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Ian Benhamou

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About Ian Benhamou

  • Birthday 03/20/1980

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  • homepage
    www.myspace.com/time4pinkfloyd
  • occupation
    Professional Musician
  • Location
    Montreal, Quebec
  1. I wholeheartedly disagree. For one thing, the first chorus is without drum and bass, only acoustic guitar strumming and a bit of tambourine, so the left hand is prominent and would definitely be lacking if it weren"t there. Secondly, even when the drums come in for the second chorus, those left hand octaves are a big pet of the sound, just listen to the recording and you could clearly hear both hands playing as well as those organ pads. In the end, it depends on what level of detail you"re going after. If you"re just playing a cover of the song one hand will do, or just piano but no organ. But if you"re trying to recreate a recording with as much attention to detail as an orchestra would performing a great symphony, then those extra details make a huge difference in the sound.
  2. Thanks guys!! It was an honour to be asked to do this and to have dB run the interview made it that much more special! Just as a side note, since this was a one-off 6 date leg of the tour we didn"t have all of our gear, only the essentials. So that isn"t my complete rig. Anyhow, it"s been great meeting many of the cool dudes on this forum on the tours. I hope to meet more of you along the way. Shoot me a PM if you"re interested in coming to any of our shows. Cheers.
  3. Yes, and also those contact sheets where off over time and need to be changed. The way they work is there are 2 points of contact. An initial one and secondary one. The velocity (loudness) is determined by the time between the initial and second contact. The harder you strike the note, the smaller the time interval and therefore the louder the note. Those contact are made of rubber and eventually they crack or the resistance of the rubber becomes too light and therefore the time between the 2 contacts is virtually zero and therefore the note velocity always goes to 127. That's why the note seems louder. Bring it to any good technician to get changed. Usually when one starts to go the rest will follow, so a good tech will do a thorough check up and change as many as necessary. You're in Montreal so if you need a recommendation for a tech I could give you one.
  4. Depends on the song for me. Most of the time, feel is all that's necessary. For trickier time-signatures, sometimes counting is a must. But even then I find it better to practice a ton while counting it until the feel becomes ingrained in you and completely natural. This way you could focus on your feel instead.
  5. I show up to soundcheck an hour early, plug in my in-ears and run through the exercises for about 20-minutes and then spend the rest of the time running through some of the more difficult passages in the show until soundcheck officially begins. On days off I don't practice.
  6. Well, there are 2-schools of thought on this. You're obviously in the one that says all you need to do is practice you're repertoire and the technique necessary for that repertoire will be improved. I disagree with this school of thought completely. Professional athletes don't just get better at their sport by playing it exclusively. They go to the gym and lift weights, they work on their cardio, they train hard on jumping, running, skating skills, etc. For me, playing the piano is the same. Yes, at the end of the day its about making music, but the beauty of exercises like Hanon or scales or whatever is that they're simple patterns which get repeated over and over again. Hanon, for example, is an 8-note pattern which uses all five fingers in both hands. Not too many passages in any repertoire will give you that kind of a concentrated workout. Also, because it's a repeated pattern, the focus is on your technique instead of what notes or what tricky fingering to use. In my case, I was badly out of shape as a piano player ever since I finished my music degree 15 years ago because I also thought repertoire was all I needed to be able to play. Then I got asked to audition for The Musical Box and I immediately realized I didn't have my chops in shape to be able to handle it. Saw a piano teacher, he put me on this Hanon and Dohnayani routine. It's been exactly a year almost day to day and my hands have never been in better shape. My finger independence is better than it's ever been, my fourth and fifth fingers are practically as strong as my first 3 in BOTH hands, and best of all by having this agility and strength I've almost completely eliminated all tension from my wrists and forearms. YMMV, but for me it's worked miracles. And let me be clear, these exercises are only part of my warm-up routine. It takes roughly 20-minutes and then I tackle my repertoire for hours. But the warm-up allows me to practice for hours without getting tired or sore. Again, YMMV but I think its the best way to go.
  7. I do the first five Hanon exercises everyday at three different tempos. A slow one concentrating on perfect tension free technique and evenness of each finger, a medium tempo to get the fingers moving a bit faster and a fast one. Obviously, if you're just getting back into playing you'll have to slowly work your way up to that. Maybe just 1 or 2 exercises at first and only at slow tempos. Slowly add more speed and more excerscies until you're doing all 5. The key is to do it everyday and always be tension-free. Tension has no place in piano playing. You should always feel free and relaxed. But in order to be able to do that you must have strong fingers with plenty of endurance and that takes time to build. I also do the first 3 Dohnyani exercises which really help to transform your hands, especially the weaker fingers and greatly improves your finger independence. But these are more advanced so I would wait a while before tackling those or else you'll risk injury.
  8. Finale user for over 10 years. Coming from Sibelius when I was in university. It took a while to understand the UI, not super user friendly. But once you get it and memorize keyboard shortcuts the workflow is pretty good. Using a midi controller to enter notes helps a ton.
  9. Ive been playing that song in a cover band of mine for the past 7 years or so. This is a simple multi I setup in my PC3x using only factory string sounds. The left hand has weird splits and transpositions to be able to play the proper voicings with only one hand. It may not be the exact right sound but it definetly captures the vibe and sounds great live. [video:youtube]
  10. Yeah, I would miss the ribbon What year is this??? How long have I been away from the forum?
  11. I'm going out for a run in about an hour,
  12. -5Celsius more like 23 Farenheit. BTW, Celsius is the "normal" degrees. Oh, Americans........
  13. Hey fellow keyboard geeks! I've been on this forum for few months now but just saw this thread today. It's funny, I never thought of introducing myself before seeing this, but of course it makes perfect sense and is a lot more polite. I'm 29 and based out of Montreal, born and raised. I'm a full-time musician, playing keyboards, guitar and vocals. I have a Bachelor's degree in Music with a specialization in Music Technology from McGill University, where I studied classical piano. But my true passion has always and always will be in classic rock, soul, old school R&B, funk & good popular music (the kind that has a real aesthetic to it). Among my favorite artists are Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Billy Joel, Steely Dan and of course the Beatles. I play in several projects. I have an all-acoustic classic rock cover band that plays bars in the Montreal Area. I play lead guitar, keys (mainly piano and rhodes) and sing back up vocals. I also play keyboards for several local artists as well as a corporate events/wedding band. And just recently I started playing in a Pink Floyd tribute band where I play keys, a bit of guitar and I sing all the Waters and Wright parts. You could check us out at: http://www.myspace.com/time4pinkfloyd I look forward to sharing a common passion for gear as well as discussion of good music, technical stuff, live performance experiences, and overall philosophy of being a musician. I hope to learn a few things while sharing what I've learned over the years.
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