Saturday, June 03, 2006
The Beatles at OSU
Last month I attended an Event: a fundraiser for the Corvallis Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence. The draw? A live performance of the entire Sgt Pepper's album by 28 local musicians complete with horns and strings. They tried to follow the original arrangements track by track, with an intermission when you would have flipped the vinyl (kids, ask your parents about this).
I attended the second of two performances on Saturday night. The concert was held in an auditorium on campus, and the place was full of people and excitement. The crowd a mix of all ages: many who no doubt heard the Beatles' album when it was first released bringing their grand-children; others for whom the Beatles always existed as a part of the culture with their children in tow; and college-age kids whose friends might be the performers.
The stage was crammed with instruments, microphones, and seats for the horn and string sections. The musicians were mostly young (to my eyes): high schoolers, college-age and a few beyond that. The musicians were dressed up for the occasion. Their leader was Charlie Parker, a doctoral student at Oregon State. "I'd had this idea in my mind a long time."
They did a great job, and the each number was greeted with expectant silence and rewarded with enthusiastic applause from the audience. Since each track on the album has a different line-up of instruments, each song performed brought on a shuffle of musicians moving on and off the stage. By the end of the night we were familiar with some of the personalities that were making the music come alive for us.
It was fun! It underscored in my mind some of the benefits and pitfalls of trying to cover a tune exactly like the record.
On the plus side there is the familiarity factor: there is something thrilling for some reason in anticipating exactly what is to come, especially when it is emotionally charged. We invest ourselves in music, and repeated listening to a track makes it somehow our own. We become protective of it. "This is how it's supposed to be!" We can even be roused to anger should the song's author (let alone another artist) deviate from the original arrangement.
Then there is the arrangement itself. We can expect that when making a record a great deal of thought is put into how exactly to best represent the song, what instruments should be chosen, the vocal harmonies, the mix of the recording, special effects... All of these things would be expected to represent the ideal presentation of the information that is the song.
But it can be difficult, even impossible sometimes, to recreate a record onstage. Even (sometimes) for the original artist. In a live performance you get one take. A recording might represent the fruit of dozens of attempts to nail the part. The mood in the studio might be very different than that in front of a crowd. The acoustics are unlikely ever to be the same. You might not want to take the lovely old guitar you use in the studio on the road.
In a recording session you might have your pick of the finest studio musicians in the business. In concert you have your road band. It's no big deal to hire the London Symphony Orchestra to record a bit of stuff to lay in behind the chorus, but maybe not worth the effort to have them trailing along behind your van in a string of buses while on tour. Instruments which can be captured on tape might not be well adapted to live performance in a bar or club or a concert hall or a stadium.
And then, what about cover bands? The arrangement on the record might also reflect the strengths of the original artist. But your strengths and weaknesses will be your own. Trying to slavishly reproduce another artist's work could come off very badly. Also one's musical style, one's choice of particular guitar, the timber and character of one's voice might make it wiser to arrange the song to fit your own particular talents.
Although I quite enjoyed the show I saw the other night, I must admit it could have been better. There's just no way it could acoustically reproduce the album exactly. No one could-- not even the Beatles. But they could have (possibly) made the material their own. And hearing musicians performing arrangements suited to their own voices and style is an experience that cannot be replaced.
I attended the second of two performances on Saturday night. The concert was held in an auditorium on campus, and the place was full of people and excitement. The crowd a mix of all ages: many who no doubt heard the Beatles' album when it was first released bringing their grand-children; others for whom the Beatles always existed as a part of the culture with their children in tow; and college-age kids whose friends might be the performers.
The stage was crammed with instruments, microphones, and seats for the horn and string sections. The musicians were mostly young (to my eyes): high schoolers, college-age and a few beyond that. The musicians were dressed up for the occasion. Their leader was Charlie Parker, a doctoral student at Oregon State. "I'd had this idea in my mind a long time."
They did a great job, and the each number was greeted with expectant silence and rewarded with enthusiastic applause from the audience. Since each track on the album has a different line-up of instruments, each song performed brought on a shuffle of musicians moving on and off the stage. By the end of the night we were familiar with some of the personalities that were making the music come alive for us.
It was fun! It underscored in my mind some of the benefits and pitfalls of trying to cover a tune exactly like the record.
On the plus side there is the familiarity factor: there is something thrilling for some reason in anticipating exactly what is to come, especially when it is emotionally charged. We invest ourselves in music, and repeated listening to a track makes it somehow our own. We become protective of it. "This is how it's supposed to be!" We can even be roused to anger should the song's author (let alone another artist) deviate from the original arrangement.
Then there is the arrangement itself. We can expect that when making a record a great deal of thought is put into how exactly to best represent the song, what instruments should be chosen, the vocal harmonies, the mix of the recording, special effects... All of these things would be expected to represent the ideal presentation of the information that is the song.
But it can be difficult, even impossible sometimes, to recreate a record onstage. Even (sometimes) for the original artist. In a live performance you get one take. A recording might represent the fruit of dozens of attempts to nail the part. The mood in the studio might be very different than that in front of a crowd. The acoustics are unlikely ever to be the same. You might not want to take the lovely old guitar you use in the studio on the road.
In a recording session you might have your pick of the finest studio musicians in the business. In concert you have your road band. It's no big deal to hire the London Symphony Orchestra to record a bit of stuff to lay in behind the chorus, but maybe not worth the effort to have them trailing along behind your van in a string of buses while on tour. Instruments which can be captured on tape might not be well adapted to live performance in a bar or club or a concert hall or a stadium.
And then, what about cover bands? The arrangement on the record might also reflect the strengths of the original artist. But your strengths and weaknesses will be your own. Trying to slavishly reproduce another artist's work could come off very badly. Also one's musical style, one's choice of particular guitar, the timber and character of one's voice might make it wiser to arrange the song to fit your own particular talents.
Although I quite enjoyed the show I saw the other night, I must admit it could have been better. There's just no way it could acoustically reproduce the album exactly. No one could-- not even the Beatles. But they could have (possibly) made the material their own. And hearing musicians performing arrangements suited to their own voices and style is an experience that cannot be replaced.
# posted by newbie @ 6:16 AM 
