You play piano and left hand what?

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Adan said:

Maybe I missed it but i don't think anyone in this thread suggested a general rule that keyboard players should displace bassists.  It's just making the best of circumstances.  In some cases, like the Doors or Soullive, it was part of the original concept/chemistry and they wisely chose not to mess with that chemistry.

It isn't a general rule or a rule at all (nor should it be). It's happened to me and probably others, not fun. It's more that maybe there should be a rule against it?

Kind of like how lead guitarists (that would be me) should never play solos over the singer (I don't do that ever either, it's obnoxious). I know a sax player who does that, I refuse to play with him. He'd be fine if he knew when not to play but he doesn't. 

 

There's nothing wrong with keys playing bass, I've been in bands where that's the line up. Of course there are also solo gigs, I've heard many fine keyboardists holding down bass for various reasons. I have zero objection to that, ever. As long as we all serve the song in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, that's all that matters. 

 

If there were 2 bassists (or bass and tuba, whatever) both playing and getting in each other's way, I'd have complained about that in the Bass forum.

So far, it's never happened in 45+ years of gigging except maybe the time I walked into "Tuba Christmas" at the mall but they were tight on their arrangements plus that's both fun and funny. 

[KuruPrionz]

32 minutes ago, Michael Wright said:

We had a bass player quit after the first set once, so I played lhb for the rest of the gig (which I am not particularly proficient at).  The  bar owner,  who knew what happened,  came up and said we sounded much better.  I felt kind of bad about that.  

At the same time, you saved the day!!!

I had a gig once where the lead singer was using an old Silvertone guitar amp, stepped up to the microphone and I saw a large blue spark jump over and hit him in the mouth. You could smell burning mustache and he sort of slowly staggered like a hammered steer over to the restroom to puke and recover. 

I had to take over the vocals for the rest of the set, there are better singers but there I was. 

Stuff happens. 😇

[Tom Williams]

I've been doing LH bass since the 1970s, including a keys-and-drummer duo that played for a mafia boss or two.  Weirdest reaction was in college, from a jazz clinician who told me that playing LH bass was a deficit.  In hindsight, I truly wonder if he was jealous.

 

Before I joined my most recent band, I was in a trio -- uke, guitar, and me -- in which I played about half the gig on right hand bass.  Keytar, to be precise.  When my mind is free to concentrate on bass parts, it can get pretty nice.  That worked out pretty well in worship band too, until the millennials took over and decided it was uncool.

 

Funny thing: I can sing parts much more easily when I am playing LH bass and something else in my right hand, than I can playing RH keytar bass.  It consumes a bigger part of my left brain or something.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

Just now, Tom Williams said:

I've been doing LH bass since the 1970s, including a keys-and-drummer duo that played for a mafia boss or two.  Weirdest reaction was in college, from a jazz clinician who told me that playing LH bass was a deficit.  In hindsight, I truly wonder if he was jealous.

 

Before I joined my most recent band, I was in a trio -- uke, guitar, and me -- in which I played about half the gig on right hand bass.  Keytar, to be precise.  When my mind is free to concentrate on bass parts, it can get pretty nice.  That worked out pretty well in worship band too, until the millennials took over and decided it was uncool.

 

Funny thing: I can sing parts much more easily when I am playing LH bass and something else in my right hand, than I can playing RH keytar bass.  It consumes a bigger part of my left brain or something.

 

 

I have a different but similar affliction. I can play guitar and sing lead vocals, on bass I can maybe cover some harmony parts. 

Not sure what happens but part of the brain goes away! 😃

[The Real MC]

6 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

Real MC, what was the motivation for you to suggest that you could cover bass for that band? Were they never planning to hire a bass player and thought they'd do gigs without bass?

They were looking for a bass player but they are hard to find in my area.

[Moonglow]

I’ve done LHB at wedding gigs but don’t enjoy it. Like many, I prefer to let the bass player lay down the bass, which provides the freedom to do LH chords or other accompaniment. In my main club band our (female) lead singer plays bass, but I do LHB on a couple of tunes so she can jump around a little bit. My typical application is RH piano, organ, or synth/rompler, with my LH doing more of the same, depending on the song and/or how I have the patches mapped out across my two boards.

[El Lobo]

I can't play LHB on keys.  I play LH sax and RH keys at the same time. Sax notes limited to concert F up though C#. Pretty hard to do  D, Eb, E without right hand unless I take it off the keys. 

[Bill H.]

2 hours ago, Michael Wright said:

We had a bass player quit after the first set once, so I played lhb for the rest of the gig (which I am not particularly proficient at).  The  bar owner,  who knew what happened,  came up and said we sounded much better.  I felt kind of bad about that.  

