klezman

Having lived in a small midwest town , I had never encountered it until college ((Temple University, Philadelphia 1986). One of my roommates put on Roundabout and I was blown away.

Used it standalone at my Gospel gig. Finally, the cleanliness I've been looking for. Plenty of power when working with bass and drums compared to the K10 and so much better sounding. Finally hear the stereo chorus on my Rhodes patches and the MainStage B3 lost some of its shrillness. Overall, the first amp I've been happy with in years.

I wanted to love it but didn't find it anything like the C1 I use about twice a month. Was hoping for that kind of weight so that I could "own" the C1 when I sat down at it (instead of struggling for an hour to get used to it). Of course the unhelpful GC doofus hovering at my left elbow didn't help.

I've been lurking on this forum for a while looking for advice on technique (which I've found thanks to Dave Horne and others). First some history: I started playing back in 1970 (at age 6) on a Magnus chord ogran (sort of a horizontal accordian) that my grandmother had. From there I "graduated" to a Lowrey organ complete with bell and howell tapedeck for playalong tracks :->. My parents found a teacher and I took to this quite quickly and ended up with a regular gig on a theater pipe organ at age 9. At about this time I also started piano lessons and probably began technical issues. By about age 12, I was really, really bored with the theatre organ stuff and got into my older brother's band playing the local wedding/party circuit. Needless to say, I found it much more exciting grooving on Santana and Comodoores tunes (and checking out the ladies) than playing square stuff for blue haired old ladies. All this time though, I was still taking from the same teacher and not really learning anything (especially not an appreciation for playing with proper technique). When it was time to choose a career, I decided to try out for music school. To prepare for this, I ended up with another local teacher who was a contempoary of Dick Hyman in both age and skill. Unfortunately, he was somewhat easily exasperated and while he tired to extol the virtues of arm weight, relaxation, etc., I found it somewhat difficult to release tension when someone is screaming "RELAX GODDAMMIT, !@#!@$!@" Go figure. Anyway, as luck would have it, I managed to get into the Jazz Studies program at Temple University where I began my quest for reliable technique that eludes me to this day. What I noticed when I started seriously practicing was that every so often, I would make some kind of adjustment and stumble upon this amazing techique that would then disappear. It mostly affected my right hand and while being somewhat painful, was mostly characterized as a heaviness or slowness. My piano teacher at Temple, although well versed in the intellectual challenges of Jazz piano and a great inspiration overall, was not able to undertand the root of the issue. I did manage to graduate and tried playing the Atlantic City scene for a while. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to compete with the physical limitations that I had and eventually got a job in software development. Fast forward 20 years. I basically stopped playing because it was too emotionally and phyically uncomfortable. I figured I had focal dystonia (see Leon Fleisher for more on this) and that it was basically incurable. I noticed that I experienced the same fluctuation in dexterity when writing code at the computer and started analyizing what was going on. I realized that I had developed tons of unintended isometic movement that was the result of bad training. Anyway, to make an already too long story a bit shorter, completely by accident, I ended up in our synagogue klezmer band and have been since attempting to free myself from the bad habits that I so successfully formed long ago. This band is perfect because there are only as many techinical demands as I want on a given night. In my spare time, I've been working through Jordan Rudess' Keyboard Wizardry for about a year now and for the first time in a long time can make actual progress. Lately, I've been into this site: "http://www.thefundamentalaction.com/thefundamentalaction.html". It resonates with me so I'm going to keep experimenting with these concepts for a while. Musical influences: The usual Jazz greats:-> (Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, etc) Others styles: Stevie Ray Vaughn Prog rock stuff: Emerson, Wakeman, Etc. Dave Stewart's stuff with Bill Bruford (check it out on YouTube) Classical influences: Bach, Chopin and Rachmoninoff. Equipment: Kurzweil K2500X (with the piano expansion stuff) Korg i4s