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Yes, "Guitar." I hope that doesn't offend anyone here. Hello, I'm Greg in Houston. I'm a guitar player, but I double on keys. I'm almost completely self taught on keys.

I've been kicking around on Twitter and Facebook, but I'm not finding many serious-minded people either place. I haven't checked out forums since the early 2000s and alt.guitar, etc.

(I wonder what ever happened to them?)

 

I've been reading a thread from last year about what everyone is listening to, and what keyboard music influenced them. I'm almost surprised to find a group of people who relate to the same music as me, especially music from the sixties seventies and eighties. Since I missed that thread (I'm still reading it), I'll introduce myself by saying as an eight year old kid, I was knocked out by ELP and RW from Yes. I also liked Brian Augers Oblivion Express, early Santana + Moonflower, Traffic, Blind Faith, Allmans, Hopkins. A few years later I discovered Asleep At The Wheel and western swing. I always loved how they incorporated big band piano styles from songs like Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy From Company D.

 

It might surprise y'all to learn that some of us guitar players are a little puzzled by piano players and your approach to music, especially rock music. How did you learn rock piano, as opposed to what you learned in school? How many of you guys can pick out all of your parts by ear like us guitar players? I'm interested in any insight you care to share.

-- Best, GV

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I am completely self taught on keys [ it probably sounds like it to ;) ].

 

You will find that many keyboard players, that are serious about their art, did

not take lessons. And they sound damn good.

 

yes, all the bands from the 60's/70's knocked me out to. There is a ton

to get immersed in. Since music is such a huge landscape, there

is much more to get into.

 

Disclaimer: I don't gig and do few covers. I much prefer original

material and recording on the keys. I am the outlier here.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Welcome to the forum. Many of the members here also play guitar, bass or some other stringed instrument. From my perspective the approach is quite similar to the guitar. We both use chords, rhythm and scales. The piano and organ while similar are two wholly different beasts. As a piano player I learned the basics of chords , scales, sight reading and technique from a teacher. After that it was pretty much all self taught. Rhythm is an important part of piano playing, just like a guitarist with only one strum wouldn't be very effective, neither would be a piano player with no sense of groove. Another difference is chord voicing, the guitar is limited to 2 octaves across the fret board. While the guitar is quite capable of creating many of different voicings, the piano with 7 octaves has a lot more flexibility in that regard. Yes I figure out most of my music by ear. But like the guitarists, I either buy sheet music, search the internet or ask others when I just don't have the time or am stuck on a phraise or chord. So in a nutshell we aren't all that different, just tend to play a lower volume :rawk:

Boards: Kurzweil SP-6, Roland FA-08, VR-09, DeepMind 12

Modules: Korg Radias, Roland D-05, Bk7-m & Sonic Cell

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Welcome to the forum. I think you will find a lot of cool discussions about gear and gigs and how to play here - I know I have.

 

As a keyboard player, I often find myself thinking keyboard players and guitarists inhabit two completely different musical worlds. Sometimes I am amazed that guitarists and KBists can play together in the same room.

 

There are dead simple things I learned in my very first days playing the piano that seem to stump most guitarists - like playing a major scale, or finding a named note on the guitar. Similarly, there are things all beginning guitarists do that defeat me - like correctly playing on the piano a straight-forward picking pattern or figuring out the notes of a chord voicing I hear a guitarist using. And little "grinds my gears" as much as how many hours I have to spend learning to play in different keys, knowing that guitarists need only spend a few minutes with a capo to accomplish the same result. So yeah - I share your puzzlement.

 

I took lessons as a kid; long enough to learn to read a page of music. But I stopped playing until my teen years. As a teen, I worked on rock and pop songs by ear, and also by looking at commercial books of rock sheet music. The guitar tabulature helped me identify the chord names that I was seeing on the sheet music. I was off and running. Today, I will learn a song by ear by first picking out the bass line; then I pick out the melody line. From these, I have a rudimentary understanding of the harmonies and chords involved. I will then listen some more for specific chord colors to make up a definitive arrangement. This process changes a bit depending on whether I am playing the song solo or as part of an ensemble. I can learn all I need to about a song by ear, but because I can read music and do a lot of it, if a good written arrangement is available, it is easier for me to just use that.

