Blog post 2.1

 The original, by Skillet

 The cover by Cellofourte

For this blog I choose one of my absolute favorite songs. Monster by Skillet, a christen rock banc that has taken several steps away from the classical methods of normal christen music. The song uses a heavy base to try the beat and uses panning to create a strange feeling of movement. The song is very fast paced, a single guitar setting the high speed in the opening and can only be heard on the left. The rest of the band kicks in shortly after and for most of the song its very ordered but at exactly 2:16 in the first video the main singers voice is layer with his own voice but the timber has be altered make and animal like growl. It remains for the rest of the song and gives it a more animalistic and chaotic feeling. While the lyrics may not be cheerful they are emotional and really carry the singers fear of his internal beast.

            The covered version of this song is done by a smaller band known as Cello Forte. This band is purely strings with a light drum kit for base. The band played an identical version of monster using pure strings. They mimicked every aspect of the song from the style of the intro to the growl at 2:16 although to emulate it they simply layered the leads piece with an electric guitar.

            The songs are similar it a rather eerie way. Cello forte mimics it in everyway except that there are no vocals as and the primary instruments are strings. But other then that, the speed style rhythm is identical.  Hence Cello forte has a rather eerie feel to it especially after hearing the original. It’s just so unique to hear a powerful rock song transposed into a equally powerful string piece. One would have thought the strings couldn’t carry the same weight as the original could but the music disagrees. The use of the electric guitar was also clever as it mimicked the layering of the singers voice but with again using just stringed instruments.

            The contrast however is what makes the song really stand out. In the skillet version the song is heavy and the beat is intense and powerful. The cello version, due to the instrument is far softer and carries a equally powerful but far more graceful feel to it. It is also a bit softer as the instruments are more lyrical and cant really recreate the bite of the voices but at the same time they recreated every part of the song but with the gentle melody of the cellos rather than the power of an electric guitar. Although an electric guitar makes and appearance in the cello version it was more of the effect of creating the animalistic sounds that the first did by altering the lead singers voice. Another contrast is that while Skillets piece got chaotic and wild at the end of the song, the cello forte one maintained a level of