Cover song structure

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maserati_alfa
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 7:56 pm

Cover song structure

Post by maserati_alfa »

New user here, having a good time with this software. I am hoping to shorten my learning curve up a bit.
I working on a cover of The Who's Summertime Blues from the Live at Leeds album. Basicaly I'm loading an mp3 file of this into Reaper as my guide track. From there Im using markers to identify different parts of the song. Where I'm struggling is the song has no intro etc so I try something like C/V/P and so forth. Sometimes the verse sound more appropriate where the chorus is and things like that.
Now I am not trying to make an exact duplicate, but something with fills in the right places, the right basic groove, silence where appropriate, and total lenght the same. So I am trying to figure out how to make the appropriate structure in jamstix, or make the song with ez player pro, glue the midi together and import the entire song midi file into jamstix. Any thoughts?
dke_music
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:52 pm

Cover song structure

Post by dke_music »

I can only tell you how I approach it.

I break it down into repeatable parts ie. parts that can be reused on the song and then string it all together. Right now I'm working on Eight Miles High by the Byrds.
I decided those parts based on finding the repeatable part of the verse's ie: the parts that could be used over for each verse. So I ended up with a Verse of 2 bars 3 repetitions and a Pre/Lead In Verse of 2 bars 1 rep for the basic groove of the verse part of the song that repeats thru the song. Then I just had to do the parts that don't fit in the above the same way and then string it all together. It really didn't take very long once I got started on it and it's a song with really quite a few changes in beat compared to most songs.

I find most songs don't fit a nice clean x bar's of verse x bars chorus etc., type so breaking it down to common parts is neccessary. Once you've done that then you can go thru adding the fills/accents etc, that the song needs fairly quickly and easily.

Dan
maserati_alfa
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 7:56 pm

Cover song structure

Post by maserati_alfa »

Thanks for your reply. Sounds like a nice song to cover. I'll try your approach and see how it works out for me. I have to say that this software is some great stuff.
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