"How do you find a keyboardist who wants to play?"

[CEB]

I'm in a hurry, but I'll drop in this one thing: Yes, attenuator boxes exist. They have another name--"tone suckers." The purely resistive ones are the worst, but even the more sophisticated ones with reactive components are lacking. If you folks have found attenuators that you're happy with, more power to you (no pun intended), but I've never heard one that doesn't alter the tone, nor does anyone I've ever spoken with about the subject. At least, no one who's serious about tone. Some are. Some aren't. It varies from player to player.

 

I'm going to ask one question: have you or have you not personally tried this GT Speaker Emulator? By "personally" I mean actually hooked it to your guitar amp and played the emulator through a sound system with decent quality, not by assessment from YT videos or opinions formed on discussion forums or from other players.

 

Your statement "if you folks have found attenuators that you're happy with" implies you have not tried every emulator on the market and have formed the generalized blanket assessment "they have another name-- "tone suckers"."

 

Have you or have you not tried this speaker emulator?

 

http://www.analoguediehard.com/studio/guitars/groove_tubes-speaker-emulator/groove_tubes-speaker-emulator-stock.jpg

 

FWIW, I don"t particularly care for attenuators. It"s just the physics of the things. When you restrict speaker movement you murder your high end. Some attenuators like the Rock Crusher Recording or others have high pass circuitry to mask the problem and it sort of works.

 

Impulse Responses is where it"s at today.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

I was recently directed to a YouTube video that a fan posted of a band I was with in 1970. I had a chopped CV3 and a 122 on steroids, positioned behind me and up on a riser so the horn projected over my head (I can"t believe I can still hear). Anyway, the sound was recorded from a single mic at the board, so it was what it was. The organ was the loudest, shrillest Instrument on stage. Did we always sound like that? Somebody should have said something!

Rod, any chance you're willing to share that clip?

 

One of my favorite stories from Keith Richards's memoir was from the period in the 70s when Billy Preston was touring with the Stones. Apparently Keith was so annoyed with the volume screaming out of Billy's Leslie during the shows, that he held a knife up to Billy backstage and asked "dear William" to turn his organ down, or else. But I'm not sure I'd trust Keith Richards with what the appropriate keyboard-to-guitar balance is in a mix!

[The Real MC]

 

FWIW, I don"t particularly care for attenuators. It"s just the physics of the things. When you restrict speaker movement you murder your high end. Some attenuators like the Rock Crusher Recording or others have high pass circuitry to mask the problem and it sort of works.

 

Have you or have you not tried the GT Speaker emulator?

[Outkaster]

The level you need to be at to be decent to play out on keyboards is so much higher than the "average guitar gunslinger".

 

True, but the level an average keyboard player needs to be "decent" is nothing to brag about either.

I've been in too many bands where the keyboardist either did not solo at all or only soloed when they had a specific little piece that they could play by rote.

Extend the song because the dance floor is full and it's almost break time? Uh-oh, uncharted territory - "Mommy!!!!"

 

That's not how it works when you get a request that the band doesn't "know" - you don't get a chart and you shouldn't need one.

 

Okay, respectfully, I'm going to have to push back a little on this. In my experience this comes down to two things - "reading" skill and "improvisational" skill. This also ties into being a music reader versus playing by ear. Unless you are in jazz, your majority of pianists are being taught to read music, to read notes, to interpret the written page. Most keyboardists started with piano. Organ is even more so - three staves of notes. Then comes reading from lead sheets - usually after maybe 8 years of piano honestly. Many teachers simply aren't going to be doing that. It's focused on piano as a solo instrument. And even in orchestral situations, or Broadway, there are likely going to be written parts for the pianist and keyboardist. It's simply how piano is taught. Note - if you're in jazz, then you get a lot of work in improvisation and ear training. Otherwise, not so much.

 

Where this becomes problematic is when (in my case, as a 11 year old) your church's music director offers you the chance to play with the contemporary band for a week or two, and you agree. You receive the music, and realize that it's lead sheets with the melody and chords. You've only read music, and played a bunch by ear, but never read a chord labeled as a chord in your life. I had to buy a large book with a lot of chords in every key signature to get those parts ready in time. Never before had I seen suspended chords for example, yet contemporary Christian music uses tons of them. There's also a significant variation in the way that chords are denoted. As an example, I've seen a G major suspended 2 chord written as "G2, Gsus2, "Gs2", and "GSUS2". Suspended 4 chords are even worse. Half the time the person making the lead sheet will just write "Gsus" or "Fsus", not even "G4" or "Gsus4".

 

In my case I have a fairly strong ear (in fact 80% of my solo gigging material was learned that way, both on piano and accordion). It helps me in situations like what you mentioned, or in learning a piece quickly. I sat in on accordion with a New Orleans jazz quintet, and that was eye-opening. Chord changes shouted as we played occasionally, no charts, quite difficult to be honest. Luckily I have some experience with the genre. The ability of a keyboardist or pianist to work with no music and no chords at all is NOT indicative of their playing level - it's simply a reflection of their training, and ear. And let me tell you that I know concert pianists who have difficulty just going off of a chord chart, and likewise keyboardists who always use chord charts who have no sense of timing (because of there being no timing implied in the chart), and get thrown for a loop by even a lead sheet, much less written music. Yet would the concert pianist be considered a "decent" player at best? I think not. Different skill sets do not a poor musician make. And no matter how good one's ear is, it can't make up for experience. And it will always be difficult to play a song you've actually never heard before in a live situation because of a request. It's helpful if someone in the band can at least tell you the key signature and section order. And don't expect the keyboardist to start playing signature parts in a song they've never heard, nor to start playing immediately - if they have an ear it's useful for them to get a feel for the song before playing too much.

 

A final thought - musicians at the world-class level often read music live, and that's for everyone in the band. Percussion/drums, bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, orchestra, whatever. Over time they'll know the songs well enough to not need the music in some cases. Part of that may be because substitute players sometimes need to come in - crash course time! On the other hand, if you look at a band like Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess uses an iPad with full keys notation live. Is he a lesser player for it? Broadway and pit orchestras use notes. Are they at a lower level than a regional cover band? I think not.

 

Thanks you said it better to me. The fact that people are even defending a guitar player on a keyboard forum boggles the mind. They aren't worth our time.

[mate stubb]

I have solved the Hammond problem myself. In my basement lies an 1100W leslie rig which can scream at a whisper if I want. Tube amp running full throttle for tone, reamped thru a clean solid state amp giving independent control of volume and tone.

 

Moe - Since this kind of veered off to a sub-topic would you mind sharing some detail? Specifically what kind of solid state amp and is it as simple as inserting it between the 122/147 amp output and Leslie cabinet eq/speaker? Any specific requirements for the amp I/O nominal level/impedance would be helpful. Even better if you can provide an ots example.

 

I put up a page detailing everything: The Spinning Wall of Leslie Death

[Markyboard]

I have solved the Hammond problem myself. In my basement lies an 1100W leslie rig which can scream at a whisper if I want. Tube amp running full throttle for tone, reamped thru a clean solid state amp giving independent control of volume and tone.

