steve
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2019 12:33:14 GMT -5
There's a separate thread for Alyona's Aerosmith covers. This one's for all of her other work.
While Alyona continues to work on her debut album, she uploads a new cover to her You Tube channel every Sunday
🙋🏼 ABOUT ME: My name is Alyona Yarushina, or Aly. I am a singer originally from Russia. I have a full musical education, starting with music school, 9 years on the piano, then college as a conductor of a choir, then a musical university as an artist and vocalist.
In 2004, I won the “International Hopes of Europe” competition in Sochi, Russia for singing I Have Nothing By Whitney Houston. Along with the “Grand Prix” prize, which represents the highest award that competition can offer. There were 27 countries represented in that competition with over 1,000 contestants.
In Russia, I played with several bands. One of them is the best Led Zeppelin tribute band in Russia called "Plumbum Dreams". The other one is called "Back from the USSR", where we played Beatles songs in my own arrangements. We played in Liverpool, England almost every year on the Beatles week fest. My dad, Valeriy Yarushin is my bass player in this band. He's a legend of Russian folk-rock and his band “Ariel” was most popular in the 70s and still is now. I learned a lot from him.
During my career, I had the opportunity to perform with great artists such as Chick Corea, Chris Slade (AC/DC drummer), Ryan Roxie (Alice Cooper guitarist), Innes Sibun (Robert Plant's guitarist), David Campbell (musical producer and arranger of Muse and Adele), Brian Tichy (drummer for Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Foreigner, Ozzy Ozborne), Hal Bruce and others.
I started making cover songs on my own in 2002. Since that time, I have made over 320 videos for my Music Channel on YouTube from a variety of different genres. I like a lot of different song styles like rock, pop and jazz. I love classic rock. Bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Boston, Oasis, Jeff Buckley, Vixen, Janis Joplin, Aerosmith, Guns'n'Roses, Bon Jovi, Scorpions, Winger, Skid Row and others. - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2019 12:36:46 GMT -5
Full band instrumental, but Alyona is playing it entirely on keys
Wanted Dead Or Alive - Bon Jovi (INSTRUMENTAL + VOCAL cover)
"I recorded all the instruments myself using this midi keyboards and Logic Pro on my laptop. Again, I had to lift the key up several steps higher because Jon's range is pretty low for me" - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 5, 2020 17:04:23 GMT -5
Alyona's favorite KISS song. So she decided to record it.
"This instrumental I made completely by myself using only my keyboards and my computer program. All the recording, mixing, mastering, filming, editing and uploading I do myself" - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 20, 2020 10:46:32 GMT -5
"Sebastian Bach from Skid Row is a genius vocalist in the world of rock, and it's always a pleasure to learn singing rock from him. Wish one day I meet him and make a pic ahahhaah. If someone knows him personally say hi!" - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Feb 2, 2020 7:49:03 GMT -5
Alyona sliding into that Coverdale groove...
"This cover was made completely by myself (Instruments, Recording, Mixing, Video). As far as David Coverdale's voice range is quite low for me I had to "mimic" the arrangement but go several keys higher. So some instruments sounded too high so I moved some of them down like the guitar solo... But tried to stay within the original vibe of the song" - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Feb 20, 2020 7:19:56 GMT -5
An old Alyona video from 2016
"One of the most wonderful and magic rock ballads of all times,
I love Winger band and I'm still making covers on their songs.
When I was filming this video that night I had a dream that Kip Winger heard this cover and he didn't like it, and then Paul Taylor talked to him and Kip gave me 4 orange flowers and left, and to me it seemed that he liked it hahhahahaha (Why 4 and why orange who knows)
I recorded all the instruments myself with my little keyboard and LogicPro, also was trying to duplicate that epic Reb Beach's guitar solo with keys. Actually I combined 3 versions of this song. Acoustic version at the start and at the end, classic version and of course some of that orchestra stuff that Kip did recently." - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Mar 1, 2020 14:54:46 GMT -5
Alyona's new video
"If I would try to copy Jagger's unique manner - that would just look clownish. My main parts were female parts and as far as there had to be Jagger's parts there I recorded them in my own manner to make the song sound altogether" - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Mar 13, 2020 10:09:35 GMT -5
Alyona is being way too modest (as usual) and talking herself down when she describes herself as "not a very good instrumentalist" in her video notes. She was working on this song over a period of several months.
