in my experience. Record yourself singing 50 songs
in your favorite style, with rhythm guitar or mando. Make sure the key isn't too high or
low. Some of the songs will sound good. Work on improving them. These will become
your greatest hits There are people who are outright terrible singers, though...
The recording won't lie. I've found about 15 songs which sound reasonable, are
funny, interesting or just good songs. Wouldn't ever try to be the lead singer in a group,
but a change of pace is nice, and no one has said "you sound awful...".
Last edited by Joel Glassman; Aug-27-2015 at 3:13pm.
Well ... Bands play cover songs all the time. I believe there are two basic choices - originals and covers. If you're not doing your own material, then you are playing covers, along with the vast majority of bands. In order to advise you on this issue, it is necessary to know what kind of band you are in. Without this context, it is impossible to determine how far afield the choices you mentioned and any others would be.
It's worth noting that "Fantasy" is twenty years old, and "Orinoco Flow" goes back even further, to 1988. I don't think these qualify as "modern." That would be Ingrid Michaelson or, even more current, Ryn Weaver. Choices like this can be really smart, and make you seem really hip. My former band - a mash-up of skiffle, Americana, Gypsy jazz, and jug band - whipped up a cover of Willie & Merle's "It's All Going To Pot" before it was even released as a single. That was pretty hip. Without being ironic. I'm sorry, I meant "ironic."
The downside of doing covers is you can sound ordinary or stale, especially if you do the same songs everyone else does. It seems like there is a list of maybe 200 songs that most of the performers in this town choose from, because you hear them all the time. That's what I liked about that band, and the one I was in before it - not too many standard issue songs. Now that I don't have a steady gig (the Italian mandolin restaurant gig is not relevant to this discussion), I pick up the occasional sitting-in spot. The bass player from that band started a second band, doing bluegrass, old-timey, and Gypsy jazz, but since the only remaining members are the rhythm section, they have had a revolving cast of front men and lead players. I've done a few of these, with mixed results, as the front man brings his/her material, changing things as a result. I rehearsed with this Monday's choice, and I am dreading this like nothing else in a long while. For the first time I am going to be playing Bad Company's "Feel Like Making Love," Kenny Loggins' "Danny's Song," James Taylor's "Fire And Rain," and some other tired material I have so far successfully avoided. A gig's a gig, and I need the money, but ...
Last edited by journeybear; Sep-05-2015 at 9:08pm.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
Furthering Mandolin Consciousness
Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!
Oh, and if you want to see and hear this for yourself, train wreck or not, it will be available via webcam: http://schoonerwharf.com/webcam.cfm And we've been added to tonight's lineup as well, last minute fill-in for a cancellation, 7-11 PM EDT. I'll be the good-looking guy closest to the camera.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
Furthering Mandolin Consciousness
Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!
You guys ever hear what " iron horse " has done? Freakin excellent band...
I thought the issue was covering pop tunes.
I don't write music so every thing I play is a cover. None of it could be called pop music, though.
If you can do it like this I don't think it matters if it's a cover or not. Excellent.
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
For my taste, that "Rocket Man" cover was pretty awful. (Not saying those guys can't play well, but....) I really hate doubling the instrumental tempo/groove under the vocals. I suppose it could be worse...if covered by Jimmy Sturr as "Rocket Man Polka".
Hey let's double the beat under something like "Strange Fruit" or maybe, the Velvet Underground's "Heroin". Groovy man!
I hated most of those "Pickin' On" discs. The ones where there was a country/folk connection with the original bands being covered (Grateful Dead, Doobies) turned out better, because the grooves weren't completely reworked. I mean "Cumberland Blues" had Garcia playing banjo on the original Workingman's Dead version....radical change (no drummers). Hated nearly every track on the Pink Floyd disc.
Sorry, I want to hear rock stuff as rock, not some "grassed up" travesty. But... that's my taste. I remember when that Big Mon CD came out, all the grassers were livid over John Fogerty's swampybilly/Tele pickin' take of "Blue Moon of Kentucky". (I liked it.)
And here's Goose Creek Symphony doing my favorite version of "Uncle Pen" recorded back in 1971.
"You can dish it out, but you can't take it!" - Rico Bandello (Edward G Robinson) in Little Ceasar
"And here's Goose Creek Symphony doing my favorite version of "Uncle Pen" recorded back in 1971."
Yep, one of, if not the fav.
"Be kind to the band; they never get to dance"
I just have to say that some covers are cool but most of the time when I come across a "modern pop cover" I give it a thumbs down. Thats just my two cents. I feel like too many of them are novelty and nothing more.
My significant-other read your post and dared me to make a polka version. A (non)bluegrass travesty, surely, and my mandolin playing isn't very good either. Here you go, with the assistance of ChordPulse automatic preset "polka" backing track, voila, Rocketman Polka, er well sort of, if you can even recognize the tune in all the noodling around:
Oh that was horrible! But it's fun to mess with weird combinations of stuff once in a while.
That is a wonderful version of Uncle Pen, thanks for posting it! I especially like the bass. Cool vocal harmonies too. And nice fiddle. Good stuff.
I dare you to now do "The Blue Moon of Nebraska (Kentucky) Polka"! (ah-One-ah, ah-Two-ah, ah-Three-ah, ah-Four-ah.....)Here you go, with the assistance of ChordPulse automatic preset "polka" backing track, voila, Rocketman Polka, er well sort of, if you can even recognize the tune in all the noodling around:
Mandos: Coleman & Soviet ovals; Kay & Rogue A5's; Harmonia F2 & mandola
Ukuleles: 3 okay tenors; 3 cheap sopranos; Harmonia concert & baritone
Banjos: Gretsch banjolin; Varsity banjolele; Orlando 5-string; fretless & fretted Cümbüs o'uds
Acoustic guitars: Martin Backpacker; Ibanez Performance; Art et Lutherie; Academy dobro; Ovation 12-string
Others: Maffick & First Act dulcimers; Mexican cuatro-menor; Puerto Rican cuatro; Martin tiple; electrics
Wanted: charango; balalaika; bowlback mando
So, inspired by someone who was doing some busking, tonight i rolled through some stuff, singing and playing (riffs and all) on mando, and I might go out and do some busking this coming weekend just in tribute to days and people gone by.
Traffic is pretty cool (Dear Mr. Fantasy and Low Spark), various old Stones, Van Morrison (including Into the Mystic), Neil Young, and who knows what else. Jethro Tull works well acoustically, as do many songs of the seventies. Even various pop songs like Rob thomas' Lonely No More are easy and fun to play.
If this topic hadn't already started my thinking in this direction, I might not have been as inspired by the busker. Thanks for the topic!
----
Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.
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