J.S. Bach Well Tempered Klavier

The collected works of Scott Joplin

Ray Charles Genius plus Soul

Charlie Parker Omnibook

Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life

Weather Report Mr. Gone

 

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Yes, "Guitar." I hope that doesn't offend anyone here. Hello, I'm Greg in Houston. I'm a guitar player, but I double on keys. I'm almost completely self taught on keys.

You are absolutely welcome, brother...and we're not at all offended.

 

I'm a keyboard player, but I double on guitar (mostly acoustic). I'm pretty much entirely self taught on guitar. And bass.

 

dB

 

:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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Hah! I'm a keyboardist who has spent the past 30 years or so working out ways to imitate guitars -- on synthesizers. Always looking for ways to improve that skill. (Current brag: Reelin' in the Years on keytar.)

 

Welcome aboard. We'll do our best to indoctrinate you.

 

Regarding your question, the thing that influenced my rock keyboard playing the most was learning to play a drum kit -- it helped me get the rhythmic elements together for solo and ensemble rock piano playing. For me, the bass and lead lines just clicked into place after that.

-Tom Williams

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

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

 

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Thanks everyone. So, you're mostly self-taught as far as rock goes. Is that because there aren't that many books on rock piano in general? I've got a couple of Mark Harrison's books from Hal Leonard, and a couple of other from that series. I've picked out a few things from them, but they're not for beginners. Not that I'm a complete beginner, I teach beginning piano and rock piano. I'm just assessing them as books. There are not nearly as many titles on rock piano as rock guitar.

 

Take single-line lead solos for example. There are lots of books, lots of theoretical approaches to leads based on scales, arpeggios etc. for guitar. I've looked through Amazon. I don't see that same content in keyboard books. Lots off piano players just aren't into lead solos. That's what I love about Auger - the long, complex lines. I've developed my rock keyboard style, such as it is, based largely on voicings from guitar. Four and five notes for a chord is about the right amount of 'sonic real estate' for rhythm chords in many band situations. I'm thinking of a kind of classic rock, ballad musical context.

 

And I wish BbAltered would expound on guitarists and keyboardists existing in the same room. As a teacher, I'm trying to understand the differences in how guitar players and keyboard players think about music. (I'll leave drummers to the psychiatric community.) I'll give you one example to chew on: Many keyboard players were forced to lean to play. They didn't have a choice about playing, or what to play. Hardly anyone was ever forced to learn rock guitar. I think that has a big effect on everything about how you see music, including how much and whether you're allowed to beak "the rules." So what's your least favorite thing about guitar players??

 

 

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In fact, I'll go first. Keyboard players can be psychologically inflexible when it comes to music, vis a vis guitar players. But guitar players are a lot more likely to lose their car keys or need a jump. The stereotype of rock guitar players as functionally musically illiterate, especially reading rhythms, is well-deserved. Rockers rely on memory and living in the moment. But one problem with that strategy is how often it breaks down with age. Old rockers not only have a hard time learning new tricks, they can't completely remember their old ones.
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You're referring of course to the tendency to play too many notes. I agree. Guitar players often generate too great a "volume" of notes, when a smaller "volume" of notes in the same place might be more musically appropriate. I haven't heard it put in those terms, but I take your point. (You guys use some archaic terms in this group.)
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No, he means guitar players who turn up too damned loud because they insist they need the tone, and to top it off, they point their amp at their feet and say they can't hear themselves. :facepalm:

 

Hi Greg! :wave: Welcome to the forum. Houston in da house! Would I have heard of any band you play with? I don't get around much in the rock scene anymore, but I still know a few folks around town.