"This song was pre-recorded, also all the instruments I have recorded myself using my midi-keyboards and Logic Pro. I had to lift this song up several keys higher because the original was very low for me. It was tricky with solo guitar and other instruments because I had to make it sound not to high and not too low keeping that balance - yet it had to be sounding "close" to the original - not like a different song!
Also I'm not a sound engineer and not a very good instrumentalist, so I do it because it gives me more and more skills with every video, also I can share it with people who is interested, and just sing songs that I love comfortably!" - Alyona
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steve
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Post by steve on Mar 22, 2020 15:54:32 GMT -5
Alyona's done a bunch of Heart covers. One of the few Heart songs where Nancy took the lead vocal
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 4, 2020 6:30:25 GMT -5
Alyona has now moved to the USA! She did spend 18 months in the US in 2011-2012 working as a gigging musician before returning to Moscow. And she has wanted to get back ever since. But the visa situation for Russian citizens has made it very difficult for her to return. The US is where she needs to be and where she sees her future...and then this happened...
"Hey guys! We just moved to the USA. I got a visa called Alien with extraordinary ability, it is an immigrant visa type which allows me to work here as a musician. At the moment we are in Florida. We flew here on the 16th of March and couple of days later they stopped almost all the flights from Russia to the US so we were lucky!" - Alyona
She's already in a band, some musicians in Florida wanted to work her, so I hope this virus will go away soon so she can get started.
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 13, 2020 15:36:25 GMT -5
Alyona's new video
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 24, 2020 6:55:33 GMT -5
Alyona made a lot of videos, 13 of them, when she did some work with this vocal academy a few years ago. It was a good arrangement in terms of numbers, they got a boost in subs and interest with Alyona as their star turn. And Alyona got a lot more interest and subs to her own channel too. She's re-recorded a couple of songs to get them on her own channel. And will re-record some more. She made this tribute to Janis in 2016.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 6, 2020 6:05:18 GMT -5
Its a family affair...
Live in Moscow 2016 with Alyona on vocals, her brother (Oleg) on piano, and her dad (Valeriy) on bass
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Post by bartman2001 on May 7, 2020 9:49:18 GMT -5
Alyona's new video "If I would try to copy Jagger's unique manner - that would just look clownish. My main parts were female parts and as far as there had to be Jagger's parts there I recorded them in my own manner to make the song sound altogether" - Alyona I haven't followed this thread too closely mainly because some of the songs don't interest me to begin with. But this was fantastic she keeps the eerie feel of the song and still makes it her own. If I could sing I'd love to do a duet with her on this one.
I'd like to see her do more Janis covers as well but maybe with some more obscure songs and not to the backing track of the original recording but with a live band maybe. She's definitely got a damn good set of wind pipes though!
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steve
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Post by steve on May 7, 2020 13:51:26 GMT -5
Alyona's new video "If I would try to copy Jagger's unique manner - that would just look clownish. My main parts were female parts and as far as there had to be Jagger's parts there I recorded them in my own manner to make the song sound altogether" - Alyona I haven't followed this thread too closely mainly because some of the songs don't interest me to begin with. But this was fantastic she keeps the eerie feel of the song and still makes it her own. If I could sing I'd love to do a duet with her on this one.
I'd like to see her do more Janis covers as well but maybe with some more obscure songs and not to the backing track of the original recording but with a live band maybe. She's definitely got a damn good set of wind pipes though!
This was Alyona's first Stones cover, apart from a very old recording of Streets Of Love from 2013. That one is audio only and from the old days before she started making videos. Her first ever proper video was I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing in 2014. That's had way, way more views than all her other Aerosmith videos have had added together.
On the Janis covers, she's done Piece Of My Heart and Maybe. There's a really old video of her singing Bobby McGee from 2008 when she was vocalist for Hal Bruce at the Summer Of Love Festival in Liverpool. But its really poor audio quality. I know that its on her list to re-record it.
She sometimes makes the instrumental tracks herself using Logic Pro and plays them through her keyboard. Otherwise she downloads the backing track if she can find one she likes and it fits her voice.
Alyona rarely performs live in Russia. That's because she likes to sing western rock music. And that's still frowned upon in large parts of Russian society. And venues often shy away from booking her. She also likes to sing jazz, but can't get many bookings for that either. So while Russia is her home country, its not been good for her as a musician. But now she's in the USA - that's where most of her fans are - and she's ready and waiting to get out on the road. I try to help her by spreading the word when I can, so to speak. Good to hear you enjoyed her Gimme Shelter!
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