SamuelBLupowitz

Ooh I remembered something else! You know what can really make the percussive, pitchless Hammond stuff speak if you're leaning into it? Drench it in reverb or delay! I personally love spring reverb before the Leslie, but everyone has their own preferences. If you're just doing little stabs that are subliminally part of the track, it can be way too much, but if you're doing something like the intro to Hush where you really want those slaps to hit you in the face, I'll crank the verb to get all Whole Lotta Love.

So many thoughts on this (some helpful, some confrontational) that I don't need to repeat or weigh in on, but I thought I'd offer a related anecdote in the hopes that it provokes some thought. I've always been known for having a more dynamic stage presence, since I was a young teen first playing bass and keys in rock and jazz bands, or doing my singer-songwriter piano gigs. I grew my hair long when I was 13 and started thrashing it around onstage, I would leap around with my bass like Flea or power stance in front of the piano like Ben Folds. I had a Reputation. And honestly, I loved it. I could always back it up with my playing, so it got me gigs. It's something I sort of took for granted about myself; people were always saying "Sam has such great stage presence." As I got more and more into being a keyboard player in bands in my 20s -- not just a singing pianist like Elton or Billy, but covering organ and pianos and clav and synth and all the things -- I really doubled down on improving my technique and overall chops. I got into a place where my game was "let's see how many of those layered, overdubbed keyboard parts from the record I can reproduce live." I had all my limbs working during certain songs, playing Wurli with my right hand and Hammond with my left and triggering a synth drone or chime sample with my left foot and working the sustain and expression and Leslie speed and pedals with my right. I wasn't always nailing it, but in my mind it was Really Impressive (like Rush!). And then sometimes I'd see pictures or videos of the bands I was playing in and think ... huh ... in all these pictures, it looks like my head is tilted down looking at the keyboard and concentrating really hard. I wasn't seeing all that Presence that people always talked about. And I realized, for the kind of gigs I play, people generally weren't listening to hear if the keyboard player could cover all the layers from the record live onstage. They wanted to dance and party and have a good time and (if we're lucky) sing along. So after the pandemic break, I changed my approach to be less about "if it's on the record, you have to play it" and more about how to approach the arrangement for the stage so that everything the song *needed* was there, but I felt more free to enjoy playing, and not like I had to solve an equation every time we got to a chorus. Consequently, I was more relaxed while I was performing, so I started having more fun onstage. And that, I firmly believe, translates to the audience more than any display of technical prowess ever does. I mean, maybe if I were a better technical player, that wouldn't be the case, buuuuut we work with what we got! Some of my favorite players are also over-the-top performers -- the aforementioned Flea and Ben Folds, Elton John, Billy Preston. Others aren't about that, sometimes aggressively so (John Entwistle, who dressed fancy and played the bass like he was out for revenge, but barely moved or looked around; Derek Trucks, whose movements and expression are subtle but his playing speaks with such intensity and emotion; Roy Bittan, who sits on the back riser at his grand piano and holds it down, knowing that Bruce is putting on the show everyone wants to watch anyway). What's important is to set yourself up for success, and do whatever it takes for *you* to feel comfortable (or fake it 'til you make it). Earlier in the thread, @MAJUSCULEmentioned that he's not playing a character onstage so much as he's performing a 150% version of himself. For me, I think it's that performing was a place where I felt I could actually be the 100% version of myself that seemed to make people uncomfortable offstage ("he's a lot," "you're so much"). Honestly, part of my work since the pandemic has been "how do I allow myself to feel more comfortable expressing myself fully when I'm not performing?" We all have our reasons for doing what we do, and I think that's beautiful. So think about what makes you feel comfortable and in your happy place onstage, OP, and lean in hard. The only person who can tell you the right way to *be* onstage is *you.* Unless you're in a band with a dress code and choreography and stuff. Then you're on your own. 😉