 

Moe - Since this kind of veered off to a sub-topic would you mind sharing some detail? Specifically what kind of solid state amp and is it as simple as inserting it between the 122/147 amp output and Leslie cabinet eq/speaker? Any specific requirements for the amp I/O nominal level/impedance would be helpful. Even better if you can provide an ots example.

 

I put up a page detailing everything: The Spinning Wall of Leslie Death

 

Ah right - seen this many times in the past. I always draw the same conclusion that I could modify the output of the 147 amp to drive a secondary solid state power amp, similar to the AMA output. But I'm not looking for more volume, just less. So it seems like a combination splitter/attenuator would do the trick. In other words maintain the total load but split the output signal between a load resistor and the speaker. Just thinking off the top of my head - perhaps a 5 position switch where the load resistor value decreases while a series resistor in line with the speaker simultaneously increases and vica versa.

[mate stubb]

]

Ah right - seen this many times in the past. I always draw the same conclusion that I could modify the output of the 147 amp to drive a secondary solid state power amp, similar to the AMA output. But I'm not looking for more volume, just less. So it seems like a combination splitter/attenuator would do the trick. In other words maintain the total load but split the output signal between a load resistor and the speaker. Just thinking off the top of my head - perhaps a 5 position switch where the load resistor value decreases while a series resistor in line with the speaker simultaneously increases and vica versa.

 

That is essentially what my geetar player was doing back in the day. Should work well.

[Markyboard]

Thanks Moe! Back to our regularly scheduled guitar player bashing.

[CEB]

 

FWIW, I don"t particularly care for attenuators. It"s just the physics of the things. When you restrict speaker movement you murder your high end. Some attenuators like the Rock Crusher Recording or others have high pass circuitry to mask the problem and it sort of works.

 

Have you or have you not tried the GT Speaker emulator?

 

Not the Groove Tube. I"ve used the Palmer who got sued for breaking GT patents. But didnt use them as an attenuator. It"s best used to eliminate speakers. Attenuating a speaker more than 15db murders the high end because you restrict cone movement. Rivera and others get around that by high passing or jacking with the EQ on the speaker feed. The Groove Tube was supposed to be good 20 years ago. Universal Audio, Two Notes, Rivera is doing some really cool stuff. But good impulse responses making all that unnecessary anymore.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

I'm going to have to go along at least a bit with Grey on the guitar part here, with the exception that I do use a Fender Blues Jr. amp; which I have custom modified to sound like a much quieter Twin Reverb. Different output transformer, very different tone controls, all RCA, GE, Sylvania tubes from the 70's. I don't do much playing my actual guitar, but if I had to try to cover some guitar parts on keys, I would carry that as an amp. And, yes, even at the much lower wattage, it can easily still get too loud. I did have a resistive box (Altair???) back in the day that I could use to cut down the sound, but sold that years ago on eBay.

There are a couple of issues with the attenuator between amp and speaker. As mentioned, one is that the speaker just doesn't sound quite the same at lower cone excursions. The other is that speakers are not just a certain impedance (ohms), but that the impedance is complex, and varies somewhat at different frequencies.

 

Worst thing to me about a lot of guitarists is having their amp positioned so that their legs and feet get most of the close-up sound; so they play louder (same thing can happen with bass, because it doesn't really "bloom" till it gets 15 or 20 feet from the source. Not to even mention ANYONE (or more) in the band that has alligator ears (huge volume and next to no listening).

 

My primary instrument was bass guitar. My first was a used Fender short-scale, which I traded less than a week later for a used Gibson RD Artist. What a bass! Never heard any other like it. Electronics were by Bob Moog, it had active tone controls (not passive which only decrease highs), it had a compressor which would let me sustain a note at pretty much the same volume until the string was muted or just quit vibrating, and it had an expander. If I cranked the expander, slap bass was just plain EZ. First amp with it in the 1970's wasn't much; but I got a Fender Bassman 100 and the big dual 15" JBL speaker cabinet with it. That Bassman wasn't as popular as the regular 50 watt, because it was their "ultra-linear" circuit, and didn't easily drive into distortion. But it sounded great. I later sold that amp (sadly, although I don't know how I could transport it now). But, the Trace Elliot GP-7 head into a 15" Trace cab and a 2x10 + horn cab give a great tone with a lot of variation possible.

 

I had that at church for a while, and it sounded great for bass with both the Gibson and my present 5-string Epiphone Les Paul bass. But - I quit playing a real bass because my fretting hand got to where it hurt too bad as I got older. My first keyboard attempt to replace it was the Kurzweil K2000VP, with the added Bass Gallery patches (really made for multi-track recording, because it has all sorts of added harmonics available, but still great live.

 

However, now I just use the PC2 or PC3 or iPad with iFretless for the sounds, and am playing into a pair of JBL EON 15 G2 PA speakers. Not really enough room on our stage to add the big Trace stack (not to mention moving it now). Trace does have a Preamp available named the Transit B which is just made to provide that classic British Trace Elliot sound using a regular PA system. Would be nice to have, but I probably won't spend the money. My personal playing just doesn't justify it.

 

That is my primary function in our band on the more up-tempo music. Hammond, Rhodes, Wurly, Orcestrals, occasional pads on the slow music (or sometimes just more peaceful bass).

[Nathanael_I]

ISO-cabs exist. I have one from Jackson Audio in my studio. Celestion Gold inside. It happily takes a raging 50w tube amp down to conversation levels. Its a real guitar speaker and a real tube amp, but no one goes deaf - everyone can be happy. Two flexible mic wands inside for whatever you want to put there.

[GRollins]

I'm in a hurry, but I'll drop in this one thing: Yes, attenuator boxes exist. They have another name--"tone suckers." The purely resistive ones are the worst, but even the more sophisticated ones with reactive components are lacking. If you folks have found attenuators that you're happy with, more power to you (no pun intended), but I've never heard one that doesn't alter the tone, nor does anyone I've ever spoken with about the subject. At least, no one who's serious about tone. Some are. Some aren't. It varies from player to player.

 

I'm going to ask one question: have you or have you not personally tried this GT Speaker Emulator? By "personally" I mean actually hooked it to your guitar amp using a good guitar and played the emulator through a sound system with decent quality, not by assessment from YT videos or opinions formed on discussion forums or from other players.

 

Your statement "if you folks have found attenuators that you're happy with" implies you have not tried every emulator on the market and have formed the generalized blanket assessment "they have another name-- "tone suckers"."

 

Have you or have you not tried this speaker emulator?

 

http://www.analoguediehard.com/studio/guitars/groove_tubes-speaker-emulator/groove_tubes-speaker-emulator-stock.jpg

 

If I'm not mistaken, there was an amplified version of that emulator--low power, maybe 20-40W or so? A friend of mine had one. I played with it. It was interesting, but like all the other soi disant solutions to the amp problem, it was its own thing, not a Marshall/Fender/whatever replacement. Note that this was long before YouTube as those things are old as hell.

 

I find it curious that keyboard players are somehow in possession of secret knowledge that guitar players do not have--that there are effects pedals, emulators, power soaks, etc. that somehow, mysteriously, guitar players have never heard of.

 

Oh, wait, that's right...guitar players actually know about them, but because they're arrogant assholes, they refuse to use them. Willful ignorance. Got it.

 

Er...not so. At least, not everybody.

