Prog Rock Rogan/Synth - help me!

[llatham]

So, I play keys, but I'm really a guitar player. Long story short I joined a local prog band and their keyboardist/guitarist left, so now I'm filling that spot. I've spent a lot of years learning by ear, by tab, and I read on guitar, so it's quite easy to pick up most of the stuff in that regard. But I haven't spent anywhere near the amount of time picking out keyboard parts - except for the obvious (like I learned to play the intro Don't Stop Believin, and Jump, etc. as a kid).

 

I've found a lot of what players used were organ, and this can make it difficult for me to figure out a lot of voicings because sometimes it seems like there's a 4th or 5th (and 8ves) added in there, not to mention it seems like sometimes the sound of the organ changes from note to note (a new rank idea?).

 

Any help anyone could give me with the following pieces would be much appreciated:

 

Roundabout Yes.

Frankenstein Edgar Winter

Foolin Yourself Styx

 

One I'm having a real hard time with is Pink Floyd. Gilmour is one of my favorite guitar players and I've learned most of the guitar to much of the music over the years, but never even messed with the keyboard. Today, I got the intro to Time, but I'm not so sure about what's going on in the Verse, and even more so in the pre-chorus (or pre-solo as it were). Same is true for Money - I can here these electric piano (and organ) things going on but it's hard to tell what's actually happening.

 

I've found plenty of YT videos but they're far less accurate or, in typical "Piano/Vocal/Guitar" tradition are simply an arrangement, plus, YT is barely playing for me lately.

 

I used to get Guitar for the PRacticing Musician years ago and they had some accurate transcriptions for guitar, and often included tab "arrangements" of the keyboard parts which was nice - so I could read those if they weren't keyboard specific.

 

Since this is new to me, and we're gigging, and I'm adding a song at a time as I can learn them, anything I can do to shorten the figuring time and concentrate on the muscle memory time playing the thing is major helpful!

 

TIA,

Steve

[Shamanczarek]

For learning fast or complex keyboard parts try something like a Tascam Trainer which can slow down a CD, mp3, or other format. Often you can use the Cancel function on these to take out the vocal and sometimes the guitar which better exposes the keyboard part. I have used this for learning Roundabout and Time. It really made a difference in how well I could hear the keys.

[mate stubb]

Wow, you have set yourself up for a tall order. Going from guitar player to prog rock keyboardist is tough. Prog rock is particularly demanding for keyboard players, and there are a lot of us who would have trouble with it!

 

I don't have any specific advice, but all three of those songs you named have pretty complex parts.

[Losendoskeys]

Wow, you have set yourself up for a tall order. Going from guitar player to prog rock keyboardist is tough. Prog rock is particularly demanding for keyboard players, and there are a lot of us who would have trouble with it!

 

I don't have any specific advice, but all three of those songs you named have pretty complex parts.

 

Agreed - you need to have those tracks in your genes, thats how I have got to grips woth Genesis.

 

YHou could get the Amazing SLowdowner software for PC rather than hardware - I still use it when I want to filter our the vocals or guitar to see what is going on...........

 

R

Alan

[Bob L]

Sometimes you can find YouTube videos or midi files that have decent transcriptions. There is a book called "Rock Hits" you can find on Amazon that has some transcriptions of Jump and Frankenstein. With Frankenstein emulating the synths may be tough also. Good luck!!!

[Michael Wright]

Wow, you have set yourself up for a tall order. Going from guitar player to prog rock keyboardist is tough. Prog rock is particularly demanding for keyboard players, and there are a lot of us who would have trouble with it!

 

I don't have any specific advice, but all three of those songs you named have pretty complex parts.

Yes, Good Luck!

[therealvicz]

This book covers most of the Pink Floyd classics. Obviously aimed at guitarists, but is a great starting point if you use Slow Downer on the tricky bits

[Daniel Heslop]

http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/5-Ways-to-Play-Like-Rick-Wakeman/2391

 

maybe has some tips for you.

[Markay]

As a guitar player you may be familiar with Guitar Pro. There are many GP files around that include keyboard parts. When loaded in Guitar Pro there is a keyboard option to see both TAB and notation and watch the notes played on the on screen keyboard.

 

You can also import midi files into Guitar pro and see the notation and watch them played on the keyboard. Take care with midi files tho, they often have 1/64 and 1/128 notes and timing and bars may not be complete.

 

Tux guitar is a free alternative to Guitar Pro and also imports GP and midi files.

 

I checked a GP file for Roundabout that I have and keys sound pretty accurate track includes the 2/4 bars and the 16th note arpeggios sound correct.

[joegerardi]

One of the issues you're going to run into is that the late Rick Wright played the instrument as much as its keys. on the P*U*L*S*E* album and DVD, the clarity is stunning, and you can really hear how he used the Leslie as almost a separate instrument. There are places where the speedup and slowdown both take place within 1-2 seconds, so that he just gets enough of a taste of the sound. Same for the drawbars on the Hammond.

 

Factir in he enjoyed using a lot of jazz-type chord voicings, and you have your work cut out for you.

 

Wakeman's Hammond sound in roundabout is not a big issue- IIRC, it's the bottom 4 drawbars and most of the top, with about half of the second from top to give it that leakage sound. However, the playing might be problematic: His chops are up there among the top 2-3 in the world, and even though Roundabout isn't a particularly hard one in his canon, it does have it's moments.

