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Keyboard Player Red Flags


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OK, we all just got to vent our frustrations with other band members and list red flags that would tell us to run away. But what do you think their red flags are when it comes to keyboard players? Or if you've played in a band with 2 keyboard players, what are your red flags for the other player?

 

I think we'd all recognize that a red flag for one genre or type of band would be completely different than those for another type. For instance, different rigs with different sounds, different musical abilities, etc. So maybe to help keep things clear, first list the band type or genre that you're thinking of for your list.

 

Pop/Rock Cover Band:

 

1) Rig Too Elaborate, or Insufficient - this can go either way. In most cover band situations, stage space is tight so if you bring out a Keith Emerson rig, it's going to take up too much real estate and likely be overkill. On the flip side, especially with pop songs that require a lot of simultaneous parts, even setting up a lot of splits on an 88 key keyboard, you just aren't going to have enough real estate to cover all the necessary parts.....though I DO know one guy who manages pretty well, but in order to do it, he has to transpose some parts and change the keys just to squeeze them all in on a single 88. PITA and a bit confusing, but he says he'd rather do that than have to bring out another board.

 

2) Preset Jockey - most presets don't adequately consider a lot of the pop/rock stuff. If somebody has no idea how to tweak sounds at all to make them fit, and only just picks whatever they think the closest preset is, that's going to be a problem in this type of band. Also in this group would be guys who just don't have an ear for the sound - maybe there IS a decent preset but they don't pick it.

 

3) Inconsistent Patch Volumes - this one is a struggle for all of us, but there are some that have a REAL problem with this. You can tell live because the sound guy will set them so that their loudest patch doesn't clip. So you may hear keys just fine on one song then the keys just completely drop out on the next. It's easy to blame the sound guy, but he probably doesn't have to be constantly riding the keyboard fader all night, and if he turns it up he's probably worried (from experience) that after a patch change he'll suddenly get blasted.

 

4) Cable mess on stage - part of this is just a pet peeve of mine, I guess, but guys who just haphazardly string cables all over with no effort to route them in an organized way or tidy things up with the cable holders on the stand, etc. I think it just looks really bad from the audience to have cables hanging all over draped across things, plus it adds to trip hazard and other problems.

 

5) Incorrect or Missing Parts - This comes down to ear once again. How many people have I heard play the intro to Don't Stop Believin with the wrong voicing? I don't know if it's a bad ear or just a lack of effort. That's just one example but there are many easy songs that I've heard keyboard players inexplicably play wrong. Also, when there are multiple parts that could be easily played together and they just leave the other part out. Some of this could potentially tie in to some of the other points - maybe they only have a single board and don't know how to set up a split.

 

Ok, those are mine, from the world I play in of 70s to present pop/rock cover bands. What's yours?

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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A handful:

 

- not learning the song. Scuffling through sections, bridges, etc. with percussive noodling or similar because dude never bothered to learn the tune correctly.

- also related - not learning the form - so habitually missing transitions.

- thinking that just knowing the harmony is enough. Which leads to...

- ...100% comping on Rhodes or B3 the entire set without any dynamics, nuance, space or...

- ...not learning signature lead lines, iconic riffs or other elements that really identify and make the tune.

- playing the gig you wish you were on, not the gig you're actually on. Which leads to showing off a bunch of jazzy substitutes in tunes that don't improve with them.

- always playing too soft.

- always playing too loud.

- always bringing gear that breaks or fails in the middle of the set.

- being more focused on your tech than the music.

 

Because I also play as much looser, improvisational funk and R&B as cover material,

 

- not being able to flow with your bandmates. Not having big ears. Not having the self-discipline to sometimes take your hands off the keys.

- not leaving space for others. Playing sh*t over other people's solos as "comping".

- making lots of "poor musical choices" - like dialing up a funky clav patch for a quiet ballad, or apeing jazz acoustic piano on a sparse funk groove that demands a poly synth motif.