 

Yes, there are going to be guitar (or other instrument) players who are going to play loud (drummers, jeez...), regardless, but not everyone. I mean, there are real world considerations such as newborn children, significant others, neighbors, landlords, et. al. who put significant pressure on said guitar players to keep it down. Some people, like me, just don't play loud that often anyway--but would do so if they could without messing up their hearing. If there was a real world, practical product that would do the trick, guitar players (and bass players, who face similar problems, but also have a whole 'nother realm of worries) would be all over it. Ain't happened yet.

 

For those who are kinda-sorta following along, let me point out that there are other factors involved that you're not going to be able to emulate with any combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors. Let's give heads a rest for the moment and do a quick overview of the speakers themselves, just to change things up a bit.

 

1) Howzabout the non-linear behavior of the driver's suspension? Good place to start. Fairly easy to visualize--to feel with your own two hands, for that matter. Okay, buckle your seat belts and let's talk about how drivers (aka "speakers" although a speaker is technically the finished box with the drivers in it) are built. When you look at the front of an average driver, you see the cone. In the middle is typically a round thingy; that's called the center dome. We'll leave that for the moment and focus our attention on the outside rim of the cone. There's a corrugated circular area with one or more humpy ridges. That's the surround. It's one of the (usually) two points of suspension for the cone. To see the other, you have to drop the driver out of the cabinet and look between the back of the cone and the magnet structure. Another corrugated area. That one's called the spider. Here's the thing...the surround and the spider are grossly nonlinear. In a hi-fi speaker, that's a bad thing and the people who design the drivers go to great lengths to make them behave as predictably as possible. Musical instrument drivers? Huh. We're so used to the distortions that we've grown to love them. So, what about that suspension? What happens is that if you push on the cone with your hand, you'll discover that the cone typically moves relatively freely for the first eighth of an inch. The next eighth of an inch is harder. The next eighth, harder still. In practical terms, that means that the louder you play, the more the driver fights back. It's a compression mechanism. So...if you play at low volumes, you'll get dynamics, but if you play at higher volumes, you'll start getting compression. Note that this changes dynamically as you play and also from driver to driver. An EV driver will not behave the same as a Celestion. If you model, you're going to have to pick one or the other, or maybe provide both options. Options. Cool, right? Er, no. As I've hinted before, all you're doing is opening more cans of worms. For instance, are you going to model the Celestion G12M, the G12H, or the G12T-75? Likewise, which Electro Voice? How about all of the above? Oh, dear, what shall we do about the guys who play with a mix of drivers in the same cabinet? (Yes, that's a thing.) How are you going to model that?

 

2) The voice coil. Simple enough. It's nothing more than a coil of wire wrapped around a coil former, right? What could go wrong? Well...funny you should ask... It turns out that resistance is a non-linear parameter, itself. The hotter a conductor gets, the higher its resistance goes. Hotter. Hmmm...when would a voice coil get hot? When it's played hard, obviously. Now, the impedance of the driver--impedance being the sum of the resistance along with the two reactive components: capacitance and inductance--has changed. On the fly. Do the inductance and the capacitance change with heat? Well, yes, but only by an ultra-small smidgen, so we don't have to lose sleep over them. But the resistance...that one makes a difference.

 

3) Drivers are air-cooled devices. The neat thing is that if you design them properly, they will cool themselves. You can use the motion of the cone to pump air in and out of the magnet structure, which is where the hot, sweaty voice coil is cowering, being assaulted by all those watts coming from the head. How much heat? This can get complicated, but let's round things off by saying that a typical speaker cabinet is on the order of 5% efficient. Yes, you read that correctly. A 100W Marshall head cranked to the max will give you roughly 5...oh, I'm feeling generous, I'll let you have 10 watts of acoustic power. That's all. No shit. So where's the other 90-95W go? The Laws of Thermodynamics always apply in the end, but in this case we don't have to wait very long; all the rest of the power is converted directly to heat. Where? In the voice coil. Ever hold your hand on a 100W incandescent light bulb? Bet you didn't do it for long. Hot, right? Yeah. That. Okay, so let's dive back inside our hypothetical Marshall cabinet screaming out its death song. The voice coil gets hot. Real hot. In fact, the adhesives used to hold the windings to the coil former have to be rated so that they won't melt and allow the wire to unspool inside the magnet. But the driver is pumping air, right? Yep. Air is frantically rushing in and out through the spider (which is basically an open weave fabric for exactly this reason--so that air can go in and out [it's also porous so as to reduce back pressure within the magnet structure, but let's not go there]), hence cooling the voice coil. But then what? Where's the heat go from there? Into the cabinet itself. Yes, the Laws of Thermodynamics apply here, too, and the heat will eventually escape into the room, but the plywood is a good enough insulator that it takes a while for that to happen. In short, the cabinet gets warm inside. Put a 100W light bulb in a wooden box. Turn it on. Walk away. Come back later and you'll find that the temperature in the box has risen. So what? Well, as the temperature in the box rises, the ability of the driver to shed heat diminishes, which means that the voice coil gets a little warmer still, which means that the resistance (see #2) increases a little more. Uh, so, uh...oh, right...I get it...the cabinet gets warmer inside when it's played hard. Bingo.

 

NOTE: All three of these apply to keyboard players too, but to a lesser extent. Why lesser? For one thing, keyboard players generally go for more linear (more hi-fi, if you will) speakers, so the non-linearities aren't as much a part of the sound you hear. Unless you're playing a Leslie, which brings us back to some of the things I said earlier. Sneaky of me to loop things back that way, eh?

 

Grey

[Tom Williams]

The organist in my favorite '70s regional band stuck a 100 watt light bulb in the top of his Leslie. I always thought it was so we'd see the horn spinning. Now I find out it was just to balance the heat with the lower half. Egad, I'm so confused....

[The Real MC]

If I'm not mistaken, there was an amplified version of that emulator--low power, maybe 20-40W or so?

 

Yes there was. That was the first product the emulator appeared in. The standalone emulator came later.

 

A friend of mine had one. I played with it. It was interesting, but like all the other soi disant solutions to the amp problem, it was its own thing, not a Marshall/Fender/whatever replacement. Note that this was long before YouTube as those things are old as hell.

 

Was the emulator plugged into a decent monitor system with flat frequency response, not a guitar amp? That's the crucial component.

 

I find it curious that keyboard players are somehow in possession of secret knowledge that guitar players do not have--that there are effects pedals, emulators, power soaks, etc. that somehow, mysteriously, guitar players have never heard of.

 

Keyboard players who know too much about guitars. Gee you make it sound like it's a bad thing. Is it so awful that we found other ways to get the job done? Trust me, I know quite a few guitar players who have never owned any of the heritage guitar amps. They've never played through a Fender, a Marshall, et al.

 

Oh, wait, that's right...guitar players actually know about them, but because they're arrogant assholes, they refuse to use them. Willful ignorance. Got it.

 

Geez I share my knowledge freely and generously, and I can't be taken seriously because I'm not a member of the guitar club? Ditch the elitist disposition.

 

For those who are kinda-sorta following along, let me point out that there are other factors involved that you're not going to be able to emulate with any combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors. Let's give heads a rest for the moment and do a quick overview of the speakers themselves, just to change things up a bit.

