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What keyboard music influenced you?


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Initial, major major major influence: Peter and the Wolf -- done by the Incredible Jimmy Smith. (Oliver Nelson provided the backing band.) Around the age of twelve years I had memorized all of it, and learned how to play most of Smith's parts.

 

Secondary major (comping) influence was Robert Lamm of Chicago -- I learned how to back off and hold things together with a bunch of 1/4 note block chords.

-Tom Williams

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

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

 

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I looked for my cassette travel case for three hours. Wow, this hasn't been opened since 1991. I had another case of cassettes that stopped working, so not all the keyboard music that influenced me is here. but kind of fun to see it again. also wanted to try the new attachment option. ~BOB

66.thumb.jpg.2ac35a7267337cdef59a7654b4ab68a6.jpg

I'm practicing so that people can maybe go "wow" at an imaginary gig I'll never play. -Nadroj
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I continue to be influenced by different people. In my earliest days, it was Billy Joel, Elton John, but mostly piano. Early organ/ synth influence was Kansas and Styx. Then the 80s rolled around and it was Sparks, Devo, Human League, New Order Depeche Mode, Duran Duran. Then the Industrial Age came around and it was NIN, Marilyn Manson, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers. I see everything since as a big mix of a lot of styles, but most recently since I'm working on originals inprogressive metal, Derek Sherinian has been my biggest influence.

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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[font:Century Gothic]The players on my parents' albums of Mexican and other Latin-American music would've been first, with Duke Ellington and Stevie Wonder coming along soon after that. Stevie's Innervisions album would be the first album that I could single out for keyboard playing. After that, the next big keyboard hit to my brain would've been Tangerine Dream, although I don't remember which came first - Stratosfear or their soundtrack to Sorcerer. Somewhere around this same time, I really started to notice EW&F's Larry Dunn and P-Funk's Bernie Worrell, too, although I'd already been a fan of both their bands for a few years at that point.

 

Then I saw Kate Bush on SNL and everything changed. [/font]

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Initially it was The Animals with Alan Price and later Dave Rowberry. I also liked Rod Argent with The Zombies and John Hawken with The Nashville Teens. Growing up in the Northwest US I listened to Don Gallucci who had been in The Kingsmen and then formed Don and the Goodtimes which evolved into the prog band Touch. Then along came The Doors who I thought were the greatest thing up to that point. After that comes Mark Stein, Jon Lord, and Keith Emerson. Then I really got into Rare Bird a British Prog band with two Keyboardists and no guitar.
C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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I was going to comment on this thread but then I saw that I already had...about 2 years ago. I have added very few influences since then, but I'm very intrigued by Domi Degalle, and interested in what her future holds.

You want me to start this song too slow or too fast?

 

Forte7, Nord Stage 3, XK3c, OB-6, Arturia Collection, Mainstage, MotionSound KBR3D. A bunch of MusicMan Guitars, Line6 stuff

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Man almost none of these people have influenced me. Wow, it's not a negative against anyone but I feel like a fish out of water. LOL.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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Man almost none of these people have influenced me. Wow, it's not a negative against anyone but I feel like a fish out of water. LOL.
Always nice to hear some variety. I love Rick Wakeman as much as the next guy, but on this forum, definitely not as much as the literal next guy, you know what I mean? I know you dig Danny and Roy from the E Street Band... what got you started?

 

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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Another big one of mine I forgot - the old NY session player Paul Griffin. I love his work on Sign in Stranger by Steely Dan, but hearing his piano track on Don McLean's American Pie was what introduced me to him, & really influenced my playing a lot. (
)
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Wow, so many.

