Chances are that if you listen to music regularly then there’s a high probability that you have knowingly or unknowingly heard a song that is a cover. Therefore, a song where the person performing it is not the original author of that song.
This can allow them to attract new fans who may not be familiar with their own original work. Artists sometimes do this as it allows them to put their own unique style and spin on the music, and it enables them to demonstrate their own skills as musicians.
New fans may be attracted to the artist who weren’t familiar with the performers own work. Here I speak with saxophonist Morgan James about the process of how he covers a song.
PM: Hi Morgan James, over to you.
MJ: My first approach is to get hold of music sheets for the song that I’ll be covering. The same applies for instrumental music. If for any reason I can’t get hold of the music sheets then I would create my own music sheets.
I then begin the process by-
1. Finding the right key to listen to the lyrics of the song a few times so it stays in my head.
2. I play the melody along with the vocalist and write each note down on my music sheet verse after verse until I get to the end of the song.
3. Once I have this down on paper I would play the track again without the vocals i.e the karaoke version. Some songs can be very challenging in this scenario in which case I would then split the song in to groups until I can play it fluently to the end.
PM: What are some of the key features of a song that it needs to have for you to be prompted to cover it?
MJ: There are various features I have to take in to consideration before doing a cover version of a song and the list goes as follows-
1. Genre of the song and the the song style. I’m providing a service to my customers so I have quite a variety of different music genres in my repertoire to perform depending on the type of venue and audience I’ll be performing for.
2. Popularity of the song is very important, especially the ones that are more catchy and people can relate to more.
3. The tempo of the song is also another important factor. Is it fast or slow? Is it danceable or not? So again whether I include it in my repertoire will depend on the venue where I’ll be performing e.g. it could be a wedding ceremony, a private event, a restaurant, hotel etc
4. I’m more drawn to songs that I like therefore, I’ll choose a song cover if I think it’s a great song and hope people will like it. Occasionally I’ll get a booking asking for jazz which is my thing and that’s always a bonus.
5. It has to be playable on the saxophone. If the original song has vocals and I feel I can pull it off then I can do it justice. In my opinion not every song sounds great on the saxophone.
Even if they can be played if it doesn’t sound good on the sax then why bother? I play the song a few times and if I don’t like what I’m hearing then I just drop it. The way I see it, if I’m not feeling it how do I expect my audience to
PM: How important do you feel it is to study the events and circumstances of the artist at the time they wrote the original track?
MJ: For me the events and circumstances of an artist/musician are very important to study as part of the creative journey. For example I like to know the early influences, the challenges and the sacrifices that they went through aswell as the various musicians they collaborated with. I also take great interest in learning how they incorporated different elements in to their songs which made them standout from other artists.
If I can relate to some of the things they went through then it can encourage me to be more creative so I can have my own unique style by co-opting different genres of music in to my playing.
PM: Do you think the approach and techniques you outlined can be applied to most forms of music?
MJ: I don’t think it matters what genre of music it is as I believe the same approach can apply. Music is universal so irrespective of the language or country it originated from they all look very much the same when the notes of the song are written on the music sheets.
