Guitars Just Won't Stick to the Recording

[Blaze Esq]

I hang well. I can improvise. Not enough said.  My bread and butter is note for note playing. I can when guitar players say "Yeah I know that one." But then they don't really. Or there a ton of versions of it. I am a cover guy, who can hang with improvising and jamming. It just annoys me. A guitar player says "I know 'Gimme Three Steps'" But they don't hit the licks or something. I learned that note-for-note. I guess bass players have the same rep or something. It could be my note for note learning, but it does annoy me when I play the lick and the band is lost. I am new to this channel. I suppose I might want to start a topic called something like "Sitting in Frustration". Sololei frustration? They think we "just" play bass? It could just be me. Tell me which recording you want to play, or don't. If you don't, don't complain I did not "know" the bass line you wanted. If all of that makes sense. 

 

I just "jam" alot, but I find guitarists are so demanding without the discipline if they are not straight pros. 

[fretmeister]

I can’t think of anything more boring than playing everything identically to a record.

 

Most bands who wrote the originals don’t even do that.

[Dan Dare]

There's a balance to be struck when playing covers. The harmonic structure, melody and key phrases/licks must be there. Outside of that, there is room to be "creative", but beware of going OTT. It's a judgment call. The important thing is to know the original, so you aren't changing things because you cannot play it as written.

[Gothic]

I can't say I hate note for note covers but I do like to add my own spices on whatever I'm playing if it's not outside the song's vibe. If I understand your post correctly, however, I agree that there are some parts that band members kinda have to stick to the original recorded version, at least for the first few times you play the tune, until the band really has it down pat. I've been in a few situations where the drummer missed a change or the guitarist skipped a "signature" lick and the whole band was derailed.

[paul_c2]

How are you communicating with your fellow musicians, if not all reading sheet music?

[Gothic]

7 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

How are you communicating with your fellow musicians, if not all reading sheet music?

 

Well I used to throw dried figs at the drummer whenever he was rushing... 😁

[fretmeister]

7 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

How are you communicating with your fellow musicians, if not all reading sheet music?

I can read, but 99% of the cover bands I’ve been in have done it the traditional way. Working it out by listening to the album a billion times.

 

Properly arranged sheet music for top 40 covers isn’t very common because the players are usually relying on tab.

Even official tab books are wrong half the time.

[paul_c2]

27 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Working it out by listening to the album a billion times.

 

 

Horrendous inefficiency aside.......that technique relies on each musician listening to the SAME recording. And also agreeing on what the "intro", "verse", "chorus", "break" etc is, otherwise if during rehearsal you stop, you'll have to go to the beginning to restart playing it. Yuk! Of course, pop/rock music is much simpler than those genres where written dominates, so its not really that much of an issue.

 

Except when it is.

[chris_b]

You want to play every song exactly the same as the original?

 

You've got a better memory (and less imagination) than me.

[Lord Sausage]

2 hours ago, Gothic said:

 

Well I used to throw dried figs at the drummer whenever he was rushing... 😁

I just use 'the look'!

[Maude]

3 hours ago, Lord Sausage said:

I just use 'the look'!

 

Any Roxette single will do, and a bloody good use for them too!

[ZilchWoolham]

 

6 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

How are you communicating with your fellow musicians, if not all reading sheet music?

With words, perhaps? 

 

5 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

 

Horrendous inefficiency aside.......that technique relies on each musician listening to the SAME recording.

Hardly seems an insurmountable problem to me. 

 

5 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

 And also agreeing on what the "intro", "verse", "chorus", "break" etc is, otherwise if during rehearsal you stop, you'll have to go to the beginning to restart playing it.

Even people who don't read sheet music tend to know what a chorus is. 

 

5 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

Yuk! Of course, pop/rock music is much simpler than those genres where written dominates, so its not really that much of an issue.

 

Except when it is.

Your elitism is showing. But I suppose that's the point.

