Ness K Vs. Cover Bands

Now, seeing as this is my 1000th post

Congratulations, Denizen! :D

well, me personally, i love rap/hiphop music, i actually write rap lyrics, so that technically makes me a rapper/guitarist...anyway, i agree with what cnev was saying about rappers and their enviroments making them the lyricists that they are.

Taste is one thing, but a bunch of guitarists talking about how little skill other musicians have (expescially if you have 'grunge' in your name) is so horrendously pathetic that it would have probably won an oscar for best dialogue if the irony had been intended.

:lol: Where is that hand clappy icon.. grr

While I am not as strong about it as Arjen.. There is some rap that I think is just amazing. But not everything is for everyone. For me, I like some rap better than old blues... but I dont really call myself a rap fan.. and yet I call myself a blues fan.. :shock:

Its all opinion.

I just realized that I make some of the most "NO DUH" posts.. ya'll need to shut me up.

Jim

yeah ignar is right about musicians nit picking what is art and skill and what is not. Sometimes art can be anything and nothing at the same time, thats what makes art so loveable, its almost impossible to define.

Sometimes art can be anything and nothing at the same time, thats what makes art so loveable, its almost impossible to define.
Oooo goody! I get to use my favorite quote about "what is art"!

The most important thing in art is The Frame.
For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively -because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins.
You have to put a 'box' around it because otherwise, what is that crap on the wall?
If John Cage, for instance, says, "I'm putting a contact microphone on my throat, and I'm going to drink carrot juice, and that's my composition," then his gurgling qualifies as his composition because he put a frame around it and said so. "Take it or leave it, I now will this to be music."
After that it's a matter of taste.
Without the frame-as-announced, it's a guy swallowing carrot juice.

- Frank Zappa

OK Arjen, here is a rap song I made up over 25 years ago before rap became popular. I made up this little rap about a co-worker whose wife would go down to Rio de Janeiro every year to see her mother. She would spend a fortune, and my friend would work 16 hours a day trying to keep up. Anyway, I can still easily remember it, here it is:

Ben's workin' all day
Yeah he's breakin' a sweat
Payin' for a trip
For his lovely wife Janette

Yeah he's skippin' meals
His waist is gettin' narrow
While his wife's havin' fun
Down in Rio de Janeiro

But Ben don't mind
He's thinkin' of another
He knows that his wife
Needs to go and see her mother

Well he finally goes home
And makes a TV dinner
When he gets a call
From his friend Mike Zinner

They're talkin' 'bout a booth
That they might rent in a mall
When he's interrupted
By a long distance call

Ben, it's just me
Said his lovely wife Janette
Ben, I'm not coming home
At the time we set

I need some more time
Please understand honey
I need to see my Mom
So send a lot more money

OK, there you go, an original rap made up by me many years ago. I think I spent all of ten minutes making this rap up. And it is totally true, the names and places are all actual.

Rap doesn't take much talent at all if you ask me, I have great difficulty writting a real song.

This isn't to say rap is easy but this discussion made me think of this and I think it's entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5BGuOUOHcQ&feature=related

But they say 27% of all rap and 42% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

not getting into the whole rap thing because at the end of the day its all music, who am i to judge?

In terms of cover bands, i think its a great way for "real" musicians to make some easy money to support their music addiction.

I also think that it can be used to showcase an artists creativity in their interpretation of the original piece. I think stylistic cohesion is important in any bands repertoire, and rearranging tunes to fit into setlists not only helps with ones compositional skills, a lot of people appreciate the fresh spin on a tired idea. Imagin being able to sing along to a song you have never heard before. All right~!

Kent:

WesL As with Ken, you just wrote down the words (btw, the second line of the first verse has less syllables then the other verses, that wouldn't work well on a statix beat, espescially in the beginning). That's not writing a rap song. Can you record yourself rapping it, I can send a beat if you need to. I am pretty good with words, atleast in Dutch, and I can write in a lot of different structures. But there is a big difference between a piece of paper with some words on them and a cd with rap on it. I admit: I can't speak as fast as the pro's do, and certainly not with that clarity. I also can't copy a lot of their lines because I simply run out of breath way before they do. And if I do slower and shorter lines I don't get the tone, I sound like a lame wuss. If you and the rest find it easy, then props to you all. And I would like to hear a recording. ;) For the record, I don't listen to a lot of rap, rap is even the reason I dont bother with MTV and such. It's just the general principe. :P

Kent: Art cannot merely be definied as 'whatever whomever decides is art', everything is partly definied by what it is not else there would be no point in having the word. If everyone is called John it doesnt make sense to call someone John in hopes of sperating one from the rest. Take this example:

A brilliantly skilled stonecutter, a true genius, makes two amazing and completely similar statues. One of them he calls 'art', and he has it send to the fanciest musea in the world. The second he just calls a funnily shaped rock, he keeps it in the basement. After a while he asks for the first statue to be send back to him and he places it next to the second one, which had never left the basement. Now you walk into the basement and see the two identical statues standing next to each other. According to you one is art and the other is not, even though you have absolutely no way to judge which one is art and which one isn't except by asking the artist. And if he lies and says the second one is art the statue that once was art now isn't, so the musea retrospectively exhibited non-art: a mere rock.