"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 agree that the source of a lot of the differences in process between keyboard players and guitar players stems from what started them playing. In the 60s through the 90s (at least), most guitarists picked up the instrument with the goal of playing what they heard on the radio, and most keyboard players started by taking classical piano lessons. This even held true in a lot of popular music; Rick Wakeman trained heavily in classical music, while Jimmy Page taught himself blues and folk and rock 'n' roll. My journey was different. I took a few years of the requisite piano lessons and lost interest until I got into the Beatles, and then my teacher showed me how to figure out chord progressions and play inversions. So I had a cool hybrid of self-discovery and coaching, where I was learning to play more the way your typical guitarist would, but I also learned to play bass and played some jazz and took theory classes and such.

 

A lot of my rock piano tricks just came from listening and figuring out how Elton John and Billy Joel and Paul McCartney would dress up their chordal playing, and I would figure out little licks and stylistic movements to build around my right-hand-triad, left-hand-octave-bass-note foundation. No joke, the book "Piano for Dummies" gave me several crucial "aha" moments in my early days (blues scales!). Organ and synths have been the same sort of process of trial and error for me (particularly through playing with other musicians and figuring out what works, and what doesn't, and how to achieve a certain affect that I've heard other bands do).

 

After spending most of my teen years as a bass player, using piano mostly as a writing tool and for solo performance, I started up playing in bands again in my 20s, leading a Ben Folds-esque rock piano trio -- keys, bass, and drums. My two best friends growing up were both guitarists, bless them, and I got really tired of being drowned out as a bassist and a vocalist (never mind trying to translate what I wrote on piano to two guitars -- one of the guys in the band described our sound as "piano-driven rock without the piano").

 

But in the years since, I've found and latched onto brilliant guitarists, and one in particular who is in all of my bands now. He's musically sensitive, always thinking about the big picture, and we're great at sharing space and complementing each other. He's also a wizard with extensions and creative harmonic decisions; he's always pushing me into new directions. He's far from the stereotype that gets kicked around here a lot: "classic rock diehard who plays really loud power chords and pentatonic scales and has no understanding of theory." I've played with those guys, but I don't run into it as often anymore. I think that might be a generational thing too, since BIG GUITARS haven't been as overwhelmingly dominant in popular music over the last 10, 15 years, even in a lot of the successful-but-not-household-name touring bands that include or are even led by guitarists. The reduced cultural emphasis on the "guitar hero" means that guitarists are just as willing to be ensemble players and do what's best for the song as everyone else, only melting faces when called upon. Not that there haven't always been sensitive players like that (and not that there aren't plenty of self-obsessed keyboardists out there too), but I think the ego-trip-oriented guitarist is less common than it used to be.

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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You will find that many keyboard players, that are serious about their art, did

not take lessons. And they sound damn good.

I respectfully disagree with this... I'm not sure how you'd measure how serious someone is about learning how to play, much less correlate that with whether they took lessons or not? Personal experience maybe?

 

I took piano lessons starting in 1st grade thru my senior year of high school. Long story short, that musical journey included theory and the basics, classical music, then jazz and ragtime. My junior year, a cover band in my area asked me to join them. We played country, rock 'n roll and Mexican music. It didn't take long to realize that picking up the sheet music for a song wouldn't cut it if you wanted to come close to sounding like the original. I think players who don't realize this maybe display the inflexibility that the OP mentions. When I started learning songs for the band, I started developing playing by ear without realizing it at first. I also started applying the theory I'd learned from formal lessons, when the theory made sense but wasn't really 'applied' while I was taking lessons.

 

That said, I think what helped me learn rock piano was listening to and emulating rock songs and incorporating those techniques into my playing.

 

I'll give you one example to chew on: Many keyboard players were forced to lean to play. They didn't have a choice about playing, or what to play. Hardly anyone was ever forced to learn rock guitar. I think that has a big effect on everything about how you see music, including how much and whether you're allowed to beak "the rules." So what's your least favorite thing about guitar players??

