Project 2: Task 1b: Cover Song Research

'In my time of dying' by Bob Dylan (covered by Led Zeppelin)

My first song which i will be analysing is 'In my time of dying' by Bob Dylan (recorded in 1962 for his debut album), this song was then covered by Led Zeppelin on February 24th 1975. The instrumentation throughout Bob Dylan's version is very raw with just his guitar and vocals throughout the whole of the song compared to Led Zeppelin's version with their very lush instrumentation, including electric guitar, wailing vocals, thick, heavy drums and thumping bass.

Both are in a standard blues style with a slide guitar playing throughout the whole song. The way in which Dylan plays is very basic, with very sloppy playing, in which he very occasionally misses a note or doesn't complete a chord. The way in which jimmy page plays compared to this is very different, as he plays very elegant and slow. Here, Page lets the notes ring out. Led Zeppelin's version then progresses from a slow bluesy intro into a fairly hard rock song, with overdriven guitars and crashing, heavy drums, creating a very thick and dark sound. The Led Zeppelin version then later progresses into almost a jam session between the band and turns into a completely different song. This is also very different to Dylan's as the instrumentation doesn't progress at any point in the song.

The production also differs dramatically, with Dylan's being very bad quality and basic with no other instrumentation apart from his singing and guitar. Here, he lets some notes ring out louder than others and occasionally plays an incomplete chord. As stated before, the recording is very raw, however I personally feel that this captures the whole feel in the song as it sounds like it could have been recorded in the 1920's (with all of the classic blues artists like Robert Johnson). Their is also rumour that Bob Dylan was unprepared for the recording and used his girlfriends lipstick holder as a slide and turned down any second takes in order to save money.

This just proves that Bob Dylan was not very concerned about the production and instrumentation in the song, but rather just the message. Bob Dylan recorded this song at Columbia recording studios.
Unlike Led Zeppelin's version in which they were at the height of their careers, so they would have had the best equipment at their disposal. In my opinion, the production of this song is very good quality and still sounds as fresh today as the day i first heard it. Led Zeppelin recorded this cover at both 'Hedley grange' (a high quality studio in which both the Rolling Stones and Zeppelin recorded their songs) and olympic studios. The length of the song also differs dramatically between the two artists, with the Bob Dylan's being just a measly 2:39 compared to Led Zeppelin's at a massive 11:06.

bob dylans version:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDOFFO9Bx3k
Led Zeppelins version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZgblTKscX0




'Mr Tambourine Man' by Bob Dylan (covered by The Byrd's)

My second song which i will be analysing is 'Mr Tambourine Man' by Bob Dylan (recorded on 15 January 1965 for his album 'Bring it all back home'), this song was then later covered by The byrds (on January 20th 1965). the original by Bob Dylan is again, very raw sounding with very basic instrumentation. Unlike The Byrd's cover, with great instrumentation to the whole song, almost creating a wall of sound for the listener. The instrumentation through out The Byrd's cover is also very well produced with some very jangly guitars and thick basslines. The drummer also holds the beat really well with it being steady and perfectly matching the styles that the guitars are playing.

Both songs are in completely different styles, with Bob Dylan's version being folk and The Byrd's version being early an form of psychedelic era of the 60s. the production style of The Byrd's version is very different to Bob Dylan's despite being recorded in the same studio just 5 days apart, with The Byrd's version being very lush and large sound with the reverbs and 12 string guitars used throughout the whole song. Unlike Bob Dylan's version, being very basic with next to no production techniques added to the song. The arrangement of the cover does not change, with it still being the same structure throughout the whole song. Both of the songs have a completely different running time with Bob Dylan's version being 5:29 and The Byrd's version being 2:18.

i couldn't find a studio version for this song due to youtube copyrights so i have a live performance instead

bob dylans:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeP4FFr88SQ

The Byrd's cover:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyOzGPbn2tg

'Twist and shout' by The Top Notes (covered by The Beatles)

my third song that i will be analysing is 'twist and shout' written by The Top Notes (recorded in 1961)  the song was then made famous by The Beatles for their album 'please please me' (recorded in 1963).

The version by The Beatles was composed in a sort of rock and roll style with the same kind of instrumentation as The Top Notes apart from the singing and the saxophone that is very prominent throughout. The singing done by The Top Notes was sung a lot faster than that of The Beatles. I personally prefer The Beatles style as they made it catchier than the original while still retaining the roots of the original songs. At the time of The Beatles recording, John Lennon was suffering from a severe cold. This gave the song an almost gravelly quality to his voice, which later made it onto the actual studio recording. i feel that this is one of the reasons why the song was so popular. Both songs have roughly the same running time with the Top Notes version running at 2:05 and The Beatles version running at 2:32.

The Top Notes:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsDpc-8iR8g

The Beatles cover:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr7JFmKoSCA

I couldn't find a studio version for The Beatles due to youtube copyrights, so here is live version

Live Lounge task - Song choice and rehearsing

so far my live lounge band have decided on playing 'sexual' (or 'sensual') by NEIKED. i feel like this song will be really good to change as it is really catchy and simple so we could probably do a lot of alterations to the track. So far i have managed to find out the chords annam currently working on a basic lead idea, however my group still haven't developed it enough to know how we will change it.

rehearsing:
We did not manage to rehearse last week as an inconveniently placed incident on the track, meant that the trains did not start running until 1pm, so i could not get to college as it was ending at 1:30pm. This was on Thursday, when we booked pod 3 to practice at our break between lessons. Currently, we have struggled to practice other than in our lessons, however we are working on booking a room sometime this week. This is due to the fact that we all have varying timetables so sometime we cant practice all together.

