Lately I've been listening to a lot of electronic music and have put together a little midi studio around my iPad and some old gear I had laying around. While that alone could be the subject of several posts, it is the reason I was reading an issue of Future Music and came across an article about how a synth sound was created for the song, "Changed the Way You Kissed Me" by Example. Having never heard of the song or the artist I YouTubed the song and found the video.
After watching the video I noticed a related video of 2 people (BuskerOne) doing a cover of the song.
This led to me going to BuskerOne's YouTube page and watching many more covers of theirs.
BuskerOne is 2 music school grads from the UK. As a way to create some YouTube traffic to their site and their own music they started doing a cover of whatever the #1 song was that week in the UK. The videos are shot with 1 camera in front of a closet.
The more videos I watched the more I liked BuskerOne and appreciated how creative and savy these two are. Here's some of the reasons why.
1). Their arrangements of the songs are really creative. If you aren't familiar with the song check out the videos for Changed the Way You Kissed Me. They take a dance song and give it a country feel, including singing the rap in the song. They also did a cover of Dynamite. The song is the same 4 chords over and over and if you just pounded out those 4 chords on an acoustic it would be the most boring thing ever, but throw in a couple inversions and some nice vocal stylings and it's fun again.
2). They make the best of what they have. From a production standpoint there's nothing that incredible. I would guess that they don't have a ton of gear at their disposal but it's what they do with what they have that impresses me. Their arranging is well done with additional guitars, drums, bass, and bgv's. While the backing tracks are simple and the production quality is on the lower side, it shows off their talent very well and that's the point of this whole thing.
3). On the savy side of things there are a couple things I noticed. First they keep their covers on the shorter side. No filler stuff needed. Second they always have something on the wall behind them that has to do with the song they are covering. Just adds another element of fun.
So what's the point of all this? To me it is to make the best with what you have. Gear and equipment is not a prerequisite for talent and practicing to improve that skill. Whether you are on the musician side or on the production side of the stage, with some creative thinking and hard work you can create some amazing things with the talent God has given you.
BuskerOne ep free download
BuskerOne website
Thursday, January 5, 2012
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