- soloing over a groove that is just "out" and never comes "in"

 

My last red flag, for now I think:

 

- not being willing to be entertain. Unless you're playing original art music, you're an entertainer. So accept and embrace the role and make a little effort. Some folks are more outgoing and better at projecting a presence on stage than others. But at least try to smile and connect with the audience. You're not spending the next hour preparing a legal brief.

..
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Playing synth/brass/strings/organ sounds like a piano.

Wall warts. Too unreliable, they are banned from my live rig.

This is personal but I'm a stinker for authenticity of styles. I cringe when I hear someone who can't play Billy Powell licks and they ruin the piano solo in Sweet Home Alabama or Freebird.

And the Great Big Red Flag: Playing left hand piano parts that conflict with bass guitar.

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In my time in bands, I've known a small handful of players who've raised not exactly "red" but perhaps "orange" flags:

- AP patch for every song. (I was a bit like this in my youth. This forum taught me about tonewheels and expression pedals)

- Overly loud. (I've never been like this)

- The too-much-rig thing is kind of their problem not mine, but I imagine it could get old if I'm keen to get the hell out of Dodge Bar and Grill ("Live Music every Sunday!")

- Unreliable gear (I've been guilty of this in the past - bad luck more than anything)

 

Interestingly, I don't think I've ever met a keys player I didn't get on with in terms of their personality.

 

Cheers, Mike.

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- The too-much-rig thing is kind of their problem not mine, but....

- Unreliable gear....

 

These 2 can go hand in hand. The more gear, and especially reliance on more cables.....MIDI, Audio, Pedals, etc., the better chance something could go wrong, and possibly the more difficult and time consuming to troubleshoot and fix.

 

The flip side, if you have a single board rig and it craps out, you're dead in the water with no backup.

 

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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The flip side, if you have a single board rig and it craps out, you're dead in the water with no backup.
True dat. I've never had my sound-generating top board crap out (although I've had to factory-reset and reload-from-backup at a soundcheck). Controller failures are a pain, but don't kill a gig.

 

Pushing chord changes. Too many times I hear keys just a hair too soon.
Yeah time can be a challenge for keys players in a way that's rarer among e.g. bass players.

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

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- not leaving space for others. Playing sh*t over other people's solos as "comping".
I'll raise my hand to this one. Though I think it's a bit of personal taste. My favorite band is probably King Crimson: everything at 100% all the time. I LOVE chaos, it makes my heart sing, so it's very difficult for me not to really latch onto a solo and want to play off of it in my comping, or come up with counter melodies. My bandmates have been after me for this one for years, and I'm curbing my instinct, but it's the hardest thing I have to do on stage. Still, whenever I start my next "me" band, I'll happily go right back to it because it's really what I want to hear, and I want other people to do it to my solos too.

 

My big pet peeve:

Groove & Time... I'm a HUGE HUGE stickler for pocket. I don't care if you're hip hop, rock, jazz, classical... they all have different feels, for sure, but there's "right" and there's "wrong", and like pornography: I know it when I hear it! Lead player's constantly playing ahead of the beat, lazy-ass bass players who can't figure out where the ONE is, get outta town. Feel makes the band. Period. Doesn't matter if you all play wrong notes, if you've got good feel, you're gonna work the club.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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Ignoring for the moment that many of the aforementioned red flags describe me to a tee, one of mine (or more accurately, one of my pet peeves) is keyboardists who do not play with authority. I don't mean loud versus soft -- I mean don't be timid. I've found this particularly (chauvinist alert!) among church lady piano players in contemporary music settings -- including those under the age of 30 -- who are apparently scared to hit more than two keys at a time, and never play louder than mezzo-piano. They're sometimes harder to mix than loud drummers!

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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I'll admit that I've often struggled with sloppy time. Keyboard players I think spend a lot of time playing by themselves and at least for me, especially in my early days, getting the idea of feel, groove, the pocket....all foreign. It wasn't until I picked up bass that I started to improve.