I don't know that I'd say "many keyboard players are forced to learn to play". I think that you often hear stories of parents making their kids take lessons, and with piano being relatively popular that's where this might be coming from? I think if you take lessons, you're forced into certain songs to learn whereas if you're self-taught you'd probably start with what you want to play? I always had songs/music I wanted to play outside of what I was learning in piano lessons. In my experience, after I had a good foundation, I had my teacher change genres to songs/music more interesting to me. I suppose it depends on the teacher and the individual on "breaking the rules". If you're learning a piece of sheet music in the realm of music lessons, you learn how to play the song the way it's written. When you're playing for yourself or a band, it becomes more apparent how creatively you can change things.

 

My least favorite things about guitar players are playing at a loud volume and/or not sharing fills/leads in a song (or coming down in volume when it's the keyboard player's lead). Honestly, it comes down to whether or not they have a band/team attitude.

 

 

MainStage; Hammond SK1-73; Roland XP-80, JV-90, JV-1080, JV-1010, AX-1; Korg microSAMPLER;

Boss DR-880; Beat Buddy; Neo Instruments Ventilator; TC Electronic ND-1 Nova Delay

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There are guitarists who play too many notes, keys players who play too many notes, and sax players who play too many notes. And then there are better musicians who (usually) don't do these things.

 

Greg V, welcome aboard. This place is my favorite online forum, and I am so grateful that the leaders & mods were able to save it from being deleted (it was only this year that they managed to fully take ownership from its previous owner and re-host it on new software levels, while preserving all of the wonderful expertise that has been shared here).

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In just my own experience and the people I know, I find a lot of times the type of instruction can determine the type of player. There are always exceptions, of course, and this is just my experience. It seems some piano teachers lean heavier on classical music, site reading, and recitals, while others have more focus on Jazz instruction including theory and improvisation. The former seem more likely to end up doing things like piano accompaniment for choir at church or school, or landing a gig doing more like theater and that type of things, where as the latter seem more likely to go into performance with other musicians in a band setting. I had a little bit of both as my first teach started me along a jazz track but passed away before I got too far. My next teacher was more of the classical influence with recitals playing sheet music pieces. But really anything rock/pop I did, I mostly learned by ear - though applying the theory I had learned to make it easier.

 

Part of the thing to understand is that a lot more goes into playing rock music than just playing the piano. Often I'll spend much more time creating the sounds required. Keyboard players are often expected to cover an extremely wide variety of sounds including other instruments. It's often my experience that drummer covers drums, bass player covers bass, guitar player covers whatever the most prominent guitar part is, and the keyboard player is expected to cover everything else including sound effects, orchestral instruments, maybe additional guitars......in addition to actual keys.

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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And I wish BbAltered would expound on guitarists and keyboardists existing in the same room. As a teacher, I'm trying to understand the differences in how guitar players and keyboard players think about music.

 

So I will try to list things that make me think keyboard players and guitarist come from different musical universes, and sometimes have difficulty being in the same room

 

1) I often have the experience of asking a guitarist to play a Bb note, and am surprised seeing many of them struggle to do so. Every KP (keyboard player) learns the names of the notes on the keyboard very early on, while I know GP who have played for 20-30+ years and still cannot find a specified note on their instrument. I cannot imagine functioning in the musical world without this skill, yet too many GP I know seem to think this skill is an optional luxury.

 

2) Tone and modifications. GP love to modify their instruments to fit their own personal playing style and hand size. KP never do this. GP modify their instrument to fit themselves: KP work to change themselves and their playing to fit the instrument. As a KP, it matters nothing to me about the EQ, the reverb, or the drive/distortion: the instrument sounds like this and so I play with the instrument sounding the way it does. Yet I have seen practice and jam sessions come to a halt because the GP cannot get the right "tone". Of course, GP want to sound like their favorite recording artists. I too would love to sound like Keith Jarret or Chick Corea, but I know there is no EQ setting or pedal that will do that for me.

