To Cover or Not?

Is an age old question. Should unsigned bands cover well known bands? Should you start or end with a much loved tune or simply stick to your own material.

I am in two minds here to be honest:

When a Cover Works:

In previous bands and projects we have often thrown a well known cover that everyone can get into - think "Whole lotta love" by Zepplin, "Paradise City" by Guns or "sex is on Fire" by the kings of Leon. They can really grab the audiences attention and make them engage with you then you can take them along the trip with your tunes or finish with a much loved song to end on a huge crescendo. Yep I have had some of my best audience reactions from playing covers live plus it's so easy to learn someone else's stuff.The Problem

The problem is no matter how good your stuff is due to the audiences familiarity with the cover your material just won't stand up. You run the risk of people simply going away remembering that 1 song (albeit, an awesome rendition of it) and you can fast become the band/artist that covers "xxxxxx". I have also seen many a fine musician love the reaction to a cover that they throw in another, then another and soon your playing 50% original and 50% cover versions.

My 2 Cents (about 4p for us Brits)

I have a few feelings on this one:

1) have 2-3 create covers in your arsenal ready to bring out if a crowd is flagging and you want to grab their attention. Do not play them in consecutive gigs and replace them every 3-6 months, so you don't get too known for that song alone. The constants should be your material.

2) Make it different - many artists have changed a cover significantly and really made it their own. In fact many launch their careers in such a way. Look at Limp Bizkit with Faith, Robbie Williams with Freedom or the late Sid Vicious with My Way!

3) A little bit of honest plagiarism. Lets face it you probably have a few artists in your CD collection that most people won't have heard of but one or 2 of their songs are simply awesome on first listen. Why not cover them! DON'T Claim they are yours, just don't claim anything! This is honestly what Metallica did in their early days - they didn't have enough songs to fill a set so padded it out with obscure yet catchy covers.

Use covers sparingly and cleverly. Plus if you are going down the road of altering an original to make it your own be prepared to play it a fair bit, as people really latch onto this.

Good Luck
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Tips for Singers

Here are a few free singing tips to help you develop your voice. I've chosen to write about a few important singing points that will help you to sing with less vocal tension, and expand your vocal range. These clues may sound a little bizarre at first, but you will soon understand their meanings when you put your voice to work!

Use a slight Irish accent when you sing. Sound weird?! I agree, it does sound a little strange to put on an accent when you sing. But there is a reason for this strange technique.
What would you say if I told you that the Irish accent is the perfect accent for singing? It has a few built-in-functions that allow the voice to release, keeping singing very easy and relaxed. Singing this way will engage only the correct muscles required to sing. The troublesome muscles (that try and interfere with the process) will sit perfectly still.
Here's an example....

If you say the word "Are" with a exaggerated wide mouth, you will feel the muscles under your chin begin to tense up. These are the muscles that you don'twant to play a part in the singing process. Give it a try......really exaggerate the "A" and feel your chin begin to get really tight. Ouch!

But if you say it in an Irish tone, kind of like how a pirate would say "Arrrrrrr matey!" When you say "Arrrrrrr", can you feel how your mouth stays quite narrow and very relaxed? You get this relaxed feeling because the Irish accent prevents the incorrect singing muscles from interfering...

...Good news if you're already Irish!

Use a cry-like-tone when you sing. This technique is used by some of the greatest singers in the world. Next time you hear Michael Jackson, listen to how he places a slight cry at the beginning of each note.

Placing a slight cry underneath your voice will dramatically sweeten your tone quality. It will also allow you to sing with much less vocal tension, making it easier to hit high notes. Such a simple exercise, yet so effective!

You can practice your crying tone by singing "hoooo" as in "Boo Hoo". Try to really exaggerate the crying tone, and feel the ease at which this allows you to produce your tone.

Personally, every word I sing benefits from this crying technique. Not only does it add sweetness to the tone quality, but it adds emotion to the performance as well.


Keep your tone slightly dopey to hold your larynx in a still position.
Your larynx is your "voice box" that sits in your throat. It is a grouping of muscle, cartilage, and ligaments. Inside the larynx are the vocal folds, or vocal chords. These are the muscular folds that vibrate to produce the initial sound. The sound that then passes up into your facial structure becoming amplified by the resonant spaces...

It is very important that the larynx is very stable when you sing. Singing with bad technique seems to engage the muscles that surround the larynx......the outer muscles of the larynx. When this happens, these muscles force the larynx up and down. This makes it incredibly difficult to sing high notes, and it also destroys tone quality. In other words, to sound any good, you must learn to disengage these outer muscles.

A very effective technique to achieve this is to use a slightly dopey tone when you sing. This dopiness will offset the larynx just slightly, gently pulling it down by a small amount. This slight offset will allow the larynx to hold it's position when you sing.

Singing with your larynx in a stable, central position is one of the most important singing techniques. When you can do this, you are halfway to singing at speech level ie: singing with the same ease as speaking. Of course, with the technique I just explained, the larynx isn't completely central. Because of the dopey tone, the larynx is a fraction lower than the central position.
As you continue to master this technique though, you can abandon this slight offset. The dopey tone will train the outer muscles of the larynx to relax. Once this is happening, you can reduce the dopey tone until it is completely normal. The larynx, which has now been conditioned to sit still, will not move.
In Summary

Here are the key lessons to remember from these free singing tips.

1) Sing with an Irish accent

2)Use a cry-like-tone to sweeten tone quality

3) Add a dopey

Write Great bass lines

How to write KILLER bass lines

This gets a bit techie from our bass specialist but ask any questions and I will pass them on!

Here goes

One thing that seems to give students a headache is choosing notes to construct a walking bass line. More often then not, the hang-ups are mental and can be easily remedied with some practice and a little theory knowledge. Let's look "under the hood" of walking lines to help and remove some of the mystery behind their construction.

One thing that seems to give students a headache is choosing notes to construct a walking bass line. More often then not, the hang-ups are mental and can be easily remedied with some practice and a little theory knowledge. Let's look "under the hood" of walking lines to help and remove some of the mystery behind their construction. First off when dealing with theory, there are really only three types of walking bass line phases:

1. Chord-Tone Based Lines
These are walking phrases which focus on the use of the chord tones. For example, if a Cmaj7 chord is seen, then the line would be utilizing the notes CEGB and we'll throw the 9 (D) in there as well.

2. Diatonic (or scalar) Based Lines
Scalar lines are walking phrases that use the notes of the parent scale for the chord symbol seen. This requires a little more in depth knowledge of jazz theory. For example, for the chord symbol Cmaj7 the notes from the C major scale would be used, and for a G7 chord the notes from the G mixolydian scale would be used and so forth.
3. Chromatic Based Lines
This type of line is a little trickier to master as it involves mixing chromatic or Non-Chord tones into the first two types of lines. The best way to begin using chromatic notes in walking lines is to use them to lead into another non-chromatic note. A great example of this is found in the bass line for "Killer Joe" where the chords alternate between C7 and Bb7. The bass line is C G C B Bb F Bb B so here the B which is in neither chord can be used to bridge the gap between chords