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Is originality dead?


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[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1502102523' post='3349279']
You could say that about a lot of Zeppelin's back catalogue - the number of copyright claims over the years is quite staggering!
[/quote]

Hardly surprising though... it's pretty blatant.

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[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1502104761' post='3349296']
Yep.. a blatant rip-off of songs that were blatantly ripped off of songs that were blantantly ripped off... etc.
[/quote]

Yeah that's one way of looking at it... some of the songs they've been sued for were blues standards and blues, as we all know, is idiomatically derivative... Except that Willie Dixon felt strongly enough that his intellectual property had been stolen to take them to court... and win. Robert Plant has been fairly honest about it... "At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do. It was decided that it was so far away in time and influence that ... well, you only get caught when you're successful. That's the game."

Any way, I'm not sure you could argue along the same lines for Dazed and Confused...

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTsvs-pAGDc[/media]

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I say this a lot on a number of threads, but it's because it's true......If you think there aren't any original bands, then you're not looking hard enough.
There's an incredible amount of original music that is interesting, passionate and isn't trying to copy the past, you just have to invest in some time to search it out amongst all the other noise. We're not in the 70s or 80s anymore, cool bands don't just appear on TV and the mainstream radio every day, but they're still out there touring and working ridiculously hard.

Also remember that melody is restrictive, there's only so many notes, but it's the context in which it sits that makes it unique, one melody over one set of chords will sound completely different over a different set of chords. So maybe you're right, melodies over G, C, D do sound derivative nowadays, maybe it's your brain crying out for something more harmonically complex, who knows.

Maybe we should make some suggestions.
I would say go and listen to Bent Knee, perhaps the song Land Animal.....and genuinely listen to the whole track:

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocn0gkJ2sMY"]https://www.youtube....h?v=ocn0gkJ2sMY[/url]

Si

p.s.
I play covers and originals, I too don't really make a distinction, but I'm lucky to play in a covers band that has that outlook. We do our own thing and have fun with it.

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I would love to play in an originals band, but trying to find one that wants to make music for the sake of it is pretty difficult. I only ever see delusional 20 somethings who reckon they can form a band, rehearse for a few months and start touring as soon as they have an albums worth of material up their sleeve. Obviously a multi album deal, fame fortune and women will follow shortly after. I'm nearly 50 years old FFS. All I want to do is express my musicality in some way.

I have sufficient kit to record a few things at home, but a total lack of vocals and insufficient skill with drum machine to make anything which can be published. And meanwhile I'll play in a covers band cos I enjoy playing to people who might appreciate what we do. As said before - playing covers is actually a challenge because you have to learn something that suits someone else's technique, not your own. We might, at some point, try to create some proper songs of our own if the warm up jam ever gives us a wow moment.

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Give me an average band attempting to be a little different and original over a regular covers band, any day of the week!
If you're happy forever doing birthdays, weddings and bar mitzvahs, and aspire to nothing else, then playing covers in the time honoured tradition is fine! But personally, I wouldn't pay good money to see/hear it.

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[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1502114665' post='3349370']
Why is it presumed anyone in a covers band can only play covers?
[/quote]

It's the internet Pete. There's only one way, the right way, my way, everyone else is wrong. :D

I've been in many originals bands and as I've said before there's too many bands trying to be too original and sacrificing melody, lyrics and form just to be seen as different.

I'll hasten to add, in all the originals bands I've been in I only fitted a bass line to melody and lyrics that someone else has written. I've even been in a band where the guy doing the writing wasn't even in the band!

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Until fairly recently ('50s..? '60s..?) it was rather a rarity to have singers or bands write their own stuff. The famous 'Tin Pan Alley' was the home of song-writers, who'd pedal their wares to any act that would adopt 'em, and make 'em into hits. Too many names to list, but 'original' material was more likely 'hadn't been snapped up yet by someone else', rather than self-penned. Little by little, helped by the success of bands such as The Beatles (OK, OK; and others, before and since...) groups would come up with a whole repertoire of self-composed music, not all of it of a very high technical standard, but sometimes popular. Many of today's 'originals' artists do not write nor compose; they have songs presented to 'em and take 'em up if they want to (and think they can sell the result...). None of this belittles the skills necessary for participating at any level, in any role in all of this. Those playing to the tune handed to 'em as 'dots', and those patiently explaining yet again to their colleagues how many they need to count to before ending the solo are all part and parcel of the same spectacle, and have merits, albeit different ones. Quite a lot of folks on the planet are capable of many facets, too; there is no 'red line'; rather a faint blur. It's all good. T'would be an odd world with only original stuff played only ever by one band, or the opposite: no creation of new stuff, ever, just the same old reheating of known material. Embrace it all, no..?

Edited by Dad3353
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[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1502114408' post='3349368']

If you're happy forever doing birthdays, weddings and bar mitzvahs, and aspire to nothing else, then playing covers in the time honoured tradition is fine!
[/quote]

Aspire to nothing else?

There are a lot of musicians that would love to get to the consistent wedding, bar , pub level of playing.

Blue

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[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1502118370' post='3349402']


Now that sounds like an interesting one* - do tell?


[size=3]*unless the punchline is, "it was a tribute band"![/size]
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We knew an arts student. Fantastic at poetry and drawing abstract art but very shy. He used to write the 'poetry' and sing it to the guirtarist who transcribed what he sang, brought it to us and we filled in the gaps.

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