 

If you're a cover band who trades in somewhat accurate renditions I think giving the record in question a few spins might serve you quite well. There's more to a song than note values and pitch. After all, if they had invented audio recording in the 17th century, we wouldn't have academics bludgeoning each other over just what an historically informed Bach performance actually means all these centuries later. 

[Skybone]

There's always going to be "that" person in the crowd who is more than keen to inform you that "they didn't play it like that on the record".

[paul_c2]

17 minutes ago, ZilchWoolham said:

 

Your elitism is showing. But I suppose that's the point.

 

 

The point is more that where a musical genre is more complicated, then relying on interpreting and playing by ear becomes troublesome in itself; and its by necessity the parts need to be more organised than simply allowing/expecting each musician to transcribe. Also, "complicated" could mean more instruments. A rock band has say 3-6 instruments, a big band has 18 parts. If there is a chord to be played, how does the 2nd alto sax player know which note to play, because someone needs to play the (for example) 9th, but is it the alto sax, tenor sax, trumpet, trombone etc? Not so easy to determine by ear. And an orchestra might have 30-40 different parts.

 

Also don't forget that notated music also has much more than simply the notes and rhythm  - there is dynamics, marks of expression, breath, accent etc too, all of which goes to make up the 'feel' of the music, accepting that its impossible to notate everything and there is still scope for interpretation or differences between it and the original recording.

 

Also its about time saving (ie efficiency) too. If you have an amateur music group who rehearse once a week, not everyone has the time to sit and listen to a song and accurately transcribe it (and commit it to memory).

 

There's different skills: reading music; sight reading (which is distinct in itself); expression, playing in time/tune, transcribing, playing by ear, improvising etc. You are what you practice too - if you are an average musician in an amateur music group, you are probably used to reading and sight reading but might not be so great at playing in time, or improvising. A well rounded musician doesn't have a weakness, or has a way to work around eg not reading music so that they're not holding up the rest of the band; or they can adapt to different situations, genres etc without too much issue.

[ZilchWoolham]

I would never suggest that a symphony orchestra sit down and separately learn a movement by ear. I was reacting to a tone of dismissiveness I perceived in your post (which there is a possibility I could have misread, of course), and taking a bog-standard function band as an example. I stand by my view that if your audience wants to down a pint while shouting along to The Chain or Mr Brightside (for whatever reason) you'll be better fit to serve them well if you know what the song sounds like when they hear it on the radio. 

[Dan Dare]

5 hours ago, ZilchWoolham said:

I would never suggest that a symphony orchestra sit down and separately learn a movement by ear. I was reacting to a tone of dismissiveness I perceived in your post (which there is a possibility I could have misread, of course), and taking a bog-standard function band as an example. I stand by my view that if your audience wants to down a pint while shouting along to The Chain or Mr Brightside (for whatever reason) you'll be better fit to serve them well if you know what the song sounds like when they hear it on the radio. 

 

This might be a novel, even bizarre suggestion, but perhaps people could do both - listen to the recording and use the dots to ensure they get the subtler elements of something - the things that may not be obvious when listening to a recording - right.

 

If I had a pound for every time I've hard people complain about "dismissiveness" and "elitism" when someone suggests reading music/parts may be helpful...

Edited April 18, 2022 by Dan Dare

[ZilchWoolham]

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

 

This might be a novel, even bizarre suggestion, but perhaps people could do both 

 

Never said you couldn't. 

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

 

If I had a pound for every time I've hard people complain about "dismissiveness" and "elitism" when someone suggests reading music/parts may be helpful...

Not at all what I did. 

 

The user I quoted implied that the only viable way for musicians to communicate is via sheet music. I don't agree. For a big band? Sure. A chamber ensemble? Sounds reasonable. A large orchestra? Of course (and adding a conductor). Now, I will admit that I don't know what sort of band the thread starter plays in. But I am fairly certain that most of the gigging bassists on BC are part of function or tribute bands. And to suggest that any and every pub band to ever crank out a set of golden oldies should have the same sort of discipline and adherence to sheet music as the examples mentioned above would be ridiculous, unrealistic, and yes, I do think it would smack of elitism. 

