A 2nd Listen to that song!

OK, so these days we have soooo many ways that we can listen to music and listing them would just be an insult to anyone reading this post but we do have unbelievable sources for listening to music. Most just listen to a song, maybe play air guitar or airdrums (that's me), sing along to it(not me), dance. In general it strikes an emotion that makes you think of something or feels good to you at the time. I personally use it as a memory manager. Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy, every time I hear that song it brings me back to Glasgow Apollo, Scotland. It was my first concert and it was Thin Lizzy, WOW were they amazing and it was the Black Rose tour, what a night. I have many songs that remind me of specific things since my memory needs a jolt here and there so I use songs to jog my memory. Anyway a funny thing happened over the last little while in our band. We brought on a new bassplayer Paul, great playing and attitude. We also decided while Paul was learning all these new songs to throw in 16 more new songs just for fun that we had never played either. Part of this process though of learning the songs is that Dave, my brother and lead vocalist also has to sequence all the keyboard parts as well. We just played the Casino Niagara show last weekend and all the new material went over great, a few minor flubs here and there but more things that only we would notice. It's funny how quickly you will learn a song and then all of a sudden you somehow make it yours, some fills change, the guitarist might change the way he plays something which then affects the bassplayer which comes back to affecting the drummer. All minor little changes and not that there is anything wrong with that but try doing this as an experiment.

Take a song that you think you know inside out, backwards forwards, you learned this song 6 months ago and it sounds great as is. Go back and actually pick apart just the drum track and listen to the track for what it is. It is amazing what you will hear, these little subtle changes in something that you might have overlooked in learning it originally. Maybe when you had to learn the song you were rushed for time and just skimmed over it or the drums were buried and you just assumed what the drummer played but really didn't have time to pick apart what was maybe being played. Re-listening to that song a 2nd time, taking the time to actually pick it apart and learn it for what it is can change your entire feel of the song. You might even think that the original version felt or sounded better or "how could I have missed that really cool fill".

This is just something to think about because lately I went through some of our older songs and realized how much I had changed some of them and some were not for the better. Sometimes it really is just about giving the song a 2nd listen after you have learned and played it for a while. See what and how much has changed. If you are changing the song intentionally like the band "Disturbed" doing a cover of the Genesis song "Land of Confusion" and they without a doubt made it their own song, then that is fine but if you are trying to keep the song in it's original format and it changes, you just might never notice the changes.

This topic was purely an observation on something I realized about myself and listening to others around you. Nothing more nothing less and there is nothing wrong with being creative, after all that is what music is isn't it, expressing yourself. Stay tuned or go phlat ........