Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

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scarecrow
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Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by scarecrow »

Hi, everyone! Basically I never dreamt I'd be able to cover this song, in part because I blew out my falsetto many years ago, but this week I took a crack at it (in the original key no less) and I think it's turning out reasonably well!

Let me know what you like or don't like! I know there's some guitar missing (like right before the bridge) and a note or two may be out of reach vocally, but I think / hope that I'm getting there. If it turns out well enough, I may even license and officially release my version! :humina

Thanks for your time! (And if this isn't the right place to post this, please point me in the right direction.)

For context I've been doing music forever (Mark was the one who inspired me to get serious about guitar and songwriting 20+ years ago) but I only recently got to the level (ability and confidence wise) where I thought I could start releasing stuff.

https://soundcloud.com/fearful-earful/w ... al_sharing

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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by MuffinMcFluffin »

I always have trouble "evaluating" a cover to a song, especially if I know its signature sound very well and am just expecting to hear the original again but from a different musician (unless they make it completely different). Otherwise, the in-problem becomes that you'll be compared to one of the greatest singers in the world, and that's not a fight you can match up to, much less win.

That being said, I haven't really heard people do a cover of this song, but this song demands somebody who knows how to carry a tune, and you do that really well. I sure as hell wouldn't be able to do that, or hit some of the notes that you did. You also have a signature sound to your voice that admittedly while I don't think it is perfectly in the nature of fronting Alter Bridge can definitely serve certain material the right way, but again I'm having that trouble of comparing this to Myles Kennedy.

I think the latter half was the best when you got to harmonize with yourself (something that I think even Myles' voice is not great with) and belt a little more, and I think that's where your voice shines most. Your notes become distinctive and not slurred, and in the earlier verses I'm so used to the original song's control of combining softness with tone that here there is a bit of an unexpected shout by forcing good singing notes at the expense of the song's calm aspects it requires. That ending really shined, though.

The guitar was on point, and though the mix loses the crispness of the original track I think its fidelity works well for the sound of your voice as you wouldn't want frequencies clashing with each other. I think there was one constant strumming pattern at one point that I didn't expect, and one part had a tempo that rushed faster than my internal mentronome.

I enjoyed listening to it, but as far as licensing and releasing, it'll probably require finetuning on the front end. This song is packed with an emotion that needs to be heard and not felt, and that doesn't come with more pentatonic runs or anything of the sort. Since your arrangement is close enough to AB's original, I'd say watch and listen to some of the live performances that MK does alongside vocal coaches reacting, and maybe get to that point where your words really distinguish themselves from one another and can lower to whisper levels when you fade in and out of certain lines. Don't take these suggestions harshly at all! I'm just trying to match with how you conveyed what I thought were the best parts of your cover and the greatness that the original song is.

This is coming from somebody who can't match what you do anyway. I mean I don't do AB covers myself because I know better, but I have an opening segment of Wonderful Life that I found on my phone and posted on TABN's Facebook group a while back: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thealte ... 256461699/

As far as posting future covers, check out this sub-forum here: viewforum.php?f=15

Thanks for the upload!

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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by scarecrow »

MuffinMcFluffin wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 3:55 pm I always have trouble "evaluating" a cover to a song, especially if I know its signature sound very well and am just expecting to hear the original again but from a different musician (unless they make it completely different). Otherwise, the in-problem becomes that you'll be compared to one of the greatest singers in the world, and that's not a fight you can match up to, much less win.

That being said, I haven't really heard people do a cover of this song, but this song demands somebody who knows how to carry a tune, and you do that really well. I sure as hell wouldn't be able to do that, or hit some of the notes that you did. You also have a signature sound to your voice that admittedly while I don't think it is perfectly in the nature of fronting Alter Bridge can definitely serve certain material the right way, but again I'm having that trouble of comparing this to Myles Kennedy.

I think the latter half was the best when you got to harmonize with yourself (something that I think even Myles' voice is not great with) and belt a little more, and I think that's where your voice shines most. Your notes become distinctive and not slurred, and in the earlier verses I'm so used to the original song's control of combining softness with tone that here there is a bit of an unexpected shout by forcing good singing notes at the expense of the song's calm aspects it requires. That ending really shined, though.

The guitar was on point, and though the mix loses the crispness of the original track I think its fidelity works well for the sound of your voice as you wouldn't want frequencies clashing with each other. I think there was one constant strumming pattern at one point that I didn't expect, and one part had a tempo that rushed faster than my internal mentronome.

I enjoyed listening to it, but as far as licensing and releasing, it'll probably require finetuning on the front end. This song is packed with an emotion that needs to be heard and not felt, and that doesn't come with more pentatonic runs or anything of the sort. Since your arrangement is close enough to AB's original, I'd say watch and listen to some of the live performances that MK does alongside vocal coaches reacting, and maybe get to that point where your words really distinguish themselves from one another and can lower to whisper levels when you fade in and out of certain lines. Don't take these suggestions harshly at all! I'm just trying to match with how you conveyed what I thought were the best parts of your cover and the greatness that the original song is.

