Hallelujah - How to Cover it Badly

so this is a short video to type people over while I continue with the next part in my series on musical transitions I'll be doing this from time to time making singular observations about music and coaxing little lessons out of them in this case I'm going to be looking at the song hallelujah written by Leonard Cohen and later giving a memorable upgrade by Jeff Buckley and what we're going to be looking at specifically are bad covers of Hallelujah and why I think they're bad this song is covered all the time I mean especially after Jeff Buckley's stripped-down interpretation which did away with the backing chorus and additional instrumentation of the original it's now become almost a rite of passage for anyone who aspires to sing while playing guitar and since it's covered so much people naturally try to add a bit of flair and personality to their own performance of it and sometimes these interpretations just ignore I don't know basic structure and you end up with something that sounds awkward or sometimes just dreadful now the majority of interpretations that I hear let's say 60% are fine but since I walked through central London every day I get to hear many many interpretations over time and there's this one tiny moment where in my opinion the other 40% of screwing up and it's gotten to the point where I'll actually interrupt my journey and hang around just to hear how the busker in question does it so let's get stuck in rather than face any more copyright claims right now I'm just gonna play the section in question myself and I've made a really simple graph just to show exactly what the song is doing well it goes like this the fourth the minor fall the major lift the baffled King composing hallelujah hallelujah [Music] [Laughter] so there you go if you're familiar with the song you probably thought that sounded pretty standard and that's okay um yeah you're right well done this whole musical moment works as an arc you're getting higher and higher in pitch and louder and louder until you reach the climax hallelujah and after this exultation things to send becoming softer and softer and slower emotionally easing you into the next verse Leonard Cohen describes it as a desire to affirm my faith in life not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm with the motion so with this in mind the musical trajectory makes sense it's a climax of exultation and the highs don't feel high if everything else is high so he builds up to a big peak and then comes back down to prepare himself for another run this is musical structure in microcosm Jeff Buckley have a slightly different interpretation he called it a hallelujah to the orgasm fine and despite the fact that this slightly differs from Cohen's intention it still makes perfect musical sense do we need to explain how the word orgasm fits this pattern Zack Snyder gets it he completely gets it and as although he got the versions mixed up could you not afford Jeff Buckley this actually this is vile it sounds like their dad is watching over them so with all that in mind let's listen to a cross-section of youtubers making a stab at this part and let's ask ourselves does this make musical sense when considering everything I've just said to ease us into it I'm going to start with a really tiny quibble [Music] right stop okay this one gets a pass although the singer dipped down a semitone below the final note and then came back up apart from sounding a little bit lame in the context of the whole phrase why would the second last note be the lowest let me remind you of how Jeff Buckley does it [Music] as I said a minor quibble but the more you hear it the more annoying it gets [Music] Lu [Music] yuck that one's worse he spent too much time focusing on the number of warbles he could fit in a second hi [Music] there we go again and I'm not a fan of those accentuated pauses but I'm only getting started check this out [Music] okay that sounds confused as seniors do this a lot singing with an imagined main vocal line it sounds like you're saying the backing part when your main singer stormed off let me just jump in [Music] yeah yeah that's better [Music] yeah yeah that was rubbish although an impressive warble per second ratio though incidentally when you wore blue this is what you're doing [Music] okay tried this one on for size [Music] okay well extra points for trying to be different but man what's that harmony meant to be doing great now our Ark looks like this did you subvert the whole idea of musical direction is some sort of nihilistic statement it worked right this one coming up is the most common and egregious offender [Music] don't go an octave higher this is even worse I know they're the same notes but they're in a different register for example does this sound right [Music] no no no no just just because he can doesn't mean you should and right I now hold on not not in front the baby look at him he doesn't like it listen right god em you're gonna you're gonna give him weird ideas [Music] at times like this it's probably good to take notes from a pro and who better than bono I promise that trumpet is nothing to do with me I am a donor right so in conclusion if you want to make a song your own that's fine you can add or subtract as much as you like but here's the problem some pieces of music are really simple and if you bend them too far without considering what makes them work well you're not really contributing very much on another note if you're simply subordinating the musical meaning to a display of your technical skill then you suck and this isn't to discount the importance of individuality and alternative perspectives in music there's more than enough room elsewhere in this song for that but if you really want to celebrate your individuality then I'd suggest writing something of your own rather than hitching your trailer to one of the biggest stars out there I mean you know things have moved on when Ed Sheeran joins the party [Music] hardly [Music] man and he got it right - well done ed sheeran if that doesn't inspire you nothing will well that's the video hope you enjoyed it there will be another probably quite small video coming up pretty soon the video I'm making about musical transitions which is the second part is taking a bit of time because I'm gonna go fairly hardcore into theory with that one also I've realised that asking people to subscribe at the end of videos that really really works and I'm obviously trying to set up a new YouTube channel it's early days but whatever you can do to perhaps share it with someone else who you know is into music or just do whatever you can to get more subscribers or help me out that'd be fantastic yeah I've set up a Twitter account I'm not really certain what's the point I have three followers which is you know excellent one of them is my wife and what am I meant to do just post YouTube videos on Twitter well I'll do that okay also I have a god I feel dirty a facebook tanta crew account you know give that a whirl and basically what you can do is log on to Facebook and you can see the exact same stuff we've just seen here and then you can press like and that way then you have engaged with the Internet that's all I think I have to say take care thank you very much [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Tantacrul