 

There was an earlier Billy Powell reference.....guilty as charged! Again, mostly because of timing. On a real piano with weighted keys playing with the CD I can do ok. Live band situation on unweighted keys trying to keep the timing right, I really struggle - definitely one of my weakest performances. Barely passable. Stuff that's difficult but fairly straightforward time is fine - foreplay/longtime, smokin, Do You Feel, etc.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I haven't played with other local keyboardists (the opportunity hasn't presented itself) but I did a while back elsewhere and it was a freakin' blast. 70's stuff, with a decent helping of prog rock. Super duper fun. Warning: not many venue stages have room for two keys setups.

 

We worked on making each other better -- coaching, gear, etc. During songs, we'd often switch roles. What a freaking massive wall of sound. Sorry, guitar hero. I do miss that.

 

That being said, I've made an effort to go out and seen most of the local acts that have keys.

 

Essential observation: the bar here is very low.

 

The classic situation here is someone who's hauled out their home low-end cheeze board with built-in speakers, and routed their sound to a practice guitar amp by connecting a mono cable to a stereo headphone port. It sounds like crap seven ways from Sunday. I don't stay long as it hurts my ears, as no amount of alcohol will help. Those same folks will play weird parts over familiar tunes, or miss signature parts entirely.

 

It's a complete s**t show. I'm assuming they get paid for this.

 

I seem to be one of the only guys locally who uses a pair of decent boards, mixes and brings reasonable amplification. The out-of-town bands at the bigger events bring better keys talent and gear, of course, but that's not local stuff. The event bands from Miami and Orlando rock -- everyone is good, it's fun, etc. If I cared, I could perhaps do it well. No magic in what the keys person is doing. But I don't care.

 

I think this is why I can show up to any local audition and get the gig if I want. Thankfully, my gear sounds great. My chops could always use some help, but nothing that practice can't fix. And, almost magically, I've learned how to do semi-interesting solos over the last several years. Shazam! And not bringing your ego to band situations is always good advice.

 

The other folks did a good job of covering other red flags.

 

In response to other posts, timing is not a challenge for me, unless I'm fatigued, then I completely suck. I'll vary the sync based on what we're playing. For example, for some strange reason, I am told I'm super good on reggae, dub, etc. EDM. And folk rock as well as classic 60s/70s. Finding the feel is easy for me, as long as the drummer/track is OK.

 

Maybe I have the magic timing gene?

 

Biggest red flag issue for keys or anyone else -- do they live in a fantasy bubble? Nothing good will come of this. Are they engaged with the world around them? Maybe they suck, but they can improve as a result.

 

Just have to share: as I write this I'm decompressing from a major gig. Local rec folks host bands every Friday and Saturday night, outdoors. Pays well, easy to deal with, Nice stage, refreshments, good food, great people. They have a serviceable stage with lame lights. I brought a modest PA which I mixed, plus my battery powered light show. No one there wants to get blown out with volume.

 

Maybe 200 people showed up? In summer Florida, take that as a win. Peak of the night? We did White Rabbit with this female vocalist who brings game. The audience was completely blown out, everyone mouthing the words. Although the original has no keys, there is some amazing spaces and scales.

 

Rhodes and of course Vox stuffl Huge, huge crowd pleaser.

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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A second player I think brings a different perspective.

 

I played in a band with 2 guitars, where one of them also played keys. He didn't always have the best sounds or play exactly right, but on certain songs, it was SOooooo nice to have him cover that one extra part so I could concentrate on the prominent parts. I would have ripped him apart as a primary keyboard player, but he offered enough that I was happy to have him.

 

I expect it's the same for the band I fill in with, whose guitar player passed last week. I'm not great at guitar but he appreciated and encouraged me playing guitar - I think he liked having that rhythm during the solos or the extra little part he couldn't cover, even though it might not be the best performance.

 

I know of a great cover band locally where the lead singer covers some keys parts. She's not e best but I respect that she actually plays the parts rather than skip them or use tracks, since they are a guitar oriented band.

