allan_evett

Thanks, Carlo. Tom was a pianist, composer/arranger/conductor based in Nashville. He was a mentor and good friend; unfortunately we lost him to heart failure last month. I'm thinking of trying to organize a collaboration CD of his music, pulling different friends together in the music community. He did have a quite a niche of fans here; so perhaps if a collection of fellow players would donate their arrangement of one of his pieces, we could produce a memorial CD - with a donation of the profits going to his family. "Horizon/Storm" is an older recording of Tom's (originally done in 1981); basically it's out of print. Reharmonization ? Some, not a lot though. Tom was heavily influenced by Paul Fetler - a diverse, yet progressive 20th century music composer- with whom he studied at the University of Minnesota. The m11 chord, quartal LH voicings, plus chromatic harmonic movement were all present in much of Tom's writing; some of it rather subtle, yet complex and sometimes challenging to hear. Often, I've thought a passage to be strictly a Perfect 4th based sequence of m11's, but it turned out to include a couple of chromatic leading substitution chords that were inverted. I picked up most of it, but a couple of chords/voicings are more my own interpretation. If I can find a copy of the piano recording of this piece, I'll post it. I'll be posting another one of Tom's pieces here: a slower, more reflective piece. I'm definitely going to avoid the click on that, and do it as 'free playing', which will be a nice change after the effort put into the current piece. I agree with you about the synthetic brightness of Pianoteq 2. I'm planning to check out version 3 soon.

First contribution here (now that I'm finally in the correct 'room') I thought it more appropriate to post this here, vs. the 'original recording' thread - as this a cover, albeit a quite obscure one. Plus there's a little bit of reharmonization here, not to mention improvisation. I welcome any and all comments, criticisms, suggestions,etc. Thanks for listening... http://www.divshare.com/download/10505035-2d7 This is my version of the Tom Howard piano piece: "Horizon/Storm". Tom had two different arrangements of this piece is his discography. One was released as a band recording, the other as solo piano. I learned this piece from the solo recording, sometime in the late 1980's, and have been playing it in various settings since then. I had previously recorded the piece back in 1999, as it was to be part of a compilation CD. Though the recording rights had been secured, and initial fee paid to the composer, the track was cut from the project. I'm planning to include this one on my CD release, hopefully within the next year (5 tracks completed, so far). The section from 1:10 to 2:12 is improvised, based loosely on the versions of this piece I had heard Tom perform live. Often he too would extend the middle section with free improv of his own; sometimes other sections as well - depending on the performance. I recorded this version live, using Pianoteq 2 with a Kurzweil PC3X as the controller. It was recorded into Logic Pro, initially as a MIDI recording. To keep the performance as authentic/live as possible, I did not quantize the track; though I did record it with a background click. Even with the 'Piano Touch' velocity curve in the PC3x, and Pianoteq's decent velocity capabilities, I still had to do a handful of velocity compression/expansion note tweaks at a few points in the track. Other than couple of note 'fluff' corrections, that was it on the MIDI end. I 'bounced in place' to Logic Audio, and completed production on the recording from there. The idea was to get as close as possible to a piano recording, using the tools available to me in the digital realm. Hopefully, budget permitting, I can eventually book time in a local studio, and do this properly on a grand piano.

+1: My sense of morbid curiosity is starting to get the best of me here...

+1, and then some. I laughed my arse off reading both last night. Great concept: 'Virtuosic insulting'...

Joe Gerardi's flaming post was a brilliant, twisted chapter in "Starting Trouble" (sort of like what might happen if Sam Kinison, George Carlin & Lisa Lampanelli were somehow able to forge a collaboration - with liberal amounts of Quaaludes and espresso). But for sheer bombasticity "Trombone players rule" is epic in its' scope. ( However I still believe - with fond memories of my beloved Conn 8D French Horn - that Horn Players Rule ! )

dB Utterly pitiful, +1K Heck, I missed all of them first time around too, as I'm an uber-noob here... Not to worry, Maximus, we'll get our chances to get in on some upcoming hall o' famers/shamers.

Wow... What a way to end a gig. Very relieved to read that you are doing OK, and weren't seriously injured, Aidan. Keep us posted, and take extra good care of yourself. A 'virtual family'indeed; great group, wish I'd joined sooner...

And now, a brief intermission during the Tiger Woods humor fest: A horse walks into a bar. The bartender turns, looks at the horse and asks: " Hey buddy, why the long face ?"

Hi Everyone, I've been lurking around here for about a month. Have been a Keyboard subscriber since 1980, and a keyboard player since the late 70's. Keyboard Magazine Forums looks to be a lot of fun, and a great place to learn; wish I'd shown up a bit sooner... But now that I'm here, it's time to kick this piece off with the intro: I've been playing piano since age 7. My dad would take me along on his Friday night errands, in our hometown just outside of Chicago. This typically ended with his final stop being a visit to a friend who owned a local music store. While they talked, I would sit down at the piano du jour and attempt to coax music out of it. But all these early sessions produced were some rather startling noises... So the music store owner suggested that we buy a piano and start lessons (I suspect that he wanted to contain these little sonic experiments to one of his teaching rooms, and restore his showroom to a reasonable state of peace). Fast forward 13 years - including five teachers, lots of high school/college keyboard noodling, and a church gig - and I'm on the road full-time with a rock band. This is an interesting situation I've managed to get into, as my experience with electronic keyboards was somewhat minimal. Meanwhile, the company has me surrounded with: a Rhodes, an RMI, a one manual Yamaha organ coupled with a Leslie 760, and my recently purchased Yamaha CS -50 - from which the band leader wants me to get the "cool sounds" using manual mode - instead of the "cheesy" presets. Also, could I get some of the great licks the previous keyboard player had; he learned them from reading Keyboard. And, we need that Booker T sound on the organ... OK, time to start buying copies of Keyboard. On my days off I spent lots of time in music stores across the country: asking tons of questions, tweaking every keyboard I could get my hands on, and coming down with a chronic case of GAS ( thanks, initially, to Sequential Circuits, Yamaha, and ARP). By the end of the year I had acquired a Yamaha CP70, and an Arp Quartet; followed, within a couple of years, by a Prophet 600 and a Roland VK organ. Fast forward another 30 years. It still amazes me where this combination of black and white keys has led: from the innovative and challenging music department at Columbia College, to a smorgasbord of opportunities in Chicago and the surrounding area - with a few more road adventures thrown in. And the gear: From CP70, M3/Leslie 122, Memorymoog, OBX-a, DX7, etc.... to ...... SG-1 and M1, TX rack, MKS 70/80, Akai S900, etc.... to ..... S90ES, XV-5080, PC3, Receptor, Omnisphere, Motif XS Rack, MacBook, and softsynths.... What's next ? Can't wait... These days I'm living in Loveland, CO. I teach piano and keyboards to private students, play with a couple of acts, and substitute teach - often in the local high school music department. I look forward to meeting everyone here, exchanging ideas, learning, and continuing this adventure in music and technology. Allan