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Old 10-14-2019, 04:26 PM
Pitar Pitar is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2010
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I can sing at the same pitch as Neil Young so I basically copy his work, not cover it. I don't have a problem with people thinking I'm channeling him because when I was coming up there was no such thing as covering. If you didn't copy an artist - playing and vocals - you just weren't worthy. So, we worked hard training our voices and playing skills to copy the music rather than not.

Because few could copy Neil Young they didn't attempt it and copied someone else. That was the way it went. You used what you had and expanded that as you got better but no one gave a nod to creative license back then.

When I came back to playing in 2005 after a 30 year hiatus the word cover was new to me, relative to playing published music, and at first I thought it to be a cop-out and rather disrespectful of the original artist's works. It took some time to temper that opinion and go with the flow. But, I still think that the person who trains his hands and voice to basically channel the original artists will be rewarded with better chops and a greater vocal range. It just follows.

As an example, I just can't take seriously anyone playing Jim Croce with a distinctive drawl. That's part of the fit and function of channeling the original artist.
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