 

3) Synthesis. Using synthesizers is almost the exclusive providence of KP. Synthesizers exist for GP, but many avoid them. GPs tell us that guitar synthesizers demand different playing techniques. In the early days, synthesizers had these horrid keyboards with no touch and would only allow a single note to be played at a time. Yet KPs bought them by the truckload, and changed their playing techniques to make the synthesizers work for them. The industry responded by making better keyboards for the synthesizers, and today you can find very complex synthesizers wedded to polyphonic keyboards with all the touch of a true piano. The advancing technology includes guitar synthesizers, but even with those advances, few GPs swim in those waters.

 

4) Despite all my years of practice and training, I still cannot "cover" a guitar picking part properly on the keyboard (true: I do very little work to master this - usually there is a GP present to do it). Sometimes, it has to do with a slide or bend the GP uses, other times I am just confused about what notes are getting played. And I am always jealous that a GP can hear the riff a few times, and then play it beautifully. I have a similar failing with guitar part chord voicings: I can get the color right (i.e. dom 7, b9), but the actual notes elude me.

 

5) Reading music. I am always amazed that so many GPs avoid learning this skill.

 

Most of what I write here applies primarily to unschooled rock and pop musicians. I know GPs who have 4 yr degrees in music who know all the theory and have all the reading skills I have. Yet many unschooled KPs learn large amounts of theory and have some reading skills thru their own explorations.

 

J.S. Bach Well Tempered Klavier

The collected works of Scott Joplin

Ray Charles Genius plus Soul

Charlie Parker Omnibook

Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life

Weather Report Mr. Gone

 

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Keyboard players will usually consolidate with a stage piano that covers the gig or even a second tier board but guitar players seem to bring a full metal jacket of guitars, pedal boards galore and yes... it's all topped off with jungle roaring volume because of the "tone". I'm really not trying to say it in a bad way just what I've noticed about most guitar players, that being said the respect I have for a seasoned guitar player is very high.
You don't know you're in the dark until you're in the light.
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One of the drawbacks of guitar is there are so many guitar players out there that the good ones get drowned in a sea of mediocrity. The guitar is inherently capable of being dumb down so that a serious study of music theory isn't required to play it. Take for instance scales, a scale on the guitar is a pattern that stays the same no matter what the key. You move to a position and play the pattern. The fingering is the same. A keyboardist has to know the intervals in each scale because fingering changes based on key.

 

Imagine a keyboard player who only played root position chords, not going to get far. But I've met many a guitarist who only knows open chords. There is an entire genre of singer songwriters that is filled with individuals that have no music education beyond memorizing some open chords and a few chord progressions. Many couldn't tell you how to play a Cm9 at the 8 fret if their life depended on it. To transpose, they require a capo. A capo is analogous to the transpose button. The only difference being an acoustic piano doesn't have one. And they just aren't needed in most cases. But most guitarists who play bar chords can at the very least tell you the notes up and down the 1 st, 2nd, 3rd and 6th string. Same thing with reading music, the proliferation of TAB makes not knowing the note names possible. I have met many guitarist that are very competent in music theory. Its just there are many more that can get buy without serious study. There are just so many more guitarists out there that really good ones can be hard to spot.

 

Given that, I have a lot of respect for the instrument while it has a low bar for entry, it still takes a lot of hours and sweat to truly master it. I have played with some finger pickers that amaze the hell out of me.

Boards: Kurzweil SP-6, Roland FA-08, VR-09, DeepMind 12

Modules: Korg Radias, Roland D-05, Bk7-m & Sonic Cell

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Wow, cool thread. Welcome, this is my favorite forum for keys on the web. You'll find little to no snark/trolls, many people go out of their way to answer questions, and the quality of players is way up there. I go online to other forums, typically manufacturer specific, and almost nobody knows anything! On average the ages on this forum tends upwards.