And of course, if we are dealing with popular music, you run in to the problem of actually finding the sheet music. And if it does exist, you can be certain (barring old standards, musical numbers and the like) it wasn't written down by the composer. This is very different from classical music where the notation should conceivably contain everything the composer intended for the performers to know. 

 

I don't think reading sheet music is elitist. If you can learn a piece quickly from (fairly reliable) notation that sounds like something you absolutely should be doing. I have no gripes with that at all.  

Edited April 18, 2022 by ZilchWoolham

[Gasman]

Absolutely agree, Mr Zilch. If my covers band decides to add a new number to the set, there’s unlikely to be any sheet music available, but a version of the essential chord charts are usually available onlIne as a starting point, as are the words. The skill of non classical musicians like us is to hear the whole number, deconstruct it into the various parts using whatever tools (including our ears!) we have, then rebuild it as an exact copy or an interpretation as suits our purposes. Post-modern Jukebox are masters at the latter!

 

Funny thing is, although classical instrumentalists are superb technicians at reading parts and masters of their instruments, not many of them can or want to play by ear, busk or do the decon-reconstruct tricks that the rest of us do. My dad was a concert violinist, but could never get his head around a 12 bar blues...

[paul_c2]

I actually agree with ZilchWoolham, in that for rock/pop, listening to the music is even more important than eg listening to a classical/jazz piece, in order to perform it well. Whilst the rock/pop might be simpler in terms of repeating riffs and a more rigid verse/chorus structure, that simplicity - and also the space created by having fewer instruments playing - opens up the possibilities for detail/subtle differences in timbre, expression, small variations in timing etc which goes to create "the song" as a whole. The classical/jazz musician is no better than the rock/pop musician, its just that their skillbase leans more towards being able to play from reading rather than commit to memory; and more tightly playing "as written", in general. Of course there are shades of grey in there too, every element is important.

 

If you can't read music (of any kind - eg tab, leadsheet form, chord chart, etc) then that leaves listening then memorising as the way to accomplish the task in hand. I would say that's harder (to do consistently well). At the end of the day, reading is a "hump" you need to get over as a skill, but its fairly simple and intuitive, in that advancing time reads left to right; and higher notes are higher up on the staff.

 

Also its not really fair to "pick on" guitarists as non-reading, really the reason is its a function of the type of music a guitar is typically featured or called upon in. The average guitarist simply doesn't need to read music because its not that relevant. But they need to develop some alternate way of being able to work alongside other musicians in a rehearsal situation and play the right thing at the right time as the others.

 

Another myth to bust on "reading on guitar" is that its unnaturally hard - its not - violin, viola, cello, etc players do it all the time, yes there's different positions and different ways to play the same thing, but that's true of almost every other instrument too and just a part of playing that instrument.

[Downunderwonder]

So many non reading strawmen playing covers.

 

I learned to read music from age 8. I didn't learn to read bass clef until age 42. In between I played a lot of rock and pop covers and then improvised inprovising jazz before needing to read bass to keep up.

[Leonard Smalls]

6 hours ago, ZilchWoolham said:

But I am fairly certain that most of the gigging bassists on BC are part of function or tribute bands.

We should do a poll.... I'm a gigging bassist who does neither functions or tribute!

 

[stewblack]

I know the perfect guitarist for the op. 

I left his band because of his insane insistence on every member regurgitating not only the exact notes of the recording but the precise sounds too.

It was hell.

[lowdown]

[wateroftyne]

21 hours ago, paul_c2 said:

How are you communicating with your fellow musicians, if not all reading sheet music?

 

ha ha ha

[FinnDave]

My next door neighbour plays Viola in several orchestras, and has been amazed when she comes to one of my gigs that everyone remembers their parts without any sheet music - something she, as a classically trained musician, finds impossible.