I remember when I was a young lad and I learned what the sostenuto pedal did, I got so excited trying to apply it to my playing. It almost sounded like magic -- I can sustain THESE notes, but then play whatever I want over it without it getting muddied up! Then I got confused and frustrated because it never seemed to work the way I thought it would. It would be years before I learned that most of the pianos I had access to in school -- uprights and spinets, generally -- almost always had the middle pedal for decoration only, and it didn't actually do anything. Not exactly a "Santa isn't real" moment, but close!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opening up this topic, @MAJUSCULE. I also have a tendency to get my back up and say "to hell with the click" and try to capture the feel of a band reading off of each other without trying to compensate for the introduction of an "external" pulse. But I am definitely inclined to believe, as some have hinted at, that "to grid or not to grid" is not only a matter of taste and what a listener is used to, but a million variables of style, genre, players, instruments, and how they all interact. I remember watching an interview once with John Paul Jones, maybe from ten or so years ago, where he talked about the mistaken assumptions that he noticed with earlier drum machines and programming, that they would often have a "humanize" function that worked by randomizing some tempo fluctuation, at least in the internal divisions and subdivisions. JPJ's point was that good players DO sometimes speed up and/or slow down, but it's NOT random -- it's about musicians working together to create excitement, drama, and expression, even when it's not a conscious effort. Certainly JPJ's most famous band was capable of all kinds of tempo and feel shifts that would have been challenging to map to a grid, but I would never call Bonzo's time poor. I also remember reading about the Red Hot Chili Peppers making Stadium Arcadium back in 2006, and how some big things they focused on were 1) the guitar solos, and having them fall deliberately outside the tight 16th-note tempo grid, and 2) having certain sections push or pull back tempo-wise within a few "clicks" of each other -- which requires you having a drummer like Chad Smith who can make those kind of subtle changes feel natural. That strikes me because, like others have mentioned with Prince, it's about using the machine-aided ability to work with "perfect" time to help establish more complex, expressive ways or performing. I think most use cases fall in this camp of making the most out of the tools you have available. Not everything is to everyone's taste, but I think examples like this are just as common (if not more) than when people rely on one or the other as a crutch (we've all heard recordings that feel perfect but sterile, or messy beyond the point of "character," or the opposite of "these guys tried really hard to play to a click and it sounds like the first time they've ever done it, because they're all playing to the click and not each other"). I think everybody's tolerances for these things are different, though. As I get older, I'm trying to step back a bit from my aesthetic preferences with music and examine exactly what it is I like and dislike about different ways of playing, practicing, recording. It's all just tools, and I try not to let my biases and usual preferences interfere with the opportunity to grow, or try something new.

A lot of folks have weighed in, but I'm giving my two cents anyway, as someone who played clonewheels for a long time before I got my A100 (and still gigs exclusively with clones). I do think this technique comes a lot more naturally on a vintage electromechanical Hammond, much like a lot of the percussive idiosyncrasies of a Clavinet become much more apparent while playing the real thing. But in both instances, digital reproductions are able to respond to these techniques well enough that I try to play them like I would the real thing, if that makes sense. On both instruments, when I do percussive, ghost-note stabs, I truly do not think about what notes my hands (usually my left, sometimes both) are hitting. I just "slap" the keys, generally white keys, and usually with my four fingers held somewhat loosely, letting them fall where they may. It's a very quick motion. I do agree that having higher drawbars pulled out and the Leslie on fast definitely accentuates the technique, and I tend *not* to do this on a percussion setting -- turning the percussion on kills the top drawbar, and I think the Percussion proper is more pitched and the note length is less controllable than with the percussion off. Honestly, this is one of the things I do to add a little funk to my playing regardless of what keyboard instrument I'm playing. It's most natural on Hammond and clav, but I'll do it to get a little stank out of an electric piano, and (while the technique is a little more aggressive) I love a good Ben Folds-style percussive low-end smash on an acoustic piano, especially if I'm trying to build some intensity with my left hand.

