Multi-instrumentalists, love/hate a band by instrument?

[RABid]

I had to shorten the title so I hope it makes sense, anyway...

 

For you multi-instrumentalists, are there bands that you love playing one instrument along with their songs but hate playing another? I started thinking about this today while listening to some early Santana. Always one of my very favorite bands, I listened to a lot of Santana early in my music development stages. I enjoy playing keyboards along with that music. Don't mind playing bass or attempting guitar. Enjoy playing the conga parts, don't like playing the timbale parts. Love trying to copy some of Gregg Rolie's solos. Yet, I hate playing drums to Santana songs. I think there are two reasons, Michael Shrieve has a very different style and feel than what comes natural for me. Danny Seraphine (Chicago) and John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) were big influences on my style, and Bonham sits in a pocket that feels natural for me. As much as I listened to Santana, Shrieve was never an influence on my playing, though I always wanted my drum set to sound like his. The sound of his drums on that first album is perfect. Love those toms.

[Notes_Norton]

I play vocals, sax, wind synth, flute, guitar, bass, keyboard synth, and drums.

 

I'm in a duo and I make my own backing tracks, so I play at least bass, drums and the comp instruments on each song. Leilani and I save the most fun parts to play live on top of our tracks.

 

So I save whatever is most fun to play, and I can't say that I hate any of the parts on any of the songs.

 

The closest thing to dislike is playing "Yakety Sax" which I only play when requested. I've been playing it for way too many years, way too many times, and it is just an exercise in the same fingering with nothing new to explore. So when somebody asks, I smile outside and have a little inner groan inside. Then when the music starts and I put the reed in my mouth and my fingers on the keys I forget about the fact that I'd rather not play this song, I get into it and have a great time playing it in spite of myself.

 

I'll answer your question in the opposite, depending on the song, my most fun instrument is either sax, vocals, wind synth, or lead guitar.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[Greg Mein]

I think I understand the premise. My main instruments are keys and guitar. On many Bob Seger songs I typically found the keys to be more fun, interesting and essential overall and sometimes it's the same for Rolling Stones songs to the extent that in the past while playing in three piece groups I'll set the guitar down and switch to piano for songs I feel benefit more from that. Those artists have huge catalogs obviously so it really has to narrow down to specific tunes and I have similar feelings about other songs. A really good example is Superstition where I find a guitar to be useless and the clav sound to be essential and what's Desperado without the piano?

 

In my current duo however I've mostly relinquished keyboard duties to my wife while I play the guitar on all but a few tunes. Keyboards is her specialty, she doesn't play guitar but is proficient on flute, continues to learn to operate the EWI-5000 and has also taken up mandolin. We incorporate all these instruments into our act.

 

I do have a keyboard I play at gigs however and it's also been enlisted to play midi backing tracks I've been creating. Backing tracks allow me to "cherry pick" the parts I want to play and, of course, for both of us we live play any signature or important lead sections.