 

When people want to start playing music, my advice is to pick up a guitar and learn 20 chords. With You Tube tutorials and some practice, you'll be up to speed in a month or two and be able to play 1/2 to 3/4s of rock music, at least the basic chords and strumming. Whereas with the piano it typically takes years to build up the same level of proficiency. Plus guitar players have this huge advantage, their instrument is relatively small and lightweight. By contrast, decent 88 note weighted keyboards range from 25 pounds to 50 pounds, and they're super long. And unless you have speakers built-in, you don't have the advantage that acoustic guitars have, which is to be able to pick them up and play. And for serious folks, they need at least 2 keyboards- a weighted 88 note board for piano, and a 61-73 note board with an action for playing synth/organ/etc. Though I suppose you could say many serious guitarists play acoustic and electric.

 

I've played with my share of guitarists, esp electric, that were young and defensive, not a team player yet, they've imagined themselves the wailing thunder or the true Guitar Hero. Compared to keys, there's many more guitarists out there considering the bar is so much lower for learning to play basic guitar.

 

As far as playing rock on keyboards, you've got to consider at what level you're talking. That's the beauty of rock, you can know a few chords, strums, etc., and bust out a basic version of a song in most cases. But to get up to speed with at least what the original band played, it can be a lot of work and dedication to get up to that level. Alot of people like to deride rock as being a bunch of 2 and 3 chord songs, but done well, it can be very challenging, depending of course on the song.

 

I have to admit I've had serious guitar envy for years. A decent gtr player can coax some wicked leads and strums out of relatively modest equipment. The big difference is that guitar players have their hands on the strings themselves for all manner of bends and plucking, whereas the keyboard player is going thru a mechanical device, the keybed is one step removed. We make up for this as keyboard players by having aftertouch/mod wheel/expression and volume pedals/etc. And the guitar player has this big advantage, they're not behind a 'wall' of keyboards, they're right out front. And, I've always loved that you play a guitar with it across your belly, the vibrations feel good from an acoustic.

 

My parents never made me practice, I loved it. We sang around the piano with my mom, it was her favorite entertainment with her sister. At 7 years old I asked for piano lessons and learned classical. I'm so thankful for that background, classical is a good foundation for almost any kind of music. I don't know if this is true for guitarists, but with piano you really do need to develop good hand technique/posture. It's easy to spot someone who didn't learn this basic basic skill on piano. I never pursued guitar, I've always thought it took long, flexible but strong fingers to pull it off well. I have 'piano hands', not nearly as flexible as a good guitarist, but very strong, with little marching soldiers in a piano claw.

 

As someone else said, a considerable amount of time for many keyboard players is spent on getting the sound they want. When you have 100s, 1000s or sounds available and have multiple sources of this impossible number of sounds, it can be challenging to simply audition them all, comparing like sounds to like sounds, finding the best. And then fine-tuning the favorites is another huge job for some of us. There've been periods where I spent more time doing the above than playing music!

 

It's not enough to have on tap your edited favorites out of these many many sounds, you also need to learn to play them! The techniques for playing funky clav is very different than playing gospel organ, is very different than playing piano, etc etc etc. Alot of being a keyboardist is choosing your battles. Many people don't stray from straight-up piano, and many pro players have a rig that takes hours to setup and incredible chops to play so many different kinds of sounds with proficiency.

 

I flat out LOVE good rythym guitarists, they are my heroes. With a simple strum they create such an awesome, beautiful foundation, they're the wind beneath my wings, the strummed chords of inspiration. I dislike guitar noodlers, and can't stand Bass noodlers who sound like they're playing guitar.

 

I think picking things out by ear is not a quality of keys or guitar, but the player. I've always had a decent ear, and if I can't make out the bass line I go for simple melody and percussive jabs to get me started. But there is an inherent advantage to keys cause the scales are linear and very visible. On a guitar you're working with a spidery maze that must be committed to memory.