 

Now that's impressive knowledge. I can dispute very little, I will add that the heat on the voice coil is caused by the current supplied by the output stage. EE101: power generated by a passive load (the speaker) is impedance times the current SQUARED (Ohm's Law). That means as current rises linearly, the power it generates DOUBLES. So it doesn't take long for speaker coils to generate heat. The problem is how to steadily remove the heat before it does damage.

 

But... when does the hair splitting become insignificant? While emulators don't capture all the subtle behaviors, for many people they are "good enough". No one ever complained about the Boston guitar tone being achieved with a dimed plexi into an attenuator home built by Tom Scholz.

 

NOTE: All three of these apply to keyboard players too, but to a lesser extent. Why lesser? For one thing, keyboard players generally go for more linear (more hi-fi, if you will) speakers, so the non-linearities aren't as much a part of the sound you hear. Unless you're playing a Leslie, which brings us back to some of the things I said earlier. Sneaky of me to loop things back that way, eh?

 

Years ago I had the clever idea to try playing boombox tunes through my Leslie. Sounded AWFUL. Leslies are far from high fidelity systems, but their non-linearity happens to couple very well with Hammond organs. Hammonds and Leslies, Les Pauls and Marshalls, peanut butter and chocolate - things that go very well together.

[Baldwin Funster]

For a minute I thought I was at TGP.

[The Real MC]

For a minute I thought I was at TGP.

 

You found a wormhole.

[Mighty Motif Max]

The level you need to be at to be decent to play out on keyboards is so much higher than the "average guitar gunslinger".

 

True, but the level an average keyboard player needs to be "decent" is nothing to brag about either.

I've been in too many bands where the keyboardist either did not solo at all or only soloed when they had a specific little piece that they could play by rote.

Extend the song because the dance floor is full and it's almost break time? Uh-oh, uncharted territory - "Mommy!!!!"

 

That's not how it works when you get a request that the band doesn't "know" - you don't get a chart and you shouldn't need one.

 

Okay, respectfully, I'm going to have to push back a little on this. In my experience this comes down to two things - "reading" skill and "improvisational" skill. This also ties into being a music reader versus playing by ear. Unless you are in jazz, your majority of pianists are being taught to read music, to read notes, to interpret the written page. Most keyboardists started with piano. Organ is even more so - three staves of notes. Then comes reading from lead sheets - usually after maybe 8 years of piano honestly. Many teachers simply aren't going to be doing that. It's focused on piano as a solo instrument. And even in orchestral situations, or Broadway, there are likely going to be written parts for the pianist and keyboardist. It's simply how piano is taught. Note - if you're in jazz, then you get a lot of work in improvisation and ear training. Otherwise, not so much.

 

Where this becomes problematic is when (in my case, as a 11 year old) your church's music director offers you the chance to play with the contemporary band for a week or two, and you agree. You receive the music, and realize that it's lead sheets with the melody and chords. You've only read music, and played a bunch by ear, but never read a chord labeled as a chord in your life. I had to buy a large book with a lot of chords in every key signature to get those parts ready in time. Never before had I seen suspended chords for example, yet contemporary Christian music uses tons of them. There's also a significant variation in the way that chords are denoted. As an example, I've seen a G major suspended 2 chord written as "G2, Gsus2, "Gs2", and "GSUS2". Suspended 4 chords are even worse. Half the time the person making the lead sheet will just write "Gsus" or "Fsus", not even "G4" or "Gsus4".

 

In my case I have a fairly strong ear (in fact 80% of my solo gigging material was learned that way, both on piano and accordion). It helps me in situations like what you mentioned, or in learning a piece quickly. I sat in on accordion with a New Orleans jazz quintet, and that was eye-opening. Chord changes shouted as we played occasionally, no charts, quite difficult to be honest. Luckily I have some experience with the genre. The ability of a keyboardist or pianist to work with no music and no chords at all is NOT indicative of their playing level - it's simply a reflection of their training, and ear. And let me tell you that I know concert pianists who have difficulty just going off of a chord chart, and likewise keyboardists who always use chord charts who have no sense of timing (because of there being no timing implied in the chart), and get thrown for a loop by even a lead sheet, much less written music. Yet would the concert pianist be considered a "decent" player at best? I think not. Different skill sets do not a poor musician make. And no matter how good one's ear is, it can't make up for experience. And it will always be difficult to play a song you've actually never heard before in a live situation because of a request. It's helpful if someone in the band can at least tell you the key signature and section order. And don't expect the keyboardist to start playing signature parts in a song they've never heard, nor to start playing immediately - if they have an ear it's useful for them to get a feel for the song before playing too much.

 

A final thought - musicians at the world-class level often read music live, and that's for everyone in the band. Percussion/drums, bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, orchestra, whatever. Over time they'll know the songs well enough to not need the music in some cases. Part of that may be because substitute players sometimes need to come in - crash course time! On the other hand, if you look at a band like Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess uses an iPad with full keys notation live. Is he a lesser player for it? Broadway and pit orchestras use notes. Are they at a lower level than a regional cover band? I think not.

 

Thanks you said it better to me. The fact that people are even defending a guitar player on a keyboard forum boggles the mind. They aren't worth our time.

I love good guitar players. I"m just working with the apparent misconception of how different instruments are traditionally taught. And some solutions that some guitarists are happy with and/or that guys I know have used to fix volume issues.

[Markyboard]

There's only one answer.

Isolation booths for guitarists. You can put them on stage or if space is tight stick them in the bathroom or parking lot.

 

 

[brenner13]

There's only one answer.

Isolation booths for guitarists. You can put them on stage or if space is tight stick them in the bathroom or parking lot.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

The level you need to be at to be decent to play out on keyboards is so much higher than the "average guitar gunslinger".

 

True, but the level an average keyboard player needs to be "decent" is nothing to brag about either.

I've been in too many bands where the keyboardist either did not solo at all or only soloed when they had a specific little piece that they could play by rote.

Extend the song because the dance floor is full and it's almost break time? Uh-oh, uncharted territory - "Mommy!!!!"

 

That's not how it works when you get a request that the band doesn't "know" - you don't get a chart and you shouldn't need one.

 

Okay, respectfully, I'm going to have to push back a little on this. In my experience this comes down to two things - "reading" skill and "improvisational" skill. This also ties into being a music reader versus playing by ear. Unless you are in jazz, your majority of pianists are being taught to read music, to read notes, to interpret the written page. Most keyboardists started with piano. Organ is even more so - three staves of notes. Then comes reading from lead sheets - usually after maybe 8 years of piano honestly. Many teachers simply aren't going to be doing that. It's focused on piano as a solo instrument. And even in orchestral situations, or Broadway, there are likely going to be written parts for the pianist and keyboardist. It's simply how piano is taught. Note - if you're in jazz, then you get a lot of work in improvisation and ear training. Otherwise, not so much.