This is coming from somebody who can't match what you do anyway. I mean I don't do AB covers myself because I know better, but I have an opening segment of Wonderful Life that I found on my phone and posted on TABN's Facebook group a while back: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thealte ... 256461699/

As far as posting future covers, check out this sub-forum here: viewforum.php?f=15

Thanks for the upload!
Wow, that is an amazingly thoughtful and kind response and I appreciate it so much! (I think a lot of your critiques are completely on point by the way.) :cheers

If I do *officially* record it (this is still early) i'd like to put my own 'spin' on it which probably includes synth in some way.

Thanks again! <3

Edit: And that 'Wonderful Life' video is pretty good! Well done.
Last edited by scarecrow on Sun Aug 14, 2022 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by scarecrow »

I wouldn't have been able to touch this song in 2007. I wish I could tag Brian (Tenacious Be) - I'm not sure if he remembers me sending him a cover of 'My Sacrifice' 2005-ish and it was TERRIBLE. I still have it lol. It's taken a ton of practice to get to this point and I hope to keep improving.

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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by TenaciousBe »

scarecrow wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:07 pm I wouldn't have been able to touch this song in 2007. I wish I could tag Brian (Tenacious Be)
Somebody call?
Image
scarecrow wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:07 pmI'm not sure if he remembers me sending him a cover of 'My Sacrifice' 2005-ish and it was TERRIBLE. I still have it lol. It's taken a ton of practice to get to this point and I hope to keep improving.
Oh man, the AIM days? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, let alone stuff from 15 years ago! lol. I'm sure I tried to record things back then that would be incredibly painful to listen back to now (actually, my earliest Moonrise stuff from like 8-9 years ago is super cringeworthy). But I do agree, I hear a lot of improvement! If you still have that My Sacrifice, it'd be cool to hear it again and compare to where you are today. There's not much I can really add beyond Mr. McFluffin's bomb-ass critique there, but I will add this - the tempo seems to be a tad fast. I tend to do that too, especially in a live setting where it's more nerve-wracking, but I've tried to work on tempo and keeping things a bit slower and moodier over the years.

In fact, if it's okay, I'd like to piggyback and compare/contrast with my version. Now, I suck at anything intricate on the guitar (read: I'm lazy), so I play a sort of lame standard tuning cowboy chord version. But it's really about how fun the song is to sing, right? :D

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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by TenaciousBe »

EDIT - double-posted.
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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by scarecrow »

TenaciousBe wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:39 am
scarecrow wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:07 pm I wouldn't have been able to touch this song in 2007. I wish I could tag Brian (Tenacious Be)
Somebody call?
Image
scarecrow wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:07 pmI'm not sure if he remembers me sending him a cover of 'My Sacrifice' 2005-ish and it was TERRIBLE. I still have it lol. It's taken a ton of practice to get to this point and I hope to keep improving.
Oh man, the AIM days? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, let alone stuff from 15 years ago! lol. I'm sure I tried to record things back then that would be incredibly painful to listen back to now (actually, my earliest Moonrise stuff from like 8-9 years ago is super cringeworthy). But I do agree, I hear a lot of improvement! If you still have that My Sacrifice, it'd be cool to hear it again and compare to where you are today. There's not much I can really add beyond Mr. McFluffin's bomb-ass critique there, but I will add this - the tempo seems to be a tad fast. I tend to do that too, especially in a live setting where it's more nerve-wracking, but I've tried to work on tempo and keeping things a bit slower and moodier over the years.

In fact, if it's okay, I'd like to piggyback and compare/contrast with my version. Now, I suck at anything intricate on the guitar (read: I'm lazy), so I play a sort of lame standard tuning cowboy chord version. But it's really about how fun the song is to sing, right? :D

Thanks for the kind words and if memory serves correctly, you've made a BUNCH of improvement too! Well done! :cheers

And I play it in standard tuning too, that was one of the things that put me off playing it for so long. I hate re-tuning my guitar lmao. But I don't know why I was so intimidated, there's a great standard tuning acoustic tab on ultimate-guitar that sounds pretty close to the original.

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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by maximzub »

When we're already talking about Watch Over You covers....

I'm in love with somebody...
Found someone who completes me...
I'm in love with somebody...
Oh yeah...
And it's Lzzy Hale!

MaraCarr wrote: It is not like a crush or a lust thing.
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Re: Looking for feedback / critique of 'Watch Over You' cover

Post by scarecrow »

Hey! Here's what the final version ended up sounding like. Not a version I'm going to release in any official capacity, but on SoundCloud at least. I think it turned out great but most of that is Myles lmao. Still, all these years later - what a song!! :eek

https://soundcloud.com/fearful-earful/w ... r-acoustic

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