 

For folks that want a fast track with the piano, I suggest learning your chords and scales, be able to read guitar style chords, and melody lines. It's not fun work like learning chords on a guitar, but at least this'll be a bare minimum foundation for playing along with songs you eventually want to be able to play. And find out what You Tube piano lessons would be best suited for you as you look for a good teacher

 

 

 

 

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Keyboard players will usually consolidate with a stage piano that covers the gig or even a second tier board but guitar players seem to bring a full metal jacket of guitars ...
Of course, there are always exceptions. :wink:

 

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Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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Keyboard players will usually consolidate with a stage piano that covers the gig or even a second tier board but guitar players seem to bring a full metal jacket of guitars ...
Of course, there are always exceptions. :wink:

 

 

Yes, there are.

 

http://www.cathedralstone.net/Pics/Asia.jpg

Moe

---

 

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Joe, Thanks for asking. I was with Fuzzy Side Up for 11 years, then left for a while. Now I'm sharing the guitar chair with another guy, filling in when he can't make it. I'm playing Jimbos Road House off 290 Friday next week. I'm also doing a set of Journey as a promo for the school I work for. I'm doing a set opening for the Hightailers renion at Last Concert in October. I used to play with E Kolflat and the late Scott Daniels.
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As for learning rock keyboards, I pick out the parts by ear. I have yet to find a music book that is accurate.

 

"Pick out the parts" meaning how the part is played, and how the sound is developed. I had 17 years of piano lessons. None of the lessons taught my how to play rock keyboards, but they did teach me how to play certain styles. Anybody who has studied classical piano can pick up parts by prog players like Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson. The Billy Powell piano technique of Lynyrd Skynyrd is not something you are going to find in a book, that's where you really need your ears. You need to play the subtle intricacies in his style, which requires a good ear. My ears got the training from piano lessons. Same is also true with a lot of styles that originated out of New Orleans and other major music centers since the dawn of jazz.

 

As for developing the non-piano sounds used in rock keyboards, that's a skill acquired by trial-and-error. If you're a preset surfer looking the exact sounds required for particular songs, you're not going to find them. You'll find approximates but they're not going to be exact without some sound design work. Few players have the patience and/or the background to grasp the tools required to derive at sound design. With my engineering background I had no trouble designing my own sounds. Synthesizers have always fascinated me and I have always been a tweaker as opposed to a preset surfer. 30+ years of tweaking synths has served me well. I have yet to see a book that explains what I learned through trial-and-error.

 

My brother is the guitar player of the family, and I picked up guitar as a secondary instrument as not every song has keyboard parts (and doubling guitar barre chords on keyboard bores me to death). Never had guitar lessons, my piano lessons gave me enough background to learn my way around. I'm not a lead player, strictly rhythm. From my perspective there are no shortcuts to playing keyboards, whereas guitar players are too focused on SHORTCUTS. If you want to be a proficient keyboard player, you HAVE to put in a steady practice regimen - period. This takes a lot of work, and many players give up because they don't want to put that much effort into learning the instrument. That's why there are far more guitar players, it is an easier instrument to learn.

 

I study the tools of guitar players such as amps, strings, pickups, processors. Even the resonant qualities of tonewoods. It didn't hurt that I grew up with a brother and many other players who had many of the tools of the 1970s/80s. I didn't know it at the time, but I have photographic ears that were recording the intricate subtleties of different amps, guitars, pickups, etc. As my guitar playing progressed, I've had players and soundmen tell me that I had the better guitar sound even though I was not the primary guitar player. A keyboard player who knows too much about guitar stuff - yes I am dangerous. I adopt the principle of the West Point graduate - "know your enemy" :laugh:

 