Grey, I so admire the time and skill it took to get this back into playable shape! You were much more successful than I was with the shot action on the Suzuki stage piano my parents bought me in 2002 and delivered, unannounced, to my home in 2020. 🤣

"The smooth grooves of this song alone will make it to at least #2!"

I've got some learning to do at your feet, I think, my friend!

Thanks for the share. I started gently incorporating accordion into my arsenal late last year, and I've been having a blast getting to know it. Don't expect to be able to play like this guy anytime soon, but it's nice to have a new axe to explore, and a new color in my musical palette. It's such a complicated machine, but you can cover a lot of ground even without touching the bass button side (unless you're the guy in this video and just play one of those accordions with buttons on BOTH sides... wow).

You are thinking of the great Ray Cooper, who shakes a tambourine and whacks the congas with more intensity than I've maybe ever seen from a human being. Their duo shows are inspirational -- the perfect blend of the intimacy of Elton's solo performance and the fire he gets when another player is egging him on.

Thrilled and honored to have introduced you to some music you dig! That's one of my favorite tracks on that record -- I think it owes a debt to Steely Dan (the guitar part and talkbox make me think Haitian Divorce; the piano solo really feels like a nod to Sign In Stranger). But Theo still has a unique voice as a performer and songwriter that I'm happy to hear that you appreciate!

This falls outside the "blues" arena the majority of the time, I'd say, but my dear friend, let me introduce you to The Dresden Dolls.

I've learned over years of recording that sometimes I have to trust other people's ears, who hear what is, over my own, which often hear what I call "the space between what I heard in my head and what I actually played." A couple of weeks ago I played a keyboard solo live during the tracking session for a singer/songwriter project. I didn't think it was my best work ever, but l was cool with it if they were (it's their record, right?). In my mind, there was one note that just sounded plain WRONG -- I think I heard the fifth and played the sixth or something like that, very different effect on the melodic line. But the songwriters and producer/engineer loved that moment in particular! I've gotten a sense how to pick my battles, I guess. I'll push harder to fix stuff I don't like in my playing if it's *my* record, but I think it's paramount to have collaborators you trust around so that you're not plagued by those little moments, whether you decide to try again, or decide that the part works. But every now and then I'll hear an old track and cringe anyway... Hey, doesn't the story go that Keith Emerson HATED the Lucky Man solo, that it was a first take and he was just messing around? So, you never know what's going to connect with people once it leaves you.

I've been a bass player since I was 12, and since growing up everybody (jazz band, rock bands, pit orchestras, you name it) needed a bassist, I've logged a lot of hours on the instrument. I know how to get My Sound (and tailor it to the gig when necessary). So, in the studio, I do enjoy trying different amps and DIs and plugins for flavor (that one studio that had an old Ampeg flip-top, mmmm mmmm mmmm). But I've realized that when it comes to recording bass, on my end, the less I get in the way of the sound of my hands on the instrument, the happier I am. I've gone direct into an interface with my J-bass strung with LaBella flats and felt like the sound is 90% there. It's special when that happens. Depending on the arrangement, of course, I have to treat bass differently, but generally I just cut a bunch where the fundamental of the kick drum sits, boost a bit where the bass seems to have the most punch (with my playing, again, arrangement dependent, this tends to be around 110-120 Hz), a little compression to even it out, and voila. Of course, there's always That Track where I have to fight to get it to sit right. C'est la vie...

Going to update the thread with today's new single/video release -- very different setup in the same space, and some really wicked overdriven and delay-manipulated Wurlitzer.