 

Where this becomes problematic is when (in my case, as a 11 year old) your church's music director offers you the chance to play with the contemporary band for a week or two, and you agree. You receive the music, and realize that it's lead sheets with the melody and chords. You've only read music, and played a bunch by ear, but never read a chord labeled as a chord in your life. I had to buy a large book with a lot of chords in every key signature to get those parts ready in time. Never before had I seen suspended chords for example, yet contemporary Christian music uses tons of them. There's also a significant variation in the way that chords are denoted. As an example, I've seen a G major suspended 2 chord written as "G2, Gsus2, "Gs2", and "GSUS2". Suspended 4 chords are even worse. Half the time the person making the lead sheet will just write "Gsus" or "Fsus", not even "G4" or "Gsus4".

 

In my case I have a fairly strong ear (in fact 80% of my solo gigging material was learned that way, both on piano and accordion). It helps me in situations like what you mentioned, or in learning a piece quickly. I sat in on accordion with a New Orleans jazz quintet, and that was eye-opening. Chord changes shouted as we played occasionally, no charts, quite difficult to be honest. Luckily I have some experience with the genre. The ability of a keyboardist or pianist to work with no music and no chords at all is NOT indicative of their playing level - it's simply a reflection of their training, and ear. And let me tell you that I know concert pianists who have difficulty just going off of a chord chart, and likewise keyboardists who always use chord charts who have no sense of timing (because of there being no timing implied in the chart), and get thrown for a loop by even a lead sheet, much less written music. Yet would the concert pianist be considered a "decent" player at best? I think not. Different skill sets do not a poor musician make. And no matter how good one's ear is, it can't make up for experience. And it will always be difficult to play a song you've actually never heard before in a live situation because of a request. It's helpful if someone in the band can at least tell you the key signature and section order. And don't expect the keyboardist to start playing signature parts in a song they've never heard, nor to start playing immediately - if they have an ear it's useful for them to get a feel for the song before playing too much.

 

A final thought - musicians at the world-class level often read music live, and that's for everyone in the band. Percussion/drums, bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, orchestra, whatever. Over time they'll know the songs well enough to not need the music in some cases. Part of that may be because substitute players sometimes need to come in - crash course time! On the other hand, if you look at a band like Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess uses an iPad with full keys notation live. Is he a lesser player for it? Broadway and pit orchestras use notes. Are they at a lower level than a regional cover band? I think not.

 

 

 

I love good guitar players. I"m just working with the apparent misconception of how different instruments are traditionally taught. And some solutions that some guitarists are happy with and/or that guys I know have used to fix volume issues.

 

Huge can of worms, Sir Max! But good things that need discussion. I got my asbestos knickers on and no time for swatting flies.

 

Regarding reading skills, there are obviously far fewer guitarists who read European notation. There is a reason for that.

Re-imagine your keyboard. Imagine a keyboard where Middle C is in 5 very different places. There are other notes that will be in 5 different places, some will be in 4, 3, 2 and a few will be only in one place.

That's a guitar neck - my Strat has Middle C at the 1st fret second string, 5th fret third string, 10th fret fourth string, 15th fret fifth string and 20th fret sixth string.

You'll need more than 200 keys on your keyboard!!!!! I get that there is no reason for a keyboard to be laid out that way, just wanted to provide a bit of perspective.

 

Lots of us pickers read Nashville charts, or variants, many with simple Tab for chord shapes. I've used charts at gigs but mostly don't. I spend 9 years playing every Th/Fr/Sa with a bandleader who knew hundreds (if not thousands) of songs. We probably practiced a few times but not much. We had no set list, ever. We had no song list, ever. We took requests, always. I literally had no idea what was coming next. I played guitar and bass in that band, quite an education. Up here, I am 5 years in on a similar situation except now we do more duos but have a 4 piece band if/when the situation calls for it. We've practiced a little, not much. I remember 3 set lists, 2 of them got ignored by the 3rd song in.

 

I've also played steady gigs with a Top 40 Country band and a Motown Tribute band. I had a book of charts for the Motown band, in the exact order that we would play the songs. Keyboard player gave it to me (imagine that! There is that discipline on display). He also said to me "We have 4 instruments and 2 singers, we are not going to duplicate any Motown hits with this lineup - they had 3 choirs, strings, horns, 3 guitar, 2 keyboards, percussion, etc. Learn the signature licks and do what sounds good for everything else." So that's what I did.

 

Does anybody really need sheet music to play Tutti Fruitti or Breathe by Pink Floyd?

Can you instantly bring up correct sheet music for a request if the singer does it in a different key?

 

And, why would that matter? Playing requests makes tip jars happy and creates a following. I've seen a few $100 bills drop in, last time was at a small brew pub and we played Carmelita. A regular looking guy came up, dropped $100 and said "I LOVE Warren Zevon". So I played Lawyers, Guns and Money and he was a happy camper. I've seen piles of $20s, they add up nicely. Dollars are like magnets, they draw more dollars.

 

If one band member can sing it, we'll jump on it then and there. My biggest takeaway from all that is that in general, the public just wants to hear something with a good groove and a chorus they can sing along with - they do not care if you don't duplicate the sound of the orginal song at all. They are there to have fun, give them some fun and they are happy. A duo with one acoustic and one electric guitar? We played a medley last night - The Letter/Elanor Rigby/Breathe and our audience loved it. Did it sound like any of those records? No. Could they sing along? Yes. Done deal.

 

Here is one huge difference between guitar and keyboard, something you mention above about learning all the chord shapes. It applies to scales as well. On a keyboard, you have different fingerings for a C major chord, a C# major chord, D major, D# major, etc. A guitarist can learn just a few different shapes and move them where they need them. To keep the explanation simple, bandleader says 1-5-minor 6-4 in Ab. I know that pattern, just move it to be in Ab and go. The same is true with scales, on a guitar they are moveable shapes, on a keyboard the shape is different for each key.

 

In that sense, keyboardists have a LOT more to learn to have basic skills. Not saying better or worse, just a reality of the difference.

 

Both piano and guitar have traditionally been classified as percussion instruments so there isn't much to comment on there. Being able to find your spot in a groove will always be non-optional for gigging musicians playing popular music. There are certainly styles of playing on both keyboards and guitar that are not particularly percussive - the classification was made before we got to the amazing place we are now.

 

Hands on, both instruments have admirable capabilities. I am not familar with modern keyboards to the extent I can comment on them but it has been my experience that the following aspects are unique to electric guitar. Playing a triple stop and stretching one note a whole step - including the option to then add a vibrato to that stretched note. A range of tones created by moving the location of the pick, "popping" or "tapping" a harmonic. Tappng an arpeggio and stretching only one of the notes. Instant on/off muting/palming of notes. There is an instantaneous and direct connection with the source of the sound on a guitar, no buttons need to be pushed, no knobs, wheels or ribbons need to be manipulated. Guitarists are not operating a device, they are touching the string - the source of the sound. It is a different thing.

 

The deepest roots of American music are a hybrid of Native American music, African music and European music. African music was hugely influenced by Middle Eastern music, the notes are not the same as the European Tempered Scale so beloved by J.S. Bach and others. Native American music has another set of expressions. Both the Native and the African musics were passed on by participation, not notation.

Some of us listen to Billie Holiday and think (I've heard people say this) "She sings flat." Yes, in a Euro-centric sense she is flat. If you listen to enough Billie Holiday you realize that she is PERFECTLY flat in the same way, using a certain inflection. It is not a lack of skill, rather the opposite and very intentional. The same can be said of Muddy Waters, whether you are discussing his singing or his slide guitar work. Those are just two examples, there are many.