 

In my early classical years:

 

JS Bach, Debussy, Rachmananov

 

In my early rock (combo organ) years:

 

Ray Manzarek, Doug Ingle, Alan Price, Paul Revere

 

In my early Hammond years:

 

Rod Argent, Mark Stein, Felix Cavaliere, Jimmy Greenspoon, Steve Winwood

 

In the prog years:

 

Keith Emerson, Kerry Minnear, Brian Auger, Jimmy Smith, Rick Wakeman, Joe Sample, Joe Zawinul

 

In the post prog years:

 

Billy Payne, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Hornsby, Mac Rebennack, John Medeski, Larry Goldings, Larry Young

Moe

---

 

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I had many of the same that have already been mentioned, but a big one for me was Max Middleton on Jeff Beck's Rough & Ready. I was already into Brian Auger, but Max laid down some major grooves on that album. I was blown away. No one ever seems to mention Max here.

"May you stay...forever young."

 

 

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I've only recently started playing piano now that I'm in the Jurassic phase of my life, I've played guitar and bass most my life. The first keyboardist to blow my mind was seeing Jimmy Smith, but I viewed him as a God so just want to listen and not try to play. Later I wanted to play keyboard after hearing The Nice (Emerson's band before ELP), Brian Auger, Steve Winwood, and New Orleans pianists, but sadly money and other circumstances it didn't happen.

 

 

 

 

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OT, I know - but

Did you ever see the Monkees episode with Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll?

I think he played the devil. A local station is rerunning Monkees shows on Sundays and I keep hoping they put on that show.

Professional musician = great source of poverty.

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Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman and Jan Hammer in the early seventies, even though I could never hope to play like them ;) . But Tangerine Dream (especially "Phaedra" and "
") and Klaus Schulze ("
" was amazing) were greater influences for me. Brian Eno was another with "
" and his subsequent ambient albums.
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Became a Burt Bacharach fan after seeing Promises Promises...I know...strange for a kid.

 

 

I really liked Burt Bacharach when I was 10 years old back in the sixties. Probably why I was drawn to Stereolab many years later, they being influenced by him, Esquivel, and Neu.

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I grew up mostly with late classical and 70s jazz. Probably my three favorite keyboard influences were Muzzorgsky, Ravel (particularly Concerto for the Left Hand), and Joe Zowinul. I think by 6yo, I'd worn out 3-4 Fischer Price tape recorders listening to Pictures at an Exhibition, and the 8:30 album by Weather Report. Those are some of my earliest memories as a tyke. I didn't really listen to a lot of rock growing up, though there was a handful of Dier Straights, Clapton, and Doors. Only later in HS did I discover ProgRock and my world changed forever. But I soon started realizing that Pictures at Exhibition is really the worlds first ProgRock concept album, Weather Report was basically an instrumental prog band + jazz. And Ravel was a huge fan of both Muzzorgsky & Early Jazz. So my triumvirate of main musical influences all really make sense. Add John Adams to the mix, and you pretty much have ME.

Puck Funk! :)

 

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

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PS: I often joke that Stravinsky was the first Heavy Metal composer. But Hut of Baba Yaga is even more metal, and written 50 years earlier.

Puck Funk! :)

 

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

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Such a great thread

We are showing our ageð

 

My influences

Jon Lord

Steve Hill( Bloodrock)

Ken Hensley

Scott Joplin

Oscar Peterson

Bill Evans

Elton J

Billy J

Ray Charles

Doctor John

Ramsey Lewis

James Booker

Allen Toussaint

Art Neville

Beethoven

Mozart

Bach

Clementi( not Roberto)

Bruce Katz

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I began piano lessons at age six, after discovering an unused spinet in an extra room at my uncle's mansion. Every time we went to visit, my siblings and cousins would all be running around together, while Mike was pressing the keys on the piano in that unused room.

 

By the time I was playing a Wurly and Korg MiniKorg 700 in a band at age 15, in 1972, I'd already had about eight years of classical piano.

 

Albums that were a huge subsequent influence on me (and so many others):

 

 

Madman Across The Water - Elton John

Honky Chateau - Elton John

Don't Shoot the Piano Player - Elton John

 

Fragile - Yes

Closer to the Edge - Yes

 

Trilogy - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Brain Salad Surgery - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

 

Aqualung - Jethro Tull

Thick As A Brick - Jethro Tull

 

Michael

Montage 8, Logic Pro X, Omnisphere, Diva, Zebra 2, etc.

 

 

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