Symphonic metal keyboardists-This question is for you

[hag01]

Nathanael_I,

OK ofcourse it's not all about the gear and you forgot to mention the skills this guys have.

Ofcourse I'm not comparing myself to these giants.

 

But as a fan and as a begining I just want to play to myself at home for fun some of their music, first the keyboard parts they play live, secondly maybe I'll try to arrenge something on a keyboard with elements of the orchestration.

It is very important for me even if eventually it will be just a hobby.

 

Atleast in order to play their live keyboard parts, it is pretty important to firstly get some set of sounds that could do the trick, don't you think?

OK maybe not EXACTLY the same sounds, because as you said I'll never find those specific sounds.

 

By the way, you really help me, thanks to you I start to understand what's going on in the real world, I'm starting to watch a lot of live performances on YouTube and try to find out what is played live and what is backing tracks, and sometimes those bands even bring real live orchestras for their shows.

[Valentina]

Hello everybody!

 

I'm new in this forum and joined because I'm trying to cover some Nightwish songs. I decided to start by Nemo, which doesn't seem too complicated (I chose the tutorial by Vithor Moraes:

)

 

I have a question (for now ), hope this is the right place for it:

1) I've always studied classical music so now I find that automatically I try to use legato, is it necessary in this type of music? For instance, for the left hand, as it progresses from one chord to the other, do I have to use legato? If so, should I do it with my fingers or with the pedal?

I'm asking because it's my first approach to this music.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Mighty Motif Max]

OT but symphonic metal and some power metal is the only metal I can stand listening to. Some of it's pretty good.

[JimboKeys]

Hello Valentina, welcome to the forum!

 

To answer your questions (though not specific to symphonic metal):

 

Playing rock keyboards is going to be a paradigm change from playing solo (classical) piano. The damper pedal should be relegated to a few special situations (like playing a big arpeggiated chord across the breadth of the keyboard). So for left hand chord changes (e.g. string pads) you'll need to play connected, using fast hand motion.

 

Also, for sustained sounds, you can learn to move only those fingers whose notes change (i.e. you don't need to strike the whole chord like you would on a piano).

 

- Jimbo

[Analogaddict]

Ive done quite a lot of work mimicking strings and orchestral stuff, and Ive had the most success by blending VST:s and workstation sounds. Using my Kurzweil PC3 controlling a Receptor running IK Miroslav strings was perfect for me - I could do velocity layers and assign all the controllers to parameters in the software. I dont like midi learn since stuff is usually already assigned to many parameters. I try to stay away from Mainstage and such, in my experience - playing with a band - big libraries dont always translate well. If I were to do this today Id probably use my Forte and Integra-7. The Montage/MODX has great strings too.

[Valentina]

Thank you very much Jimbo!

 

Just to make sure I understood correctly: if I have on my left hand the chord C-E-G-C and then it changes to C-Eb-G-C, I'd sustain the notes that stay the same and only release E to go to Eb? That's going to be a challenge...

 

Could you recommend a good book or tutorial that would help me in this new quest?

 

Again, thank you very much!

[Valentina]

Thank you also Analogaddict, for now I'm working with a Korg Kross, maybe when I become more familiar with it I'll dig into VSTs and such.

 

Cheers!

[Mighty Motif Max]

I've never heard of them, so took a look and here they are. My 30 second assessment = highly theatrical and produced Euro metal, kind of Game of Thrones meets Heart meets Metallica.

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIsbXJ81SK0

I know this is old. That's pretty accurate in my opinion. This is my favorite song of theirs. Ghost Love Score. Just because it's got a lot of keys parts and has interesting rhythmic stuff going on. Again I'm not really a metal person but I do like this stuff somehow.

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]