Surely you agree we need a better definition, atleast one that allows museum curators to wake up every day without having to fear a few artist decided that their entire exhibition was now considered worthless?

I'm not sure why my original post was deleted...Mods? but I'll write it again from what I remember. Ignar hadn't replied at the time but I basically said the same thing. Wes what you wrote were some rhyming verses. That doesn't make it a rap song. It's not just as simple as writing a few lines and call that rap.

There's so much going one with the beat and multisyllable words etc in a good rap song what you wrote isn't even close to rap.

I'm not a huge rap fan but I absolutely think there is a talent to do that and not just everyone can do it.

I think it's similar to the shredder posts, if you don't like what the artist does you (and I don't mean anyone in particular) finds some reason to cut them down. For shredders the usual line is they don't play with feeling! What the heck does that mean anyway. For rappers everyone dismisses them as having no talent. why is that? Is it because alot of rappers have that thug image and somehow we can't phathom how someone like that could have any talent.

It's one thing to say that you don't like it but to say that shredders don't play with feeling or rappers don't have any talent is wrong in my opinion.

I'm not sure why my original post was deleted...Mods?

I checked all the way back to April 18th and can't find that anything was deleted from this thread. The "Moderator Logs" show everything that each mod does and to what thread/post we do it, and there just wasn't anything there! Are you sure you didn't overlook it?

Electra,

wow that's weird because I know I posted it maybe somehow I didn't hit submit but I thought I did...oh well it seemed odd if it got deleted because I didn't say much in it and definitely nothing to offend anyone

Here's my rap thing. It won't be a song until there's a tune.
No, I'm not going to upload an audio or video of me rapping it.
I don't like rap.
A three year old citing a nursery rhyme is far more entertaining . . .
Grown men doing it are rather comical.

Just read it as fast as you can and the beat comes out.

Pentatonic, Diatonic, 12 bar blues
Half-note, whole note
I'm gonna need a Muse

Stratocaster, Telecaster, Tremolo bar
Half-step, whole-step
What is wrong with this guitar?

Syncopated strumming pattern, I'm not certain
Barre chord, open chord
Ouch! My fingers hurtin'

Maple fret board, locking tuners, all are new
Root note, muted note
Can I get that tab from you?

Chord progression, root position, up down strum
Reverb pedal, heavy metal
Cannot sing it, so I hum

Sounds not good, not like it should, cheap guitar
Scales a bore, practice more
Soon I'll be a rock star

Travis pickin', Metronome tickin', stayin' in beat
Chewin' gum while I strum,
And keepin' time with feet

Now I've got it! Yeh, I nailed it. Once again.
Oh darn, messed up
Finger flubbed it. Try again.

Chromatic scale, transposition, open fret
Attenuate, accentuate?
I want to know what strings to get!

Monophonic, polyphonic, arpeggio
Lydian, Dorian
All this I need to know

Chord transition, finger position, way to slow
A form scale, E barre chord
All this stuff I need to know?

Are you sure all this stuff I need to know?
Are you sure? All this stuff?
All this stuff I need to know?

The lyrics were originally intended to go with Arjen's “Darn Blues”
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=361288&songID=6081828

ken,

Not for nothing but what you and Wes are calling rap is like comparing a 1st graders writing to (name any accomplished writer) there is no comparison. It would be like me plunking a couple notes on a guitar and comparing myself to Yngwie.

Of course you don't have to like rap and I personally don't like most of it, mainly because there are to many copy cats doing the same ol thing, but some of the truly innovative rappers have talent.

eminem is one that comes to mind. He's got some really crazy rhymes going on over some very difficult syncopated beats that man for me it's hard to imagine just getting the words out that fast and have them flow so smoothly.

Rappers have talent whether you want to beleive it or not.

Not that I'm a big rap fan anymore, but I do think its a little over simplistic to just look at the lyrics and say "I can do that" and dismiss a whole genre as talentless. I'm probably going to get torched for making this analogy but, heck, if that were the case we could easily throw out the blues. Let's try this for example (I use this one only because I'm currently trying to learn to play this song and its one of my favorites):

"Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck, you know I wouldn't have no luck at all.
Hard luck and trouble been my only friend.
I've been on my own ever since I was ten.
Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl...."

Now I'm certainly no expert but can it GET any simpler than that. Now take the music that goes along with it, nothing ridiculously complicated, inovative, etc...I dare say its pretty simple as well, but it's considered a classic blues tune and has been covered by some of the greats (including Hendrix himself). I'm sure a lot of people who aren't into blues music could easily hear this tune and say the same thing I hear people saying about rap lyrics/music.

Not to compare the 2, but, in my mind, its not a whole lot diferent than people putting down BB King because "he ONLY plays a couple of notes". It's not necessarily the notes he's playing but, to me, it's how he delivers them that makes him so good and I'm sure the same thing applies for many fans of rap music. Music's not a science and what I might like, or consider talent, or what just plain moves me isn't the same as everyone and vice versa so why bother putting down what someone else might be into as something less than worthy just because it's not what I'm into.