Play It Again, Sam

You may or not know this, but I play bass in a band. It's fun, but it's not fun talking to people about it. The first question always is, "What kind of music do you play?". People ask this as if it were relevant or simple. I answer with one word: "Rock". It explains nothing and satisfies no one. If I say, "original free improvisational rock with a four-piece combo", of course, I get a blank look.

There are only two reasons that 90% of people ask the question.
First, it is simply to be polite and feign an interest. The second is that they want some kind of pigeon-hole to put your art into so that they can make invalid comparisons or less-than-astute assessments of commercial success.

Basically, what we do is make up songs on the spot. It's pretty hard to make it work, and even harder to sound "polished". You don't get "points" for being creative - only for being easily relatable to another established group. If you say, "We play Aerosmith covers", then the person knows exactly what you are talking about and they now have something convenient with which to compare your music against.

Playing covers is, however, mostly a dead-end for any band. Sure, you can get gigs in crappy bars for $100-200 a night (which you then divide between four people), and you can do that for a decade or so until you work your way up to $500-600 a night gigs. You probably will get caught not paying royalties to the original artist long before that, however. The other reason it is a dead-end is because it's artistically empty: you are judged by how much you sound exactly like the original artist, not by how well you do interpreting the original song or how well your ability stacks up against the original group.

People like covers not because they are really, really great songs, but because they are familiar. They remind them of some other time, or other experiences, hopefully pleasant. They also give the listener some frame of reference to compare against, so that they can tell if the band is "good" or "bad".

It's also a losing game because the original song is recorded in a studio with multiple "takes" and multiple tracks. "Multiple tracks", for those who don't know, means that you record your guitar or whatever, and then you go back and play more on top of that. So, unless you happen to have an extra musician for every track on hand, you will never sound exactly like the original song - which means you are "bad".

It's a situation in which you can never win. You can never be "better" than the original song; you can only make a Xerox copy of it - at best - and come out equal.

Your original song will never remind anyone of other times or other experiences, because it is new. No one will be able to compare your original song with another version, because it is new. The best you can hope for is that the brainless consumer can link that song in their minds to a song that they already know - e.g. "It sounds kinda like that Bon Jovi song".

What brings this up is that we had a guest at the jam last night. After listening to three or four songs, this guy had an incredible insight: why not play songs that he has heard before?

Yeah, we never thought of that. Wow.

So we picked a song and ran through the chords in about thirty seconds. We then played it, and it sounded rough and raw - probably how the original band sounded the first time that they played it. Yet, to our guest moron, somehow it was supposed to sound exactly, note-for-note, identical to the original artist. He even mentioned that the guitarist didn't sound 'right', because the original guitarist used an effect pedal that we didn't have. So now we are supposed to not only duplicate the original artist note-for-note, but duplicate all of their equipment, too. That's how you would know that we are "good", after all.

I've dealt with this idiotic attitude all of my life as a musician. You can play a fantastic pattern at blinding speed and with impeccable precision, but the average moron will just shrug at that and "helpfully" suggest, "Play that song by Bryan Adams!". Yeah. I'll play that song on the bass. Sure. I'll make it sound exactly like a guitar, a keyboard, and a second guitar all in one. I spend my days memorising every note of every hit song in case somebody asks me to play it, too. Why would I write my own music when there are so many popular songs out there that I can copy? No matter what I play or how well I play it, I will never be "good" unless I can play that one song ...and the next one after that, too.

Painters figured this all out over a century ago. As a a painter, you are "good" if you produce something that is exactly like a photograph. Okay, so you spend two weeks and a hundred hours working on a painting that looks exactly like a photograph. You ask $500 for the painting ($5 an hour!), and the "customer" just laughs because they can get the photograph itself for free.
But they will say that you are "really good", though. Hooray!

