Playing along with a well-known song (who else starts their compositions/grooves like this?)

How to do this, that and the other. Share, learn, teach. How did X do that? How can I sound like Y?
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

Hi everyone

Do many of you fine musicians also sometimes start new projects by listening to a song and just jamming along in the background?
Then recording your own hits / notes, removing the original song, and using your recorded beats/notes as a starting point for a new creation (maybe even deleting the recorded beats/notes in due course).


Very much like using loops in many ways, though I find loops can often be a bit sterile and flat compared to, say, whacking out some poly-rhythmic groove on a Kontakt instrument alongside Fela Kuti and his 1970s band.

It's also nice to pretend to be one of Kuti's concert percussionists when I bang along (farly badly) to tracks such as this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tM0RE5yq5A


I particularly like the afrobeat genre.
However, I'm not very convincing as an inventor of African grooves (or at least my confidence isn't so high with this) - and, tbh, I don't think many non-African musicians are that good either at making up strong African grooves!

Perhaps some more quantised genres, eg techno, don't really benefit from jamming along to well-known tracks in their genres.
But particularly for tracks where I want a 'live' feel, eg afrobeat or dub reggae (where quantization or strict tempos etc would be detrimental), then I often like to start in this manner if I'm feeling brain-dead and in need of authentic inspiration.


Anyway, many thanks for reading.

I'd be interested to learn if many of you musicians also sometimes start your tracks like this?
(And maybe you also enjoy 'being in a famous band' when you want to relax...)

Doug

Post

Doug1978 wrote:Do many of you fine musicians also sometimes start new projects by listening to a song and just jamming along in the background?
no. does that disqualify me from being a "fine musician" ? :cry:

i do jam along with music in my itunes library, but that is just to improve my finger-drumming chops.

Post

No, but I do something similar. I generally find a tune I like, then copy the arrangement but use my own sounds instead.

Post

I sometimes jam om my guitar with songs from my library but with Live I prefer loading some samples and doodle around -which can lead to original ideas. On iPad you have apps called 'Session Band' where you can mute a particular track (guitar, piano etc.) so you can actually play 'with the band'.

Btw. nice to see some appreciation for Fela Kuti. Along with Antibalas and Orchestra Baobab easily one of my favorite african musicians.
Win8.1 64x/Live 9/Steinberg UR44/Roland HP 235/Edirol PCR-800/Eastman AC222/Washburn D12/Ch. Les Paul/Behringer BCF2000 & BCR2000/Korg Nanopad 2/Focusrite VRM Box/AT 2020/2xB5/E825s/Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro 250/Tannoy 502

Post

Generally if I'm listening to some new music, and it's in any way inspiring, I will end up grabbing a guitar, or plugging the midi keyboard in and playing along at some point - often get ideas this way. eg - given this groove, this key etc, what ideas would I play over it?

Post

No I don't do that, but thanks for the idea!

Post

d-s-m wrote:No, but I do something similar. I generally find a tune I like, then copy the arrangement but use my own sounds instead.
Sometimes even copying drum/bass/percussion structure (with different sounds of course) does work... :oops:

For me it's like Chinese whispers - you end up with a completely different song if you loosly follow another track... :tu:

Post

Thanks for the excellent replies, chaps. Some very good ideas there too :)

(I'm also surprised that it looks like there's only a handful of us doing this - it seems like a fun and obvious way to ''learn with the masters'' to me!).

Cheers,


ก็็็็็็็็็็็็็ʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔ ก้้้้้้้้้้้

Post

I'll take notes on arrangements from other songs. Sometimes, I'll change the key of a song and modify it from there, slight chord, tempo changes or add a swing feel, etc.
I also demo Soundcloud clips of drum sample collections from places like Loop Loft and grab my guitar or bass to jam along. If I get into a nice groove I'll buy the sample collection and build from there. I gotta be quick though since the demos are only a minute or so, hehe.

Post

It is a different application, but a long time ago I'd make some money once in awhile making singalong tracks for singers who wanted a particular song badly enough to pay (imo way too much) for a custom version because either the karaoke version was unavailable or wrong key or whatever.

Discovered the quickest way (for me) to crank out such-- Record the original into digital performer, use the click track feature to generate a tempo map. Then learn the song, and overdub each part playing along with the original. A lot of the songs had occasional timing changes, and it was a lot easier to lock a tempo map to the original and then play along each part, than to do all that from a blank slate with nothing except a rough-sketched song chart. It is lots easier to play along with a full arrangement rather than build one up from scratch. Especially if the tempo is conducted, with speedups and slowdowns.

Then after all parts overdubbed, mute the original track and dub off the vocal-free karaoke track and get paid.

Sometimes I'd do the same if I needed to learn a difficult song and write a chart for live performance. First there was repeatedly dropping the needle on a record to learn it. Then constantly rewinding tape. Quicker in digital, but locking to the tempo makes all the difference. If having trouble with a tricky progression in bars 34-39, lots easier if the sequencer knows where those bars are in the song, and you can set the sequencer to loop em until you figure it out. More intuitive than setting loop points in arbitrary absolute time.

Post Reply

Return to “Production Techniques”