I'm open to sharing the stage with guitar players, and I've had plenty of frustrations for reasons already listed (loud amps, etc). If there is any gap in teaching guitar players, it is the ABILITY TO RESPECT SPACE AND PERFORM AS A TEAM MEMBER IN AN ENSEMBLE. Too many guitar players play too much while drowning out other instruments. Not just their tone, but their playing. All. The. Time. Zero concept of space. They don't know when NOT to play. They are not sensitive to the other members in the band. I could be playing an electric piano, and their tone sits in the same sonic space where I am playing. And they don't adjust. I am not fond of being "crowded out" and starting a few years ago have grown more selective about what guitar players I will work with. No guitar heroes (who have stars in their eyes at the expense of other players), no players who dominate the song selection to songs that are fun to play on guitars with little to nothing for keyboard players to do, no players who use high wattage amps or "high gain" tones that smother the sonic spectrum drowning out other players, no players who "crowd out", no players who set their amps pointing at their ankles (your ears are not down there), no players who only want keyboard players to play wallpaper background parts while the guitar solos hog the spotlight, no players with zero sense of dynamics who play at the same volume for rhythm and lead, no players who employ "guitar buddies" at the mixing board to favor the guitar.

 

Frankly, guitar players have worn out their welcome. Guitar teachers often praise their best students. But are they good musicians? There's a difference. Look at any single musician in any orchestra - none of them are playing all the time. They know when NOT to play, they don't crowd out the other instruments, and they respect space and dynamics. Those are MUSICIANS. They KNOW how to perform in an ensemble. Too many guitar players have no concept of this. We don't need guitar teachers, we need teachers to teach guitar players how to be musicians. The guitar players who are good musicians are out there, but getting fewer and farther between. I was in a band that lamented about the lack of keyboard players - then their guitar player had to leave, and they brought in a guitar hero with all the trappings I hated. I was vocal about my concerns and kept the door open if changes were made. I also pointed out that guitar heroes like him were the reason why keyboard players were hard to find. They kept the guitar player, so me & the lead singer left (along with their stellar sound engineer). They now perform as a trio with the guitar hero, but they are no longer drawing people and they can't land gigs.

 

Not using that example to gloat, but it says a lot about what appeals to an audience. You need to have good market sense. Sure, I can parts by Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson. But where I live, there is no market appeal for that stuff. I go to hear a lot of live music, and many of the guitar-centric bands are playing the same guitar-dominant songs. Teachers, take note if your students are desiring to learn the same songs from the same artists. People soon get tired of hearing the same songs, and will stop going to hear live music. Soon there will be no market appeal for those songs. Know when your audience is bored, and know when they want something fresh.

 

Bands playing in bars need to understand that they are in the business of SELLING BEER. That's where your gig money comes from. Customers buy more beer when they get thirsty. Bands need to get their customers on the dance floor, then they get thirsty, then they buy beer, then they dance more, get thirsty more, buy more beer, ad infinitum. The better the beer sales, the better your gig money. Bar owners don't care about star guitar players, they care about bands that gets customers dancing. Guitar players who love David Gilmour playing in a Pink Floyd tribute band are going to have limited appeal to audiences, because that stuff is not danceable. Guitar players who put together a Danny Gatton tribute band are going to have very little appeal to audiences because the average patron doesn't know that music - because stuff like Danny Gatton appeals to musicians but not to laymen.

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Joe, Thanks for asking. I was with Fuzzy Side Up for 11 years, then left for a while. Now I'm sharing the guitar chair with another guy, filling in when he can't make it. I'm playing Jimbos Road House off 290 Friday next week. I'm also doing a set of Journey as a promo for the school I work for. I'm doing a set opening for the Hightailers renion at Last Concert in October. I used to play with E Kolflat and the late Scott Daniels.

Nice, I know (of) all that stuff and people! Carolyn Wonderland was among the first local acts that I found out about here, way back in the early '90s when I moved here. Little Screamin' Kenny's songs are still some of my favorites.

"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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