most annoying things...

Cnev, I htink it depends on the kind of music. Lot's of classic rock/blues music is not really a solid composition. It's a harmonic foundation with a melody, and people just noodle around with it for as long as they want. To me it makes no sense to play a BB King song note-for-note as the notes aren't really important. In other genres of music, for example metal (or classical music) the songs are more composed and less improvised. You can't really change the riffs in most metal songs because those riffs are what define the song.

To me, if you play music heavily based in improvisation playing them note for note is only good as practice. Playing composed music might very well be note-for-note. I didn't hear any complaints last time I saw Mozart's Zauberflote about it being all the same as on the disc. :D

Sleu,

I guess I agree to some extent, yes playing playing some blues based stuff, that's where you'd want to go off an improv, because it lends itself to more of a jam type thing but I fail to see either the logic or the rational for someone to say that you are an android guitarist because you can play covers note for note..it doesn't make sense. For the record I never said going off and playing a song with your own twist is a bad thing I just take offense that somehow playing a song note for note is.

What is wrong with that? Is it somehow going to hold me back as a guitarist because I do that or is it someone else's personal opinion that I'm a hack if I do that.

Now I may be full of it but, if I can play all these songs note for note from various artists, wouldn't that force me to learn techniques that I don't currently have? If I'm a beginner and all I do is strum a few open chords, whether it's an original or someone else's how is that going to help me do triplets at 160 BPM or whatever?

Learning stuff note for note can be a way of learning the techniques employed by the "masters" so you can take it to the next level and use it in improvisation, or your own compositions. Many great painters started out copying the art of earlier great painters.

I'd actually disagree with ya there Cnev...I know, Babs would be sad right?

When I hear a cover, I want to hear the song I love, but differently. Think Elton's cover of Pinball Wizard!

and besides... what is the original in which the guitarist is trying to play note for note anyway? There are times that a dozen different solos are recorded and the guitarist will allow someone else pick the solo to go on the record, or shall I say corporate released product. So what did the note for note musician say at the concert when he saw his favorite rock icon play a lead to his favorite song that he had been learning the killer lead for weeks, only to hear a different lead during the performance? "He didn't play that right!" So mislead. :roll:

What always burned my donkey was getting into a band and either a: the other band members thought they knew everything but have never played a gig, or b: the band had been going for a while, playing gigs, I'm the new member, the lead singer leaves, and then the lead guitarist and the keyboard player decide to have it out and break up the band less than month after I have joined, leaving me and the drummer, so the drummer says he's had enough and then I go to work and my friends ask "So how's the new band going?" :roll: :roll:

Remember I qualified my response by stating that I don't necessarily think it's bad to go off and do your own thing I just don't think playing a solo note for note is something bad. I think there is value in that.

Taso - I mean Cosmo, your killin me, OK Elton's version ain't bad but it ain't the same as the Who's whether you like it or not.

oenyaw - what version? The version that was recorded that I am trying to copy if you understand that. I'll give you an example I am currently learning the song/lead to a Lou Reed song Sweet Jane..Now Lou recorded and played many versions of that songs with a bunch of different guitarists, but there is one very specific version that I am trying to learn that was recorded at a live show when he had two really good guitarists playing with him, it was on his albumn Rock N Roll Animal. That is a very unique version that really rocks but I don't like many of his other versions or for that matter covers of the song. It doesn't matter to me how many takes or who did what it's what was recorded and put out there is what I am trying to copy.

cnev: I was talkin in general terms, not about you. Heavens no.

Sweet Jane RocknRoll Animal. Dick Wagner and Steven Hunter. Absolutely beautiful work. If I lived driving distance from CT, I'd come over and work it out with you!!! Now that's something worthy of a notefornote playing.

oenyaw,

Finally someone that appreciates that album and those two guys. As soon as I heard that album I was blown away. They are amazing guitarists and I love every song on the album. But Sweet Jane was THE song that I have always wanted to be able to play and only that version. It's still a lot for me to digest but if I do only one thing in all my time playing I want to play that song note for note.

cnev,

As a Lou Reed fan, I decided recently to get some Velvet Underground. One of those bands I've always heard of, but never really got into. "White Light and White Heat"....you should check it out.

and... just remembered.