 

..Joe

[hurricane hugo]

As another guitarist who's been called upon to handle keys before...there's piano and synth parts, and then there's organ parts. Like joegeradi says, there's more involved with organ sounds than the instrument itself, and it's a lifetime's work to master it if you let yourself fall down that rabbit hole.

Work more on the actual musical passages themselves and try not to concentrate too much on the sounds.

[Dugg64]

Any help anyone could give me with the following pieces would be much appreciated:

 

Roundabout Yes.

Frankenstein Edgar Winter

Foolin Yourself Styx

 

Regarding "Roundabout," if you're crunched for time and don't mind consulting transcriptions, try this:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Good Luck!

[llatham]

For learning fast or complex keyboard parts try something like a Tascam Trainer which can slow down a CD, mp3, or other format. Often you can use the Cancel function on these to take out the vocal and sometimes the guitar which better exposes the keyboard part. I have used this for learning Roundabout and Time. It really made a difference in how well I could hear the keys.

 

I've been using Audacity to slow down. Maybe it's time to look at something with a "cancel" thing - what I've been doing is simply panning to one side to see if something is only right or left, and in many cases they are, so that can be very helpful (was especially on the Stairway to Heaven intro stuff). Roundbout has rhythm keys on the right, and the solo and the "flutes" part for "in and around the lake" after the big middle section of the guitar that's like the intro - those are on the other side.

 

This Jammit thing mentioned in a later post looks interesting.

 

Steve

[llatham]

Tux guitar is a free alternative to Guitar Pro and also imports GP and midi files.

 

I checked a GP file for Roundabout that I have and keys sound pretty accurate track includes the 2/4 bars and the 16th note arpeggios sound correct.

 

For some reason I thought Guitar Pro was PC only. Maybe it used to be and I just haven't checked in a while. Anyway, I'm going to try Tux and get the GP files.

 

I find internet tab to be spotty at best so I'm reluctant to pay for anything unless I'm sure the accuracy (aside from the occasional typo) is top notch.

 

Luckily, this band pays pretty well, so I don't mind working out all this stuff. I've actually been able to revitalize some old equipment I had considered selling so I've only invested about $200.00 on downloading songs, a battery for an old keyboard, a MIDI interface, a music stand and light, and a few cables. So it's still a profitable venture at this point!

 

Download just finished, so let me check this out.

 

Oh, and BTW, I got this:

 

D-B-D-B-F#-b-F#-D-B for the "call it morning" part where the bass line descend B-A-G ultimately to an F chord. He also does that pattern in the middle guitar intro section and it's interesting the first one is Bm, then C, then Em (as it "should" have been first) but it sounds to me like he's "fudging" the pattern a bit - not playing it exactly in time.

 

There also appears to be a fair bit of inconsistency in the way he plays the chorus part - usually what I do is pick out one (or two to a few depending) that's easiest to get and play and use that one all the time until I get really comfortable and start varying it.

 

Steve

[llatham]

 

Regarding "Roundabout," if you're crunched for time and don't mind consulting transcriptions, try this:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Good Luck!

 

That looks cool.

 

How accurate is it?

 

I wouldn't mind paying $5.00 a song though I'm a little disappointed it's $5.00 an "instrument". I suppose I'm thinking of the GFTPM days when each month's issue had 4-6 songs in it (even though 2 of them you never cared to learn or were too hard or too easy!) and for a yearly subscription of 20 bucks or so, that was a pretty good deal - you simply got what they gave you though. Here' it appears you get what they have available and pay "on demand" as it were.

 

Yeah, don't mind transcriptions at all, and don't mind paying for them in a pinch, but I'm not quite in a pinch yet.

 

Steve

[pizzafilms]

It seems to be pretty accurate. And in this very guitar driven world, being able to hear the keyboard tracks clearly by either lowering or muting the other tracks is wonderful.

 

I just wish Jammit would be a little less fascinated by Dream Theater (there must be millions of those) and put some more Yes tracks on there, especially from Going for the One.

[Dugg64]

 

Regarding "Roundabout," if you're crunched for time and don't mind consulting transcriptions, try this:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Good Luck!

 

That looks cool.

 

How accurate is it?

 

I wouldn't mind paying $5.00 a song though I'm a little disappointed it's $5.00 an "instrument". I suppose I'm thinking of the GFTPM days when each month's issue had 4-6 songs in it (even though 2 of them you never cared to learn or were too hard or too easy!) and for a yearly subscription of 20 bucks or so, that was a pretty good deal - you simply got what they gave you though. Here' it appears you get what they have available and pay "on demand" as it were.

 

Yeah, don't mind transcriptions at all, and don't mind paying for them in a pinch, but I'm not quite in a pinch yet.

 

Steve

 

In general, the Jammit transcriptions are pretty close. I can't speak directly to the accuracy of "Roundabout," but some of the deviations I've noticed with other transcriptions are the addition of slightly embellished parts (e.g. 16th note pick-up left hand fills, in the case of Toto's "I'll Supply The Love").

 

This is a slight issue as the pros outweigh these minor concerns. Upon isolating any part, you should be able to compare the transcription to the recorded track. I suspect that the great majority of the transcription is accurate and will give you, at least, the essence of the track and at best the actual part.

 

The "Roundabout" keyboard track is $5, but the majority of other tracks are about $3.

 

Good Luck!