Anyone else take 'liberties' with other people's music?

[LindaW]

I have a habit of re-writing or creating chord/fingerpicking patterns for songs that I hear where there are no available tabs or for those I can't yet play. I do eventually learn to play it the way the artist does but I find myself kind of unconcerned about it, like I have every right to bugger someone else's music -- LOL!

A lot of times I'll sing the song and simultaneously work out the chords/fingerpicking to match what I'm singing. Others listening to what I've created seem not to mind, except my daughter who is stickler for exacts.

Anyone else do this? I assume that type of creativity probably flows towards the norm? Or am I 'weird' this way?

[Malcolm]

Love Willy Nelson's songs. His lyrics are just great. However his chord progression are a little too complicated for us I have to dumb them down for our band.

I've been known to dumb down a lot of things. Extensions for us never go beyond maj7's and minor chords get ignored or end up being major, most of the time.

Perhaps not right, but, I have yet to have someone from the audiance call it to our attention. They keep asking us back ........

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by LindaW

...Anyone else do this? I assume that type of creativity probably flows towards the norm? Or am I 'weird' this way?

Hi Linda...
All the time. I have little-to-no desire to play note-for-note arrangements of other's recordings.

[Fambroski]

Originally Posted by LindaW

... Or am I 'weird' this way?

Oh you're strange alright. LOL. Hey, you're an artist and you're being creative. That's the kind of artist we (or at last I) aspire to, the ones with their own character.

Talk about taking liberties sometimes I'll trash a cover (Norwegian Wood) or sometimes I'll just let what happens happen (Witchita Lineman). I figure I'll never be better a doing Willie Nelson as Willie Nelson, but I can do a good me. I'm willing to bet that most artist are always honored to hear their songs interpreted with love and passion. I like your path.


Ps. Both of the songs above are posted on my site below if you're curious.

[hepkat63]

I've been playing for over 30 years, and when I first learned to play the older fellow who was my mentor (he was an accomplished music educator) would work up several arrangements of songs with me... everything from the Stones to Beatles, Bruce, James Taylor, etc. Very rarely did they mirror the recorded versions. A lot of key changes, chord substitutions, inversions, etc.

In most instances as I grew as a musician (majored in music-percussion) I learned to play the songs as written, but when performing I still use some of the arrangements that we worked up years ago because they are interesting. It never fails that someone in the crowd at an open mic will try to "correct" me and "show" me how the song is supposed to go.

[DaveG]

As Tommy Emmanuel said, "The only songs I play the way the author intended are the ones that I write myself."

[ricks]

Linda,
I think letting the music get "into" you and then letting it come out as YOU is the only way to do it. We are not the original artist who created that music. They had an idea, and that is how it came out of them.
When we learn a song or tune the idea for me is to let it come out of me as me, not trying to be a copy of someone else. That is what makes it you playing, and not just a CD playing in the background.

So for my 2 cents, your doing what you should.

[daleyfolk]

What often happens, is I'm bad at copying and what I think is a nice replication of the original unintentionally ends up being a unique version!

[yardism]

Originally Posted by Fambroski

I figure I'll never be better a doing Willie Nelson as Willie Nelson, but I can do a good me. I'm willing to bet that most artist are always honored to hear their songs interpreted with love and passion.

Ps. Both of the songs above are posted on my site below if you're curious.

3 things.
1. I think you'd make a fantastic Willie Nelson. Halloween isn't that far away...just saying.
2. Grateful Dead was so impressed with a revamped cover of Friend of the Devil, that the adopted the version as their own.
3. Great website Miche... check it out folks.

Originally Posted by lofapco

Too many tabs are just plain wrong with what my ears hear. So even with tab, I add/subtract/re-do things all the time. Matter of fact, sometimes I even go so far as to re-write my own stuff!

No kidding about erroneous tab. Nature of the beast I think. Some folks are more interested in posting a tab with their name on it than they are about trying to get it correct.

[piper_guitarist]

I personally never play a song the same way twice, honestly. It all depends on my mood/the setting.

[mikelhenry]

I prefer to call it "artistic license".

[mmmaak]

I usually play stuff note-for-note unless I feel that I can actually improve on the original (which is rare, due to my very limited creativity!). It isn't always a bad thing, though. Ear-training aside, it offers important insight into an artist's technique and style, especially when the only source available is an audio recording.

[DHM1951]

It depends..I have a number of songs I figured out from memory (Lady Came from Baltimore)...and got them all wrong...most, for one reason or another I have reworked closer to the original. Wth a few others (Comin' Back to Me-Jefferson Airplane is one) I actually came quite close....

Some songs have a distinctive hook, progression, etc,,,which if you dont play sounds like you really dont know the song. Alot of hook based pop is like that.

Like others have said, learning what the artist played, and how the artist played it is great mind-finger-ear exercise....one the other hand, the evolution of a tune..I hear it and play it back slightly different to some one who plays if different.... is the soul of folk music.

It really depned on where you are going with your music...if youre doing it for fun and relaxation, do whatever you will. If you are performing you need a certain level of polish...which it often obtained by following an existing arrangement.

I lke the CDs that include alternate version or alternate takes, they suggest that often the best know arrangement isnt the only one...theres a film of the Stones recording "Sympathy for the Devil"...and they must do it a dozen different ways...


Don Miller

Anchorage AK

[paul84]

Which is the 'right' version anyhow? The one on the studio CD? The one of the live CD? The one you just heard play live?

I was at a workshop recently with Dos Ross - he says he never play a song the same way twice. Some of his tabs have 'Improvise here' on them. He was pointing out that people take the version on a CD and consider that 'the definitive version' - for him it isn't and he enjoys it when folk go off the beaten track with his music.

[vac4873]

I make an effort to be faithful to the essence of a tune. Sometimes that requires me to stay pretty faithful to the original rendition. That being said, I strive to find "new" ground for tunes that I like a lot, and maybe present them in a different setting or background. Example: I do an acoustic guitar version of "Carry on My Wayward Son", incorporating most of the instrumental interludes by the various instruments, and my wife and I do a version of Toto's "Africa" on acoustic guitar and mandolin with one or two percussionists - I play the insistent rhythm hook quite percussively, and she reproduces the keyboard runs and solo on mandolin pretty accurately. The percussionist plays djembe or congas and if there's a second, shaker and vibroslap or other spicy sounds. Of course, the texture of the song changes considerably as there is no electric guitar, keyboard, or drum kit, but it still sounds very much like "Africa".