For the musician, the proposition is even dumber. You memorise two dozen Aerosmith songs, you get to buy all of the equipment that Aerosmith has given to them as an endorsement, and you turn yourself into the equivalent of a player piano. Not good enough, because you don't look like Aerosmith. Your vocalist doesn't even sound exactly like Steve Tyler, much less be able to pass as his clone. You lose, loser! You impress no one! We yawn at you! We want Aerosmith, only with no cover charge if don't mind. Why would I pay a lot of money to hear an exact duplicate of Aerosmith when I have the CD at home, right?

Even more infuriating is this mindless belief that a song gets on the radio because it is really, really good - and that if your band can only play something really good, then you'll get on the radio, too! A song gets airplay because the music label pushes it and bribes the stations to play it, dumbass. It could be a recording of one guy vomiting while another plays a kazoo with his ass, and it would get on the air - if a record label put up the cash. And the average music consumer would love it, because they are supposed to. It's on the radio, isn't it?

What the run-of-the-mill "helpful" moron does not know is that you don't get to be a "successful" band (i.e. making a good living doing nothing but playing music) by going down the moron road. That path leads to the being a "tribute" band that gets a gig every four months in scattered states and in dingy clubs. And the "helpful" moron is unlikely to even show up to see you, because it's too far to drive, or the venue is dingy, or a TV show is on that night, or they don't want to actually pay money to see a band.

You get to be successful band by playing original music and developing a 'following' of people who appreciate what you do and actually show up for gigs when you get one. If your band can draw 30 paying customers to a bar, and if they actually spend money on food or drinks, then you just made the venue manager some money that they wouldn't have made without you there. You'll get called back. You'll get noticed by a booking agency, and you'll get steady gigs. You'll get good reviews and more people will check you out. Maybe you'll get an record deal with an independent label, which won't make you money but will allow you to get free studio time.

The question is, why does the average "helpful" moron have this standard when it comes to music that they don't apply anywhere else?

If a plumber shows up to un-clog your toilet, do you judge his ability based on how much his plumber's snake resembles one used by a "more-successful" plumber? When you take your car to a mechanic, do you judge their ability based on how much they resemble Mr. Goodwrench? Even more to the point, would you suggest to a mechanic that they try to more closely emulate Mr. Goodwrench's appearance in order to convince customers that they are a good mechanic? Would you propose that the mechanic replace your alternator for free so that you can decide if maybe they are "good enough" to change your oil? Would you be stupid enough to tell the mechanic that he should change his garage to look exactly like a Jiffy Lube so that people will know that he's "good"? Would you try to find out if the mechanic had ever fixed Bon Jovi's car? When they put the new alternator in, would you ask them to take it out and put it in again, just so you can find out if they do it exactly the same as the first time?

No. And the reason people apply this kind of warped reasoning to music is because they know nothing about it. They don't know if a musician is doing a good job or just faking it. They don't understand the structure of a song, or the principles of musical arrangement, or even what a chord is. They don't know what an overdub is, or compression. They don't understand why a live performance can't be the same as a studio recording. They don't even really care how much talent or skill you might have. If you can't exactly mimic a familiar-but-less-skilled musician, then you are worthless.

Last is the ridiculous standard of musical "success". How much money do you make watching TV? Well, you must not be doing it very well, then. How many people show up to watch you fish? Oh, so you're a lousy fisherman, I guess. Nobody pays you to jog? You must not be doing it right. Try jogging in the same outfit that some rich person wears, and then you'll automatically make as much money as they have.

Burger King makes way, way more money than a gourmet chef toiling away in a tiny restaurant. Does that mean that Burger King has the highest quality of food, or the most charming décor, or the finest service?

Take the average top-ten pop hit. It's got music played a sequencer (a computer programmed to play notes in a certain order to a certain rhythm), and a vocalist whose voice is corrected by Auto-Tune. They probably didn't even write the song themselves, but paid someone else for it. An engineer takes their work and hones it down into something highly-polished. None of it has anything to do with talent or musicianship. Yet, to the average "helpful" moron, this is the apex of musical skill and all that someone like me can do is try to copy it.

People play music, or make any kind of art, because they like it and because it does something for their soul. A very, very tiny percentage of those who engage in artistic endeavours make enough money to earn a decent living, and those people are more of a marketing success than any kind of stellar talent.