Views: 1,493,700

Rating: 4.6238799 out of 5

Keywords: Hallelujah, Covering Hallelujah, Tantacrul, Music Covers, hallelujah cover, hallelujah lyrics, hallelujah tutorial singing, hallelujah lesson, hallelujah lesson acoustic, leonard cohen hallelujah bono, hallelujah bono vox, leonard cohen, jeff buckley hallelujah, leonard cohen hallelujah original, How to cover hallelujah, How to cover hallelujah badly

Id: BnQiyfRYOgo

Length: 9min 51sec (591 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 17 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/coldground]

"If you're simply subordinating the musical meaning to a display of your technical skill - then you suck." truer words have never been spoken. Good points!

[u/Appetite4destruction]

In the video you criticize people for jumping an octave on their way down during the chorus. Yet Jeff Buckley definitely does exactly that and you don't say anything about it.

While I generally agree with most of what you say in this video, I have to take issue with this. At least point out that Buckley did it and pulled it off (and only near the end).

[u/d3_crescentia]

really, come on dude

if you're gonna post your own stuff, own it 100% instead of pretending you're just some 3rd party in the link title

[u/niugnep24]

The warbling sucks, but I'm not bothered by varying the melody a bit. I don't think it has to strictly descend as long as other aspects of the performance sell the release, like volume and tempo. Some of those people going up an octave were probably doing it for range issues, too.

[u/Sleeper256]

Over in /r/singing we had a Hallelujah cover contest recently. Since I made a version and you're making a thread about this song and covers of it in a sub that's about making music, I'm gonna throw my cover into the ring and see what ya think. At the very least I can tell you I for the most part didn't go the sensitive-warble path ^{because I'm not very capable of it}

Hallelujah Rock/Pop Cover

I didn't win or get mentioned but I'm at least I'm a huge hit with all these girls who just so happen to be bots and I have no idea where they came from.

And if you think I destroyed the feeling of the original and replaced it with increasingly rocky instruments, you're probably right, so here's a version where it's just the vocals and piano. That way the screams at the end feel REALLY out of place.

Also I'd like critique if you can spare it. I just figured this is a better place than the critique thread because it's ontopic.

[u/Indie59]

"It sounds like their dad is watching them."

Hysterically ruined that scene for me from now on. Spot on.

[u/TheChurchofHelix]

One gripe - it's a trombone in the weird Bono version ;)

[u/imeddy]

Are you calling your own video "really funny". That kinda sucks.

[u/bensawn]

i get getting an underlying structure right but what is the point of doing a cover if it is exactly the same as the original this just feels like petty micromanagement.