Yes, I suck at guitar and my voice is far from being good, but anyways...
Here's my record for Mad World - Gary Jules
Give me feedbacks/comments
(and yes, piano has been transposed on my guitar by ear though I know it's perfect )

(Gimme the time to host the wav file) Done done done!
https://www.yousendit.com/download/dVlxb3BDTk1tMEozZUE9PQ
You have 7 days from now to listen to it.

If ever the link do not work, click here for a second mirror.
A third one can be found here too.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Apr 22 2009, 7:21 pm by payne.

I'm not gonna wait 6 minutes to dl that bro, Youtube it.

First off, I strongly recommend you to use a better hosting. There's tons of sites out there, you just have to google "file hosting" and they show up. Many of them don't have stupid bandwidth limitations nor they delete your files after 7 days. I downloaded your .wav at 42KB/s speed when I normally download at like 4 times that.


Okay, now to the song,
You didn't get anything "perfect". Don't be pretentious, specially when before saying you got something perfect you also said you suck at the both an only things that you're doing here, playing the guitar and singing.

The time is so wrong. I would have understood if it was deliberately on purpose a faster time but you didn't keep up with it. There was no continuance.
The song is waaaay much slower, and I am not saying that you're going to be limited by so, who knows maybe making fast arrangements of the song might actually work well and they probably have been done before, you just didn't do it right.

You "ate" several of the piano notes that you assumed you got perfect plus there is a "contra tiempo" (that's in spanish) but I guess that in english it would be "back beat" in the introduction that you missed.

My personal recommendation would be breaking your guitar and killing yourself.


Naaah, just kidding. My recommendation would be to keep the song's time. It will be pontentially easier for you that you're still learning to play guitar (assuming that's why you suck). If you want to make some improvisations and arrangements it will also be easier for you to do them.


Note that I'm not saying duplicate the song, in the end, making a cover is not about playing the song you've heard and the song every one knows the way it is. Making a cover is about interpreting the song, abstracting the meaning of it and representing it your own way, you have to fully understand what the song is about before jumping on and grabbing a guitar and play it, in my very humble and personal opinion, I'm not saying you don't but I'm telling you the way it should be.
Know that the song is about humanity's sickness, just to say something. And it is to express the problems and trying to make a change for them. The song could take several paths from the original concept but it took the one of being a somewhat calm and relaxing song that can make you cry or expresses the feeling of sadness.


On a more technical aproach, you need to make the notes sound. The notes hear cut and the sound mutes and it's a complete mess. Holding the notes more will also be aided by keeping the song's time.

Alright, I don't meant to be rude but your cover needs a lot of work.

Your pitch in the beginning is not too great (although it improves throughout the song) and the guitar playing is nothing special.
IMHO, the guitar should be more quiet, and the voice should be much louder. I mean, the guitar is only the backing.

Also, for my musical taste, I would much rather prefer legato in the little guitar part near the start of the song, rather than a stacatto-ish sound.

My main problem is the expression and style in this song. All I hear is a simple karaoke version of Mad World. What is your interpretation of this song? I don't feel much emotion through your singing.

(I think you are mumbling on some of the words also, but I don't know.)

Keep practicing >:C

Lol, this wasn't meant to be good at all, it was just a joke with my friends calling me a "Rock Star" so I recorded this saying that I never had the guts to submit it and that Gary Jules, an ex-friend of mine, stole it to me xD

Anyways, Corbo, wow, that's an awesome analysis. Could you explain me more about that "contra tiempo"?

Hitokiri, what's a "legato"? And a "stacatto"? Lulz...

And I'm not that bad at guitar, though I still need more practice. Singing, I obviously suck; I'm planing on taking courses after being very good at the guitar (and after, I'll go for harmonica for some epic bluesy intros!). Moreover, my english accent and all that stuff suck and it took me MANY takes to get all the lyrics and all... I even had to do some audio-mixing because I was bored of restarting the song all over again when I failed just a little part (but I came up with that only aftetr like 20 takes). On the guitar, I don't really see how I could make more effects/emotions in it because the finger movement do not permit me to any vibratos except if I slow down horribly the beat or that I change the whole timing of the intro. Also, try to notice how the beat increased momentally at the 2nd part of the song... that was audio mixing (it's hard to keep the same beat when restarting).

My next song will be Pigs On The Wing - Pink Floyd. My singing on it is even worst and I have to practice one transition of chords because I always buzz it But for the rest, I think my guitar play is really great

I've uploaded it on YouTube for the lulz.
I also plan on re-doing that, I'm pretty sure my voice is better and I should know the lyrics better

I'll also record myself over Pigs On The Wing and Across The Universe.
Anyways, just wanted to tell you

P.S. When I record myself, I cannot make anything because my damn microphone is like hyper-sensitive and whenever I play guitar too loud, there are parasites
So yes, the songs will be a bit quiet which reduces even more the singing and guitar's quality for multiple reasons :S

EDIT: YouTube will not let me upload a song without any visual support so I uploaded it on a new file hosting site so you can make your ears bleed even more
http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/54751/Mad_World_-_J__r__mi.wav
Have fun! ... not

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 26 2009, 5:38 am by payne.

If you don't know what legato and staccato are... Man, how do you even pull that off and still know how to play? They're pretty much some of the most basic terms in music: Legato is long and connected, staccato is short and detached, in relation to how you play each note. In sheet music, a legato looks like an underscore (_) and a staccato like a period.

Also, the song is by Tears for Fears, Gary Jules covered it.

I tried to record myself again over this and over Across the Universe... It didn't sound quite better, though we could see an amelioration... but it's not worth posting xD
Any tips for me to improve my voice and tempo? Please

Practice.
Additionally you can try using a metronome so you don't get lost in time !

As to your voice, if you're not one of those "omfg born to/made to/natural singers" I recommend uh, taking some singing lessons. Don't waste your money paying for tons of months or whatever, just a few lessons or whatever to teach you the basics, how to control your voice and all that jazz.

Thxz0r!
The problem is that:
1) I guess I shouldn't use that metronome during a play in front of others ;P
2) I do not have money for courses... any more tips?

You can get a metronome that has headphone input, if other people listening to it is what you're worried about. Either way unless you're in a really closed room with very few people they won't hear it, the guitar sound will eat the metronome sound.

And the metronome is just to start up getting used to, it's not like you're going to create a dependancy on it, and if you do, break it and never buy one again.

As to the singing, well, there's really not many things you can do, you can't really read things on the internet and learn singing (anyone that claims they are pro singers just by reading the internetz are liers/pretentious people), you have to practice. You can try listening to tons of music, even if you don't like it, to see how other singers control their voice and all, the wider the variety the better (or worse) examples you'll have.

I've read some infos over the net and say the breathing is very important lol. I'll start with that I guess witha bit of practice each day