The big debate: tribute bands - yay or nay!?

Nour Ayasso said:
Ok, I'll say it again, even if there not claiming credit, or making money off the artist, I still call it a rip off because it's not there music. I don't care who gets the check, it's just wrong to me. And yes this a one sided opinion. Period. I frown upon this stuff personally. I can't argue about opinions, everyone knows that's a no no. it's not as entertaining to keep repeating things, but it is fun to discuss it. As an opinion it's just plain wrong to me and I don't support very much at all. Though I even agreed to someone else about orchestras playing music that isn't their own. And that was a very good point and I agreed to it. All in all I just heavily dislike playing other musicians music. Period. I stayed away from technical stuff because this all an opinion so I revolved this explanation around my personal feelings only. Let me know if I was successful in explaing my opinion!
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Well,not really.You claim to "heavily dislike"playing other musicians material,....but you do it anyway?You must be one unhappy dude.Show me ANY musician,than hasn't at one time or another,covered another songwriters music.They mostly do it on purpose,as a tribute to that songwriters music.

That's NOT,in any way shape or form,ripping someone off.Not by ANY stretch of the imagination.

Cheap Trick covers lots of Beatle tunes.Rush covered the Who.The list in in the hundreds of thousands.

Hard as you may try,I just don't get where your "opinion" is coming from.Like Pocket said,some opinions just carry more weight than others,and your still not entitled to make up your own facts.

Post hoc,ergo propter hoc.

Steve B
 
He's still not really explaining his opinion.

You might not like it. Why? We can demonstrate that it's not 'ripping artists off' - many of them consent and encourage cover versions and I've never come across a band that pretends that a cover song is an original.

Nope. Not explaining yourself at all.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
Is it just me, or is music the only form of art where this even happens? I have never heard of tribute authors, poets, painters, sculptors, or film makers. Remaking a film can be close, but I think that is more about making money than honoring a directors body of work.

Surely this is for the audience to decide. The media is still there, we can always put in a CD, reread a book or poem, get a print of a painting, and buy a DVD. Sculptures, I don't know if they make copies.

Personally, I am not much on tribute or cover bands. That does not mean that for someone, somewhere, seeing a tribute band wont transport them back to the day and let them relive a part of their life that is long gone. I see nothing wrong with it, as long as all involved realize that what they are performing/seeing is never going to be the same as the original, be it better or worse.
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I've heard it said that art students learn by copying the masters. There's also the velvet Elvis painters. Last but not least there's the whole Bob Ross thing.
 
MrInsanePolack said:
Is it just me, or is music the only form of art where this even happens? I have never heard of tribute authors, poets, painters, sculptors, or film makers.
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In terms of non-musical performing, it happens in Theatre as well: someone whose name I forget went to great lengths to build a replica of the Globe Theatre in London so we could all watch Shakespeare's plays standing up and get wet when it rains. Such companies who go for the whole period-costume-period-staging-period-instruments thing are essentially bringing the Tribute Mentality to 16th Century drama.

For my money, Shakespeare himself was more of a cover artist than a tribute act. Even though few (if any?) of his plays were based on original ideas it really was how he told 'em that mattered most . . .

As far as other forms of art go - check out the lobby of pretty much any fancy hotel (or at least a hotel that thinks it's fancy) these days and you'll see plenty of reproduction art - i.e. sculptures and paintings made to look like the real thing. For that matter, check out the gift shop at the Statue of Liberty: if that ain't a sprawling gaudy mess of tributes to a particular artist's work, I don't know what is.

MrInsanePolack said:
Remaking a film can be close, but I think that is more about making money than honoring a directors body of work.
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I agree that interpretation is distinct from flat-out copying, yet even though every other major film coming out of Hollywood seems to be a remake or reinterpretation of existing screenplays/stories there are straight-up copies out there: If I remember correctly, didn't Gus Van Sant remake Psycho frame-by-frame? As in, the whole point of the film was that every single shot was copied from Hitchcock?
 
BacteriumFendYoke said:
Nope. Not explaining yourself at all.
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What do you want a book?

No seriously it's simple I just flat don't like it. Why? Because if it's not your music, it's not your freaggin music. It irritates me and I don't like it very much. Tribute bands can be cool and sometimes not, but in general I dislike the whole idea.
 
Why stop at music? People eat recipes invented by others, use phrases coined by others, use words invented by others, drive cars made and designed by others, wear clothes that aren't self designed..... I could go on and on. I find it curious that music is in a different category. It's not consistent and doesn't add up to me. But hey, whatever. I don't have to understand, I'll just accept it and remain baffled.
 
Nour Ayasso said:
What do you want a book?

No seriously it's simple I just flat don't like it. Why? Because if it's not your music, it's not your freaggin music. It irritates me and I don't like it very much. Tribute bands can be cool and sometimes not, but in general I dislike the whole idea.
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A coherent book would be more appropriate than the incoherent drivel you're posting at the moment.

Most music isn't your music. If you want to reduce it down to size, do you have issues with the idea of using the same scales as other people? The same 12 notes? In that case, go and study electroacoustic composition and work random chance into your work - that's what I did for years.

You not liking something isn't a reason for not liking something. What is it specifically the irks you so?
 