Dick Wagner is the guitarist on Alice Cooper's "Welcome to my Nightmare" (among others) and it is rumored that he played most of the leads on Kiss "Destroyer"

Here you go

http://www.wagnermusic.com/

Oenyaw,

White Light White Heat is also on a bunch of Lou's albums and it's on the Rock n Roll animal album too, and I like that version the best too. Bowie did on one of his albums and I love Bowie but it wasn't as good as the version on Rock n Roll Animal.

Both Dick and Steve played for Alice Cooper for a few years and toured and did a few of his albums. I beleive they did the album with School's Out, they also did pretty much all the guitar parts for Aerosmith's Get your Wings album and Dick wagner was the one that came up with the solo for Train kept a rollin, Aerosmith as a band wasn't skiloled enough to play those leads when they did that album, but they were never credited for it on the album, but if you do some checkin you'll see that it's true.

I like Lou Reed but I think it's Dick and Steve's guitar work that I really admired. I like Mik Ronson alot when he played with Bowie and I found out he did some albums/tours with Lou Reed also.

If you haven't heard Rock N Roll Animal in awhile check it out there are only like 5 songs but they rock, White Light White Heat, Rock and Roll (really cool song), Heroin, Sweet Jane etc.

cnev,
Got em all... Actually, my favorite Lou Reed album is "Magic and Loss" I'm not much of a lyric person, but his are great on that album.

I was lucky about, jeees, 18 years ago. I saw Mik Ronson and Ian Hunter in Tallahassee with a pathetically small crowd. They were great. I had a my drink on the stage in front of Ian Hunter. I was calling up song titles the whole night. No kidding, at the end of the show, the band was walking off, and Mik Ronson walked up to me and played "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue". One of those days I wish I could relive.

Learning stuff note for note can be a way of learning the techniques employed by the "masters" so you can take it to the next level and use it in improvisation, or your own compositions. Many great painters started out copying the art of earlier great painters.

Yeah, this is the way I approach it. When there's a song I want to learn, I almost always sit down and work out the solo note for note by ear to try and pick up some tricks. You can always learn something doing this, and when playing your own version of it, some of that stuff creeps in there. It's a great way to learn.

There's probably only a couple of songs that, if I were to play them live, I would play note for note just because I like the original version that much. Otherwise, I would try to put my own spin on it. I wouldn't particularly like to hear a cover band play everything note for note, but I don't really have a problem with it either.

King/Gnease,

Now your statements about "android" guitarists playing note for note solo's kinda rubs me the wrong way...I aspire to be one of those. That statement to me reaks of elitism. So what if I want to play solo's note for note the way the originals were done, what's wrong with that. Now I would never say that it would make me a well rounded "musician" but I can't beleive that learning all the solo's etc wouldn't go along way toward developing someone as a guitarist.

When I go see bands in bars (cover bands) I want to hear the songs played they way they were originally recorded. That's why I liked them in the first place. Most of the time, but not always, someones interpretation of a song is never quite as good as the original.

While there is discipline and a learning experience in replicating a piece while learning it, I rarely -- if ever -- see a reason for note-by-note performance reproduction. There is always somewhere else to take a piece, even if adding only nuanced differences that only some listeners may recognize. Sometimes it's in those small differences that the most interesting communication and innovation occurs -- maybe a musical joke, or an "oh yeah!" moment or even "huh? Why that?" Other times it can be a hit-'em-right-between-the-eyes changes that inspires or even challenges the listener.

Even classical musicians and conductors interpret their pieces -- notes have many more dimensions than just pitch. It's part of the art.

Elitist? Maybe. Reeking? Only sometimes.

gnease,

I understand what your saying, and like I mentioned I don't think that is a bad thing I just happen to think that replicating them note for note is not a bad thing either.

Part of the issue is we are such different levels of playing, I still consider myself a beginner and am still trying to learn all the techniques. I don't feel, and maybe this is wrong, that I should be playing "outside the box", when I can't even play inside the box proficiently or at least to my liking.

I'm sure if I continue to play and grow as a player that those sort of things may creep into my repetoire as I develop but I just think learning how to walk before I run is much more beneficial. If I can play songs by the masters well then I feel it's time to break away from the norm and do my own thing.

When I see local bands at a bar and they are playing covers I would absolutely rather have them play the songs note for note as I know what to expect and I like the song that way, most of the time when they do their own thing it just ruins the song. To some people that might be boring but at that level I would rather know what I'm going to hear then be disappointed when someone does their own interpretation of I song I love and just ruins it.