I know you’ve told me that you like how I can take a song and “make it my own”. I honestly hadn’t thought about it at all until the first time someone said it to me. Like the first time someone said I had a guitar style, that they could always tell it was me on recordings from the way the guitar was played. At the time I couldn’t possibly hear what they meant. Mind you since then I’ve had the experience of someone playing a recording in the background and I can tell it’s something I played guitar on. Not because I know the song, but I recognize the guitar part as being the kind of thing I would play. And sure enough, I did. Don’t ask me to explain it in words, but I guess I have a guitar style. It just comes from the way I play. Which I guess is pretty much how these things work.
Likewise the song thing. It just what happens when I work things out the way that I do. You see unlike many fine players I know and admire, I tend to not listen to the original fairly early on in the process of figuring out the song. As a matter of fact if I already know the song reasonably well I might not even give it a quick listen to remind me of how it goes. As long as I’ve got the words off I go. Doing what? I’m never really sure. It might be a vocal line that I hear and I figure out what chords might go with that line, not really caring about whether they’re the chords used in the song. It’s just as likely that there’s some combination of chords that define things for me, in which case I’ll build everything from there. Once again I won’t really worry about whether I’m matching the original. I’m more interested in something that hangs together musically on its own merits.
Yes, I’ve been taken to task for not caring about reproducing the original faithfully. But for me that’s not the point. (I try to explain that it’s like saying the only way to paint is to be as super-realistic as possible, but that usually doesn’t get me very far. I try, though.) You see I know I will never be able to play the song exactly the way anyone else does. For starters my guitar probably isn’t even tuned the same as theirs. But more than that, remember that guitar style? Turns out I don’t really have a choice but to play in that style. Which means pretty much everything I play is going to sound… well, like I’m the one playing it. Funny that.
So I’m glad that you like that I can make a song “my own”. At least I’m glad that what I make pleases you. But I’m not really sure I can take credit for something when it’s all I can do.
But I am glad you like it.