 

Keyboardists are more likely to be trained in the traditional European methods, guitarists are more likely to "figure things out", "steal" stuff by watching others play, share ideas with each other, etc. Two very different traditions. Neither is wrong or bad.

 

The Volume Wars? Been there, done that. Mesa halfstack with EV and JBL speakers? Guilty as charged. Things have changed profoundly and I am grateful. Current main gigger is a Boss Katana 100 Combo. I have it set for 1/2 watt, that way I can turn up the master volume a bit and get an excellent simulation of the sound of a tube amp cranked up a bit - that output section working overtime tone that is the basis of a great electric guitar tone. I've got one of those floor stands that angles the amp to my ears so I can hear myself without being too loud. Last but not least, the speaker simulated line out sounds great plugged into the PA (if we even need it). Last night I gigged with a Roland Ciube 40 GX, that has a different way of getting that sweet saturation at low volumes, love it too.

 

You might enjoy reading the following stuffs.

 

http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html

 

https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

 

Deep Blues by Robert Palmer

 

Guitarists and Keyboardists? Apples and Oranges beyond any doubt.

 

Last but not least, I have no idea why some keyboardists feel so hostile towards guitarists as a general topic. Honestly, it's stupid. I am not here to make enemies, I am not anywhere on this site, any other site, or in person, talking smack about "Keyboard Players." I don't recall seeing any threads in the guitar forum here on dogging keyboardists. Haters gonna hate I guess... Cheers, Kuru

[Markyboard]

Last but not least, I have no idea why some keyboardists feel so hostile towards guitarists as a general topic. Honestly, it's stupid. I am not here to make enemies, I am not anywhere on this site, any other site, or in person, talking smack about "Keyboard Players." I don't recall seeing any threads in the guitar forum here on dogging keyboardists. Haters gonna hate I guess... Cheers, Kuru

 

Hey Kuru-

All in fun, or so I thought. My daughter plays guitar and we go at it all the time. She's way more brutal regarding how much keyboards suck. Anyway hope you didn't take my jabs in the wrong spirit. I enjoy your post immensely and am glad you're part of this forum.

(despite being a guitarist)

[KuruPrionz]

Last but not least, I have no idea why some keyboardists feel so hostile towards guitarists as a general topic. Honestly, it's stupid. I am not here to make enemies, I am not anywhere on this site, any other site, or in person, talking smack about "Keyboard Players." I don't recall seeing any threads in the guitar forum here on dogging keyboardists. Haters gonna hate I guess... Cheers, Kuru

 

Hey Kuru-

All in fun, or so I thought. My daughter plays guitar and we go at it all the time. She's way more brutal regarding how much keyboards suck. Anyway hope you didn't take my jabs in the wrong spirit. I enjoy your post immensely and am glad you're part of this forum.

(despite being a guitarist)

 

 

Thanks Markyboard, I've got a pretty thick skin. And, I was being nice to the poor folks who persist in trying to play such unweildy contraptions!!!!

[The Real MC]

I'm not hostile towards guitarists. I had too many frustrations with some (not all) guitarists whose tone, playing style, and/or song selection crowds out keyboard players, and are so closed-minded that they will not listen to reason nor are they willing to compromise. And I'm not shy about confronting them.

 

There are guitar players I have been happy to work with.

[The Real MC]

My intention was not to make enemies with guitar players, it was to have a civil discussion how we can all get along better. In my OP a guitar player wanted to know how to find a keyboardist who wants to play, so I replied. It may not be the answer they wanted, but it's the truth.

[Mighty Motif Max]

The level you need to be at to be decent to play out on keyboards is so much higher than the "average guitar gunslinger".

 

True, but the level an average keyboard player needs to be "decent" is nothing to brag about either.

I've been in too many bands where the keyboardist either did not solo at all or only soloed when they had a specific little piece that they could play by rote.

Extend the song because the dance floor is full and it's almost break time? Uh-oh, uncharted territory - "Mommy!!!!"

 

That's not how it works when you get a request that the band doesn't "know" - you don't get a chart and you shouldn't need one.

 

Okay, respectfully, I'm going to have to push back a little on this. In my experience this comes down to two things - "reading" skill and "improvisational" skill. This also ties into being a music reader versus playing by ear. Unless you are in jazz, your majority of pianists are being taught to read music, to read notes, to interpret the written page. Most keyboardists started with piano. Organ is even more so - three staves of notes. Then comes reading from lead sheets - usually after maybe 8 years of piano honestly. Many teachers simply aren't going to be doing that. It's focused on piano as a solo instrument. And even in orchestral situations, or Broadway, there are likely going to be written parts for the pianist and keyboardist. It's simply how piano is taught. Note - if you're in jazz, then you get a lot of work in improvisation and ear training. Otherwise, not so much.

 

Where this becomes problematic is when (in my case, as a 11 year old) your church's music director offers you the chance to play with the contemporary band for a week or two, and you agree. You receive the music, and realize that it's lead sheets with the melody and chords. You've only read music, and played a bunch by ear, but never read a chord labeled as a chord in your life. I had to buy a large book with a lot of chords in every key signature to get those parts ready in time. Never before had I seen suspended chords for example, yet contemporary Christian music uses tons of them. There's also a significant variation in the way that chords are denoted. As an example, I've seen a G major suspended 2 chord written as "G2, Gsus2, "Gs2", and "GSUS2". Suspended 4 chords are even worse. Half the time the person making the lead sheet will just write "Gsus" or "Fsus", not even "G4" or "Gsus4".

 

In my case I have a fairly strong ear (in fact 80% of my solo gigging material was learned that way, both on piano and accordion). It helps me in situations like what you mentioned, or in learning a piece quickly. I sat in on accordion with a New Orleans jazz quintet, and that was eye-opening. Chord changes shouted as we played occasionally, no charts, quite difficult to be honest. Luckily I have some experience with the genre. The ability of a keyboardist or pianist to work with no music and no chords at all is NOT indicative of their playing level - it's simply a reflection of their training, and ear. And let me tell you that I know concert pianists who have difficulty just going off of a chord chart, and likewise keyboardists who always use chord charts who have no sense of timing (because of there being no timing implied in the chart), and get thrown for a loop by even a lead sheet, much less written music. Yet would the concert pianist be considered a "decent" player at best? I think not. Different skill sets do not a poor musician make. And no matter how good one's ear is, it can't make up for experience. And it will always be difficult to play a song you've actually never heard before in a live situation because of a request. It's helpful if someone in the band can at least tell you the key signature and section order. And don't expect the keyboardist to start playing signature parts in a song they've never heard, nor to start playing immediately - if they have an ear it's useful for them to get a feel for the song before playing too much.

 

A final thought - musicians at the world-class level often read music live, and that's for everyone in the band. Percussion/drums, bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, orchestra, whatever. Over time they'll know the songs well enough to not need the music in some cases. Part of that may be because substitute players sometimes need to come in - crash course time! On the other hand, if you look at a band like Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess uses an iPad with full keys notation live. Is he a lesser player for it? Broadway and pit orchestras use notes. Are they at a lower level than a regional cover band? I think not.