 

So for me the bar is different for a dedicated fulltime keyboard player than somebody covering some parts or a second player.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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EDM is a completely foreign concept for me, I have NO IDEA how it's done. I'm a band musician or a solo musician, I even do mockups of classical, rock, jazz, metal. But even the simplest of EDM tracks blow my mind. I don't think I could ever do that. Industrial is the closest I think I could ever come.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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Ignoring for the moment that many of the aforementioned red flags describe me to a tee ....
oh, whew! It's not just me ;)

 

If there's anything I'm learning from these "red flag" descriptions, it's what I myself could perhaps not do. Note-perfect recreations haven't been my goal, except when crucial to the song, but it does seem reasonable to know the album version just in case. Billy Powell? When "Sweet Home Alabama" was suggested by a singer (auditioning for the band), I played nothing rather than butcher that part. We didn't end up taking on that singer (he was really more country) but I was keenly aware of my non-participation.

 

On the other hand: as cphollis says, the bar seems low for local bands, and I've done fine with just the MX61 and a CPS Spacestation -- there simply aren't many keyboardists around ... possibly because there isn't any money in local gigs, so perhaps all the good keyboardists left for LA or Nashville ??

 

It's not the gear, it's the player ... but hey, look -- new gear!

 

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I have no idea where all the good keyboard players are either, but they are all on this forum!

LOL...simultaneously why I started this, and why I was WORRIED about starting this. But in reality, if we can collectively recognize our weaknesses while discussing solutions, and learning as a group, then I think we, as a community, are better off! (Was that a run-on sentence?)

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I thought it would be red flag when the keyboard player after me at a gig brought his home Yamaha model, complete with wooden stand. Then before they started playing, he was warming up with some Mozart stuff or something like that totally different than the pop singer/songwriter stuff they were about to play. (So that seemed to be two red flags.)

 

But, when the band started playing for real, he wasn't bad at all. :idk:

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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I thought it would be red flag when the keyboard player after me at a gig brought his home Yamaha model, complete with wooden stand.

 

Something like this?

707462000000000-00-750x750.jpg

 

 

 

When an eel hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a Moray.
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I thought it would be red flag when the keyboard player after me at a gig brought his home Yamaha model, complete with wooden stand.

 

Something like this?

707462000000000-00-750x750.jpg

 

 

Exactly like that. I mean, that might have been the exact model. Do you him too?

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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In my limited experience, and I mean this in no way disrespectfully, my band colleagues do not have a Scooby Doo about what is actually involved in being a keys player. 'Preset Jockey'? No way is that a red flag, you"d have to explain what that meant first. Untidy cables? Nah, I"m behind them, they wouldn"t know or care if I had 1 or 1000 cables. They"re just happy that they know where to go when they forget theirs.

 

What they all definitely hate though is when the keys are too loud in their monitors. I can understand why, there"s a lot of sonic space being taken up there.

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I only know two other regularly gigging keyboard players locally.

 

One is an old Hammond warrior who still brings his B-3 to most gigs. He's my hero for keeping the Hammond flame alive. He's a competent player who would like to be able to solo with more authority.

 

The other plays guitar and keys. He is revered by most non musicians in town, has studied jazz, and owns a recording studio. He plays a lot better when he is relaxed like in rehearsal. On the gig, he gets all wound up and craps all over every space. Our private nickname for him is "all the notes, all the time." Nevertheless he plays in several bands.

 

Then there's me. I'm slim, handsome, dependable, .... er. Actually my problem is that I'm lazy. The band I currently play with gigs almost every weekend, but the material is not very engaging. Since anything we learn is 30-40 years old, I am guilty of showing up to rehearsal and winging it. I'm right with Lebowski about learning yet another Eagles tune. The few times I have exerted myself to spend a couple days programming something complicated on the Nord like Here Comes The Sun, we play it a few times and the bandleader never calls it again.

 

I guess we all have our warts.

Moe

---

 

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Biggest red flag I've encountered.

There is a local player that has been around for a long time. He and I are among the best in the area, as far as playing rock/blues/country. He has a really nice rig, and sounds really good.

