Taylor Swift is incredibly skilled

I listened to Love Story (Taylor’s Version) recently and then checked out the original recording. It’s spooky. If you adjust for the volume differences they sound almost exactly the same. The arrangement is the same. The performances on all instruments are the same. The mix is the same. The mastering is the same. Basically everything is the same except the new version sounds a little more mature and polished and hi-tech. It sounds like it was recorded with newer equipment. But basically everything about it is the same.

That got me thinking about how I’d go about doing that myself. If I’d recorded myself playing a song on guitar or piano about 13 years ago and tried to recreate it today, how would that go?

I don’t know if I’d be able to do that and get it as close to the original as the new Taylor Swift recordings are to the originals.

It’s incredibly difficult to do.

Not only do you need to arrange everything the same way, you need to know exactly how everything was performed and recreate it. Almost every vocal inflection is the same. It’s hard enough to record two takes that sound almost exactly the same, but going back to a song that’s 13 years old and doing that? That’s even more impressive.

You need to be able to listen close enough to hear all of the different inflections and then you need to be skilled enough as a singer to remember how it sounds and recreate it. It takes a lot of attention to detail and a lot of skill to do. Lots of practice singing with detailed inflections and lots of listening to inflections in singing.

On top of that each instrument needs to be performed as close to the original as possible. And the song needs to be mixed almost exactly the same way and mastered the same way.

If this were a new song and they were creating it new it’d be easier in my opinion. Making something up and trying to match it immediately after is easier than taking a song (even one you’ve written) from 13 years ago and trying to recreate it in a way that’s as close to the original as possible.

It’s impressive. Even recording yourself saying something the exact same way twice is difficult. This level of detail is incredibly impressive.

Take a listen to the new recordings. They’ll blow your mind with how close to the originals they are.

That’s what I’m geeking out about currently.

ISJ