 

 

 

I love good guitar players. I"m just working with the apparent misconception of how different instruments are traditionally taught. And some solutions that some guitarists are happy with and/or that guys I know have used to fix volume issues.

 

Huge can of worms, Sir Max! But good things that need discussion. I got my asbestos knickers on and no time for swatting flies.

 

Regarding reading skills, there are obviously far fewer guitarists who read European notation. There is a reason for that.

Re-imagine your keyboard. Imagine a keyboard where Middle C is in 5 very different places. There are other notes that will be in 5 different places, some will be in 4, 3, 2 and a few will be only in one place.

That's a guitar neck - my Strat has Middle C at the 1st fret second string, 5th fret third string, 10th fret fourth string, 15th fret fifth string and 20th fret sixth string.

You'll need more than 200 keys on your keyboard!!!!! I get that there is no reason for a keyboard to be laid out that way, just wanted to provide a bit of perspective.

 

I"ve noticed that with my guitar, it"s a very different instrument to be sure. Interestingly enough a chromatic-system accordion can be laid out similarly with duplicate notes scattered about.

 

Lots of us pickers read Nashville charts, or variants, many with simple Tab for chord shapes. I've used charts at gigs but mostly don't. I spend 9 years playing every Th/Fr/Sa with a bandleader who knew hundreds (if not thousands) of songs. We probably practiced a few times but not much. We had no set list, ever. We had no song list, ever. We took requests, always. I literally had no idea what was coming next. I played guitar and bass in that band, quite an education. Up here, I am 5 years in on a similar situation except now we do more duos but have a 4 piece band if/when the situation calls for it. We've practiced a little, not much. I remember 3 set lists, 2 of them got ignored by the 3rd song in.

 

I've also played steady gigs with a Top 40 Country band and a Motown Tribute band. I had a book of charts for the Motown band, in the exact order that we would play the songs. Keyboard player gave it to me (imagine that! There is that discipline on display). He also said to me "We have 4 instruments and 2 singers, we are not going to duplicate any Motown hits with this lineup - they had 3 choirs, strings, horns, 3 guitar, 2 keyboards, percussion, etc. Learn the signature licks and do what sounds good for everything else." So that's what I did.

 

Does anybody really need sheet music to play Tutti Fruitti or Breathe by Pink Floyd?

Can you instantly bring up correct sheet music for a request if the singer does it in a different key?

I guess I was thinking more in terms of at least some form of chords, not necessarily written sheet music for your average song. Just something to keep track of. I"m guilty of writing out bits of the chord structure for songs if I have a few minutes, when I"m unfamiliar with it but we"ve had a chance to play through it once. If I know further ahead of time, I also might go on YouTube and transcribe some from there. As a note, really good pianists and other musicians can transpose on sight (I"m not one of them), so the different key issue is moot. I can transpose chords on sight, but not written notes. If ones using an electric keyboard, in a pinch a transpose function can be used, but it"s a last ditch tool.

 

And, why would that matter? Playing requests makes tip jars happy and creates a following. I've seen a few $100 bills drop in, last time was at a small brew pub and we played Carmelita. A regular looking guy came up, dropped $100 and said "I LOVE Warren Zevon". So I played Lawyers, Guns and Money and he was a happy camper. I've seen piles of $20s, they add up nicely. Dollars are like magnets, they draw more dollars.

 

If one band member can sing it, we'll jump on it then and there. My biggest takeaway from all that is that in general, the public just wants to hear something with a good groove and a chorus they can sing along with - they do not care if you don't duplicate the sound of the orginal song at all. They are there to have fun, give them some fun and they are happy. A duo with one acoustic and one electric guitar? We played a medley last night - The Letter/Elanor Rigby/Breathe and our audience loved it. Did it sound like any of those records? No. Could they sing along? Yes. Done deal.

 

So, a majority of my gigs are solo performances. I take requests, because you"re right, people like it, but in my case there isn"t anyone else with me who might know the song so it"s all on me. The way I deal with it is by having a list of about 200 songs that I know categorized, printed, and set out for people to pick from (note that I have almost everything memorized or learned by ear so I can keep it all in my head). Occasionally they will have a song that isn"t on the list, and sometimes I can play it, sometimes I"ve never heard of it so I have to decline. Because it"s just me and no one else playing. One nice thing about having a large list is that people can always find something by the time they go through it, or sometimes there"s so much they will pick something earlier on, thus avoiding odd requests.

 

You"re right, a lot of people don"t really view music the same way we musicians do, or pick it apart as much. If I"m going to play a song, I want to make it sound the best I can. Sometimes certain songs weren"t intended for my instruments, so of course it"s going to sound different. Even more weren"t written for a single instrument. Funny fact - people seem to love ragtime/swing adaptations of songs. Definitely not the original form lol!

 

 

Hands on, both instruments have admirable capabilities. I am not familar with modern keyboards to the extent I can comment on them but it has been my experience that the following aspects are unique to electric guitar. Playing a triple stop and stretching one note a whole step - including the option to then add a vibrato to that stretched note. A range of tones created by moving the location of the pick, "popping" or "tapping" a harmonic. Tappng an arpeggio and stretching only one of the notes. Instant on/off muting/palming of notes. There is an instantaneous and direct connection with the source of the sound on a guitar, no buttons need to be pushed, no knobs, wheels or ribbons need to be manipulated. Guitarists are not operating a device, they are touching the string - the source of the sound. It is a different thing.

I think most of those are unique to string instruments, but not necessarily only electric guitar. I"m thinking in terms of other world instruments here like the Baglama, Er-Hu, and others.

 

There"s a lot more to keyboard instruments than electronic keyboards of course, so a piano for example would be a mechanical instrument that you interact directly with. Or a better example could be a piano accordion. It"s all reeds, and there are all kinds of articulations one can accomplish, like pitch bends at the beginnings of notes, vibrato, different tonalities based on key velocity in combination with bellow movement, phrasing inflections, sudden dynamic changes, and a number of other things. You"re working with a consistent sound source that doesn"t decay on its own, so in my opinion it"s more complex than either piano or guitar. And of course then you have the left hand side with 120 buttons based on the circle of fifths, but you can also have a free-bass system with three octaves of individual notes across every key signature. And that"s before we get into alternate tunings. So only with electronic keyboards do you really have a disconnect between the source of the sound and the player on the way you describe.

 

The deepest roots of American music are a hybrid of Native American music, African music and European music. African music was hugely influenced by Middle Eastern music, the notes are not the same as the European Tempered Scale so beloved by J.S. Bach and others. Native American music has another set of expressions. Both the Native and the African musics were passed on by participation, not notation.

Some of us listen to Billie Holiday and think (I've heard people say this) "She sings flat." Yes, in a Euro-centric sense she is flat. If you listen to enough Billie Holiday you realize that she is PERFECTLY flat in the same way, using a certain inflection. It is not a lack of skill, rather the opposite and very intentional. The same can be said of Muddy Waters, whether you are discussing his singing or his slide guitar work. Those are just two examples, there are many.

...

You might enjoy reading the following stuffs.