I had this same experience with a rehearsal space's CP4, nearly ten years ago now. I was so excited to get to play the well-regarded Yamaha DP (the same one Chuck Leavell uses with the Stones!), and I was deeply disappointed by what I felt like was an extremely heavy action and a sound that wouldn't cut through a mix at all. I felt like I was working twice as hard for half the presence I was used to with the Casio Privia I gigged with at the time. My band rehearsed in that space for about a year, and I never got comfortable with that board. I'm sure the poor amplification (the much-derided Roland KC amp) didn't help, and it was a rented rehearsal room often used by children and teens, so who knows what had been done to that CP4. I know it had some weirdness on the digital side of things (it would default to a weird transposition setting, like a minor third down from A440 or something), so I'm wondering if that contributed somehow. Maybe some saved EQ setting, or output issues, not sure. But the CP88 I purchased in 2021 has been much kinder to my fingers, even if getting a digital to cut through a mix in a way that "feels" like an acoustic piano is still a mix of art and science. I tend to instinctively play more aggressively to compensate for 1) being drowned out by drums and 2) to get the physical response of hammers striking strings and making the body resonate -- and no amount of heavier playing can bring that out on a digital! So I just try to make sure I give myself plenty of headroom for piano in the monitors, and get myself louder than I think I need to in my mix, so I can play more dynamically. And for what it's worth, I set the action response on my CP88 to the lighter setting.

To contrast my last comment: When I was making my solo album during the pandemic, I waited to lay down the piano part for one of the ballads until *immediately* after the piano tuner was finished with my spinet. And even then, every take I did, I could hear the piano going further out of tune as I played. I had to nail it in two or three passes or the edits would have been too obvious, and the tuning would have gone outside the realm of "pleasant chorusing" into "distracting." Not as much of an issue for the more upbeat/aggressive tunes, but for a sensitive, emotional ballad ... stressful!

That's so funny -- my spinet in my home studio is a mess, incredibly difficult to keep in tune, hardly worth the $75 we paid for it. But I love how fast and breezy the action is, and the bright punch of the sound of the piano when it responds. Makes my blues licks feel like butter. I'd still prefer a Yamaha baby grand in my house, but sometimes I wish I could have my spinet's action on a DP. 100%. I love my Yamaha CP88 (thanks, @Outkaster!), and I actually enjoy playing (digital) piano at gigs for the first time in a long time. But if I could have an acoustic piano, even a spinet, rolled out for me every time I play a crummy club gig or whatever, I would do it every time. It's the feeling of a big block of wood resonating, the feeling of the mechanisms moving when you lean on the pedals, that the digitals can't do. They sound and feel amazing at this point, but even the best reproduce the sound of the resonance without the physical sensation.

A true music legend of the 20th century (and beyond). Here's my favorite performance of one of his tunes:

The dreaded "playing live music in a venue that isn't primarily intended for music" gig only gets worse when the staff tries (or is ordered) to "help." I'm glad at least they have a real piano for you to play. When it's your personal gear they start messing with ... hoo boy. Plus, if you have to bring your own gear and amplification, nine times out of ten there is an absolutely nightmarish power outlet situation. "We're going to tape this frayed extension cord down here so the servers don't trip on it going in and out of the kitchen right next to where you're set up! You can run all your gear out of these two outlets, right?"

Yikes, I've been using the XLR outs on my CP88 all this time. It never occurred to me that this could be a problem. If anyone finds out more from the Yamaha forum, let me know, but otherwise, I think I'll be making some changes in my habits (like asking for a DI regardless).

That's sort of Mehldau's MO. He's been reinterpreting rock tunes as "standards" for his whole career. I hadn't heard the aforementioned Tom Sawyer and had to check it out. A little bit of a different beast from his solo/trio takes on Radiohead, to be sure... I understand why the arrangement would be divisive, but it is a big ol' journey to hear Brad Mehldau and Chris Thile (!) just totally have their way with the tune.

Saw this clip of Mehldau discussing and performing his arrangement of "I Am the Walrus." Took my breath away. His sensitivity and ability to build intensity while playing lightly is really something to behold. He's one of my favorite players, to be sure, though I can't say I'm anywhere near his neighborhood when it comes to technique and harmonic vocabulary.

This is an oldie that remains one of my favorites, because I can clearly remember my middle school band director (a grown adult man) telling it to our two oboeists (two 13 year old boys). You can substitute the hated instrument of your choice. How do you get two oboeists to play in tune? Shoot one.