Nour Ayasso said:
Since there is a question mark I'll answer the question. I don't.
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So,now you claim to play only self written pieces........B.S.I don't believe you,and I don't think,anyone else does.That answer lacks any credibility ,what so ever.Peddle this crap some place else.

Steve B
 
BacteriumFendYoke said:
A coherent book would be more appropriate than the incoherent drivel you're posting at the moment.

Most music isn't your music. If you want to reduce it down to size, do you have issues with the idea of using the same scales as other people? The same 12 notes? In that case, go and study electroacoustic composition and work random chance into your work - that's what I did for years.

You not liking something isn't a reason for not liking something. What is it specifically the irks you so?
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I believe that ,this poster,has painted himself into a corner,and refuses to give it up.He states,that he dosen't play anyone elses music,and applies circular logic to all of his answers..So he must be playing self written pieces,or...maybe he dosen't play at all.Unless he considers drums a solo instrument,and plays with no other music at all.

Steve B
 
From the Department of Obvious

I am pretty sure we have all been trolled here...
 
So, when you want to learn a new style of music I assume you DON'T play along to any tunes, right? Or when you work on timing you don't play along to anything but a metronome?
 
larryace said:
Why stop at music? People eat recipes invented by others, use phrases coined by others, use words invented by others, drive cars made and designed by others, wear clothes that aren't self designed..... I could go on and on. I find it curious that music is in a different category. It's not consistent and doesn't add up to me. But hey, whatever. I don't have to understand, I'll just accept it and remain baffled.
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I think the difference comes in when you look at it from the perspective of art. I consider music an art form. There's huge potential for creativity and when we relegate ourselves to copying the creativity of others, there's a bit of a loss for our own creative potential. Studying the music/art of others is a great thing; even performing it is a great thing. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with a tribute band, other than I think the same bands have too many tributes sometimes. At any rate, I can see how the lack of creativity in tributes can put some people off. It all depends what music means to each of us personally, I guess.

Is a tribute band really different from someone who paints and sells copies of Renaissance painters works? Is it better if they interpret and change the works, or better if they stay totally faithful to the art that inspired so many?
 
Diet Kirk said:
This sounds interesting, any good links I should check out first (although I realised this was a pop at the other guy, I'm intrigued by this concept!)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGVIPPIYqTE

This is pretty interesting. It's not so much random chance as trying to control random noise elements. Masami Akita (Merzbow) is good for this, although he has quite a tight compositional style.

If I'm going to plug my own stuff, here's an example of something I did a few years ago (ignore the drivel at the beginning).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhyWH6B68iA

I used a computer to randomly alter the sound levels of four tape channels using a custom software package. The tapes were also a source of chance - how they wear is somewhat unpredictable.

Toshimaru Nakamura is a very interesting guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqfGbtqDVDk

There's loads out there. If you want a book, 'Noise/Music: A History' by Paul Hegarty is a classic.

Brian Eno also worked chance into his work - he used a series of instruction cards that were shuffled to compose some of the work on David Bowie's 'Low' (specifically 'Warszawa') and if we stick to Western Music, John Cage's 'Imaginary Landscape' pieces were a series of instructions for instrumentalists using radios (dial to this frequency at this point in the music) that relied on a lot of chance. You don't know what the stations are going to be playing when you tune in - or if there's going to be a station at all.

There's a lot out there.
 
Dr_Watso said:
I think the difference comes in when you look at it from the perspective of art. I consider music an art form. There's huge potential for creativity and when we relegate ourselves to copying the creativity of others, there's a bit of a loss for our own creative potential. Studying the music/art of others is a great thing; even performing it is a great thing. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with a tribute band, other than I think the same bands have too many tributes sometimes. At any rate, I can see how the lack of creativity in tributes can put some people off. It all depends what music means to each of us personally, I guess.

Is a tribute band really different from someone who paints and sells copies of Renaissance painters works? Is it better if they interpret and change the works, or better if they stay totally faithful to the art that inspired so many?
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Why is music art but designing a shirt not art? We deal in sounds, they deal in fabric. I don't differentiate. One kind of creativity isn't necessarily any better than another type. It's all art. We do songs. They do clothes.

Back on topic, musicians tend to forget that civilians don't dissect music and think of it 8 ways to Tuesday.

They. Just. Enjoy. It.

It's good to not lose sight of that part.
 
larryace said:
Why is music art but designing a shirt not art? We deal in sounds, they deal in fabric. I don't differentiate.
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The design is art, I thought you were talking about the copying others wearing the same clothes. Even still, who is more of an artist: the guy copying "shit happens" t-shirts or the guy creating a new t-shirt design nobody has seen before?
 
Dr_Watso said:
The design is art, I thought you were talking about the copying others wearing the same clothes. Even still, who is more of an artist: the guy copying "shit happens" t-shirts or the guy creating a new t-shirt design nobody has seen before?
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Watsy. It's obvious. Ditto with tribute bands. Copying is copying. Being creative is being creative. It doesn't say much about skill level, though. When you create you can follow your natural flow, when you copy you need to be able to get into someone else's flow. It's physically harder to do IMO.

I see tribute bands the same way I see modern pop - there's skill involved and they have an audience, but I'm not part of that audience.

THIS is how to play a cover! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk (the action starts after a minute :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk
 
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