 

http://www.precisionstrobe.com/apps/pianotemp/temper.html

 

https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

 

Deep Blues by Robert Palmer

Thanks for the reading. In my other half of the musical world, I"m actually a professional accordionist who plays a lot of Eastern European and Middle Eastern music, as well as specializing in Russian folk music (long story but I"ve represented Russia for four years through the International Institute of Minnesota at the MN Festival of Nations and our state fair"s international bazaar, as well as working with a Russian cultural preservation and education group for a number of years). In fact, as a little boy (6-10), while other kids were listening to Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears, I was hunting around on the old internet for world midi files, which I would load into our Clavinova and listen to for hours on end. So my favorite music comes out of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. As a result, I"m familiar with a number of non-Western scales and such. I also play Native American Flute, and that has its own set of 'rules', like you alluded to. I"ve seen a lot of arguments about equal temperment vs others, and at a certain point it becomes pointless. I do like how some eastern influences are starting to come over into Western music a bit more.

 

As a performer, one of the difficult things about Balkan music is that firstly a lot of the instruments aren"t using a 12-tone equal scale, and secondly ornaments are the name of the game. Accomplishing them on a western instrument is sometimes quite difficult. Even more so is playing a lot of Russian folk music on a piano accordion - chromatic systems are the 'original' accordion and remain the most common in many countries. In fact, the piano accordion was originally invented by Italian companies as a marketing gimmick to cater to Americans, who were familiar with piano, organ, and the like. So you end up with music written for instruments with multiple copies of notes in different areas, while on a piano keyboard you"re going to have major difficulties with stretching far enough to play some of the block chords. In some cases it"s actually not possible.

 

I also have a reed organ that is tuned to 452 hz. There was no standard A=440 before the 1920s. There"s a whole side of the internet that has bizarre conspiracy theories about 432 hz vs 440 and all that stuff.

 

Microtonal stuff is fascinating to me. A great example is the Turkish Baglama - all the frets are movable. Either way I love non-western music, and there can be a debate about the good or bad of our Western scales, but in the end it"s not like either has really hurt music.

 

 

 

 

Current main gigger is a Boss Katana 100 Combo. I have it set for 1/2 watt, that way I can turn up the master volume a bit and get an excellent simulation of the sound of a tube amp cranked up a bit - that output section working overtime tone that is the basis of a great electric guitar tone. I've got one of those floor stands that angles the amp to my ears so I can hear myself without being too loud. Last but not least, the speaker simulated line out sounds great plugged into the PA (if we even need it). Last night I gigged with a Roland Ciube 40 GX, that has a different way of getting that sweet saturation at low volumes, love it too.

 

Sounds like a nice setup.

 

Last but not least, I have no idea why some keyboardists feel so hostile towards guitarists as a general topic. Honestly, it's stupid. I am not here to make enemies, I am not anywhere on this site, any other site, or in person, talking smack about "Keyboard Players." I don't recall seeing any threads in the guitar forum here on dogging keyboardists. Haters gonna hate I guess... Cheers, Kuru

 

Well, here"s how I see it. I"ve had the pleasure of working with some great guitarists. I"ve also unfortunately had to work with a number that were, pardon the language, assholes. If someone ran into more of the latter than the former, I can see why they might have a distaste for guitarists. The same holds true for many other things; if the majority of people from 'x' group that you meet are nasty backstabbing conceited jerks, most people would dislike that entire group. Luckily I have dealt with both types so I"m not that way.

[KuruPrionz]

My intention was not to make enemies with guitar players, it was to have a civil discussion how we can all get along better. In my OP a guitar player wanted to know how to find a keyboardist who wants to play, so I replied. It may not be the answer they wanted, but it's the truth.

 

 

That's different, somebody asked a question and you answered it. I don't sugarcoat things either, certainly there have been a few occasions where somebody will ask about bla bla bla and I will say "Are you sure you want to ask me that?" If they affirm, I will share the truth as I know it. I've found giving the the out has made me less unpopular but I always figure somebody posting on the interwebz is sincerely curious - it's not a great place to go fishing for compliments. So it goes... Cheers Kuru

[KuruPrionz]

Mighty Max, cool answers! Gonna get too complicated for me to provide detailed comments to your replies. This is good.

 

I'm from Fresno, there is a large Armenian population and a good sized Greek population there so Middle Eastern music is common. Some of my friends learned to play that music and never worried about gigs.

 

I found a long necked Baglama Saz from Turkey up here in the Value Village. It was missing the bridge and they wanted $40, otherwise almost like new. I bought it, eventually traded it for a couple of nice microphones.

I used to have a sitar too, long since gone. You have to devote your life to such things or just be a dabbler. Guitar is my life choice, no regrets.

 

That said, I do have a copy of a Boucher banjo from the Civil War era, first factory banjo and fretless. I built it from a kit and customized it with a thick fretboard so I would have lower action. It's fun so I'll keep it.

 

I've owned a couple of accordions and still have some harmonicas, I get that reeds can be expressive. I don't think you can do a triple stop with a whole step bend on one note only and add vibrato if wanted. Can't play slide on a reed either or pop a harmonic squeal, the bends are pretty limited in scope. I regularly bend a step and half, sometimes more if there is a micro-tone I am pushing for - fully scalloped fretboard allows this level of madness.

 

So, I would disagree that reeds can be more complex but I dio love the sounds and the expression they have on offer. A good friend plays a 120 button accordion and watching his left hand dance effortlessly over the buttons blows my mind. A big sound in that box!!! A great choice for a solo act.

 

Currently working on a 12 string guitar tuned down to B for my solo stuff, that's another form of firepower, lots of big in something not so big. Cheers, Kuru

[GRollins]

I have no idea why some keyboardists feel so hostile towards guitarists as a general topic. Honestly, it's stupid. I am not here to make enemies, I am not anywhere on this site, any other site, or in person, talking smack about "Keyboard Players." I don't recall seeing any threads in the guitar forum here on dogging keyboardists. Haters gonna hate I guess... Cheers, Kuru

 

Like you, I've not seen other musicians running down keyboard players; it seems to be a KC thing to bash guitarists. There are numerous more technical points I could make (bassists have to contend with Fletcher-Munson curves, for instance), but it's clearly an emotional issue with some people and it's just not worth the angst. I've reached the point where this is clearly a diminishing returns thread, so I'm going to bow out.

 

You folks have fun.

 

Grey

[Baldwin Funster]

I'm about 75% guitar and 25% keys. Most of the time I hate myself except when I believe I'm the best musician in town.

[The Real MC]

Like you, I've not seen other musicians running down keyboard players

 

bandmix.com is dominated by guitarists and hostile to keyboard players. They run down keyboard players when their posts get deleted from their forums. Of course you've not seen it, they engage in censorship before anybody can witness it.

 

I've reached the point where this is clearly a diminishing returns thread, so I'm going to bow out.

 

You folks have fun.

 

This is not diminishing returns. This is your elitist disposition talking because you refuse to admit that someone other than guitar players dared to offer a solution to the problem. You admitted that when you found it curious that keyboard players were in possession of secrets that guitar players didn't know. You had nothing to reply when attenuators suck yet I countered that no guitar player complained of Tom Scholz using one. You had nothing to reply when asked when does the hair splitting become insignificant. You had nothing to reply when I countered that many keyboardists play their EPs through tube guitar amps quite frequently. Your answer was to walk away. You're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

 

So long, coward. I don't engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.