Practice diary - post 13

Section 1 – Practice updates
In technical development we have been looking at practicing for our formative assessment, in which we have to play 3 different guitar extracts. the first one, being an 'E shaped' A major scale with 3rd intervals and alternative picking. i found this to be very hard at first but after about an hour of practice, i was able to play it at 95 bpm whilst looking away. the second was a blues style run from a rocks solo in which you have to incorporate alternative picking. i found that originally this was easier than the first task, however i still felt after the lesson that i would really need to improve as i still couldn't memorise the run. the third was a choice of 2 different song extracts. i felt that this was fairly easy, however i still need to really work on it as i was more focused on doing the scale runs.

In band skills, i went to room 1 with the 'live lounge' band that i have been put into and we worked with the teacher on doing a cover of 'boys of summer'. This was really helpful as we got some great advice and info on what to do for the lead up to our performance.

section 2 - other/ personal study
i am still currently been studying blues licks from Albert King and Freddie King. i feel that after practicing all of these i have greatly improved on my blues playing.

Live Lounge task - My 'live lounge' band

My 'live lounge' band consists of:

me - lead guitar
jacob vallance - rhythm guitar
Alex Hancox - bass
Max Crawford - drums
Alice millburn - Backing vocals
Karina Balagova - Main vocals

My producers consist of:

Calvin Allen-jubin
Callum

i have currently been looking at 'Starboy' by the weeknd and '24k magic' by bruno mars. i feel that these two songs have a really clear outline of what to work around as they are straight forward, simple and catchy. I feel that these two songs are perfect for my group as we have two female singers who have a good vocal range, so we will be able to mould the song around their chosen style that they would want to perform it in. My group also has some very good musicians, so i feel that it wouldn't be a problem if we were to be doing something fairly odd and hard to play.

Practice diary - post 12

Section 1 – Practice updates
In technical development we have been looking at playing scales and runs along the fretboard. i found this really hard to do as it is really repetitive and you can soon find yourself getting lost in the constant backwards and forwards along the strings.

In band skills, we continued looking at playing 'feeling good' by MUSE. i enjoyed this lesson as we got the opportunity to change the style of the song.

In stylistic awareness, we were tasked with playing give up the funk by parliament . i found this really enjoyable as i really like funk as i has a very upbeat and happy feel to it. So, when it first thing in the morning, it really wakes you up.

section 2 - other/ personal study
i have currently been studying blues licks from famous players such as Albert King and Freddie King. i decided to learn this as i really enjoy listening to blues and would like to further develop my playing.

Project 2 - Task 1A blogpost

As part of our tasks for this term, we have been set with changing the genre to a modern song of our choice, to sound like it was part of a 'Live lounge' set. This popular trend swept the nation with lots of bands gaining major exposure by doing this and posting to social media sites like Youtube and Facebook. shown above is my action plan, in making on of these, it enables me to know when all of my assignments are due and (roughly) how many days i will need to complete them. I believe that this will make working quicker and more effective, as i will have a clear outline for when i have to complete assignments. You can also see that i have colour coded it to make the events clearer to read from the start to the end (there is 1 block that i cannot colour code).

my tasks include:

Analysis and research (Task 1)
1. writing a paragraph of 200 words about that summarises the project (this)
2. an action plan of the project in a gantt chart format (this)
3. researching a minimum of 3 songs which have been reworked into cover versions or sampled tracks.

planning and organisation (Task 2)
4. choose a song to cover from the current top 40 chart to rework into a style of your choice.
5. rehearsal phases, meeting with the producers and writing 3 reflective blogposts.
6. stage plan and tech spec sheet.

presentation and performance (Task 3)
7. perfromance

reflection and evaluation (Task 4)
8. blogpost of approximately 500 words that reflects on your research, rehearsal and an evaluation on the overall performance.



 for my next task i will have to research a minimum of 3 songs which have been reworked into cover song or sampled tracks. so far, i have been doing some research into some bands that rework songs on youtube, the band 'postmodern duke-box', have been gaining millions of views for their reworked covers of modern songs such as 'drunk in love' by beyonce and 'last Christmas' by WHAM. this band has been reworking their covers into old style, big band swing songs. I am particularly inspired by them as they are really well thought covers. I have also been watching some BBC Live lounge sets. I am particularly inspired by the cover of 'call me maybe' by Ben Howard.

Practice diary - post 11

Section 1 – Practice updates
In technical development we have been looking at playing blues licks and utilizing the most out of our scales. i found this really interesting as it meant that i could learn some brand new licks that i have never heard before.

In band skills, we have been looking at how to play 'feeling good' by MUSE. I found this to be really enjoyable to practice and play as it was very simple, yet heavy and exciting.

In stylistic awareness, we were tasked with playing '20th century boy' by T.REX. i found this really fun as T.REX is one of my favorite bands, so i already new how to play the song. Also, when i got up to perform it i managed to get in a little solo at the end with some really overdriven guitar licks.

section 2 - other/ personal study
i have started to practice 'Parisian walkways' by Gary Moore. i chose this song as Gary Moore is one of my favorite guitarists and i really like this song.