 

The problem was the one gig I played where we shared keyboard duties. It was a "Let's just put some people together and play" situation.

 

We had similar rigs. Digital piano with some other sounds available, and a clonewheel.

 

The issue came with sound selection. We might start out the song where I'm playing AP, and he's on a different, complimentary sound. Then part way through the song, I notice that he has switched to AP, so we're BOTH on AP. so, I switch to Hammond. Next thing I know, he's on Hammond, too. This went on all night.

 

I love the guy, and love his playing, but I'll not share the keyboard chair with him again.

 

Oh, and as far as rigs go, we both have solid rigs. For Clonewheel, I play a Hammond SK-2 through a Vent and a QSC K10, he plays a Nord C2 through a Leslie 3300

 

Addressing the issue with gear breaking down, I had a gig where I was set up, ready to play, everything working perfectly. 15 minutes before downbeat, I checked my rig, and my Yamaha MM8 was off. I tried everything, and could not get it working. The Wall wart power supply had failed.

 

I had to play the entire gig on just the SK-2. OK, it's a capable board, that's why I bought it. But, in this line up, my left hand was the bass. Had to scramble a bit, but I was able to get through the gig.

 

 

"In the beginning, Adam had the blues, 'cause he was lonesome.

So God helped him and created woman.

 

Now everybody's got the blues."

 

Willie Dixon

 

 

 

 

 

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This would be an interesting thread for a guitar forum. I bet they have a bunch of cliches for us keys players ("they get so hung up on correcting the names of chords..." or whatever).

 

Cheers, Mike.

Ha ha -- For guitarists, the elements of any given song divide into two categories: Guitar Parts and Everything Else.They often don't really distinguish what the other instruments are playing; as CowboyNQ implies, it's basically them playing in front of "the band", with notice only for standout bits (e.g., Nawlins-style piano or a synth lead). This isn't to slam on guitarists particularly -- singers are often just as guilty -- but the closest I have seen a guitarist come to red-flagging a keyboardist was to compare their shorter setup time.

 

 

It's not the gear, it's the player ... but hey, look -- new gear!

 

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Ok, red flags I think I'm in:

1) Bringing too much gear....I'm like this, I don't care if I have to take 1h30 to set up, it's part of my pleasure, and having exactly on stage what I had at home in the studio is what I like....

Well, in fact, in my previous band, I took the C2 first, because they said, well, just do a bit of co ping in organ and that would be enough....

Then they said, "why you don't have Piano on this one? Well, they said keys.... Organ was not keys for them....So I brought the stage 2....

Then they said, "that would be great if you could do, brass, and strings in this one and maybe some Percussions on Santana's songs....So, O brought the expanders....

And when they ask for crazy bending synths solo, I took in the P08....

I ended up having all the keys from the studio moved to the practice place....

2) Lots of cables, too much cables? Not attached very nicely to the stand...That's me, they never leave me the time to attached them properly with Velcro because they want to start....and yes, with 5 keys, there is a lot of cables...but as someone said, They promoted me sound guy so, they are very pleased when I solved their issues....

3) Not smiling.... A bit of me at the start of the gig because in my new band, as a BL and MD and Sound Guy, listen to everyone at he beginning to detect any "discrepancies/bad sound/wrong something etc..."

But after a whole, I smile....more with my eyes....

But for the rest, I bring good gear, I check several times if they work, I refuse to have a computer because it could/it will crash, there is enough duplicates in my rig that if one is down, I could do it.... My weakness: I have only ONE Ipad, if it crashed, I have to read on all my notes on the charts the program numbers for the songs....So, a second Ipad is on my list, my former second one, 12 years old, died recently....

 

Stage 2, C2, NL2X+TC Pedals, P08+Tetra+H9, P12+TC Chorus D50+PG1000, 2 Matrix 1K, Proteus 2K, TX802, Streichfett, Drumbrute. Guitars:G&L Legacy, Asat X2, Ibanez Artstar AS153.Bass: L2000, SR1200&2605.
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