I once had to fill in for a bass player who got busted for coke in the parking lot during a break... on NYE! I had a Maxi-Korg (couldn't afford a Minimoog at the time) so plugged it into his Ampeg bass amp, and we finished the night with no problems that I remember.

 

You can get away with a lot during the party atmosphere of a late night NYE gig. The owner hardly noticed - but his eyes were always fixated on the rather attractive female front anyway. And I'd done a lot of key bass in other groups before this one. 

 

This was back in the 1970s, so the bass player had to spend some time. I played key bass until he got out. 

[Bobbo Fett]

I play a few gigs a year where I do LH bass. Well, I also do a lot of piano bar, and use LH bass a lot there too I guess, like walking on swing tunes. My big problem is, I can walk a bass for days and comp/solo over the top, but anything that requires a repetitive groove pattern (think Cantaloupe Island, Cold Duck Time, or similar) it's well nigh impossible for me to keep the pattern solid, literally the moment I start to solo it falls apart. Guess I just need more time in the woodshed, but it's almost like my brain is just not wired for that. In fact, the couple of band gigs that I play LH bass on, we usually have a guy that's a rippin' sax player with us, and I tell him at the start of the gig to just solo on EVERYTHING, as I'd rather concentrate on really locking in with the drummer and playing solid time....

 

 

 

 

 

[Shamanzarek]

In the early 200s I was in a band that played "I'm Your Captain" by Grand Funk. I played bass guitar for most of the song. When it got to the orchestral ending section I had a split setup on my Kurzweil PC2X/O with an ocean surf sound effect, flute, and strings. During this quieter section I found I could get enough bass happening by hammering down on the bass strings with my left-hand and doing the ocean, flute, and strings with my right. I didn't think too much about it at first but then people started telling me they couldn't believe I was playing two instruments at once. You just never know what is going to impress an audience. Also in that band I was the full time bass player on bass guitar, left-hand keys, or bass pedals doing Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Santana, Deep Purple, Boston, Black Sabbath, Allman Brothers, etc. The lead singer did play bass on a Jethro Tull song where I was tied up between flute and keys.

[stoken6]

7 hours ago, Tom Williams said:

I can sing parts much more easily when I am playing LH bass and something else in my right hand, than I can playing RH keytar bass

I have similarly something weird like that. I'm "OK" at LHB - concentrate, keep it simple, focus on time and groove. But I cannot play a grooving bass line with my RH. Why is that?

 

Cheers, Mike.

[o0Ampy0o]

Many times I prefer music with LHB, it probably has something to do with the limitations and choices of what is played IDK. But I have been pulled to the bass lines and enjoyed the LHB and whatever the other portion of the  keyboard is being used for more than anything at times, not that the rest of the band has been bad either. It has been the keyboardist holding my attention. 
 

I consistently do not like LHB using an upright bass patch though. Something about it bothers me. I don’t feel the same when it is a bassist playing an upright bass.
 

I lost the bookmark but there was a guy here playing LHB I found deep in the older section of the thread where you post your music. He played a Nord in a progressive jazz-rock band. Loved his phrasing, LHB with Rhodes split and their original music. But I listened to their music for a few days, got distracted and by the time I remembered the music I could not locate the link. Any suggestions on who this might have been? It was a 3 piece band. Nord keyboard, drummer and guitarist played a Gibson ES-335 type guitar.

 

The Matt Schofield Trio’s Hammond organist, Jonny Henderson, plays LHB. He is an amazing blues organist. Sometimes they have had a regular bassist but Jonny’s playing is not noticeably better when his left hand is freed up. He sounds that good even in solos while playing LHB. 
 

[o0Ampy0o]

9 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

…lead guitarists (that would be me) should never play solos over the singer (I don't do that ever either, it's obnoxious). 

When Carlos Santana started working with Clive Davis he released music using a variety of singers popular at the time. I felt both of the songs he did with Michelle Branch were ruined by his stepping on her vocals, especially in the 2nd song. Great catchy tunes sounded like she wrote them, she has a wonderful voice, the songs didn’t benefit at all from Santana playing on them. In the 2nd (name?) he plays lead like singing a duet through the whole song and never sits back with any subtlety. Perhaps if he was more inspired and wasn’t robotically playing cliches of himself the result would have worked better.

[UnderGroundGr]

My teacher George Katsanos, one the best Greek keyboard/piano players, graduated from Berklee college of music.

 

 

 

[niacin]

13 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

The other deal with my LH is that I can substitute chords until the cows come home and never have to worry about a bass player being able to follow me! And Bill's mention of his praise band's specific requirements of being able to quickly shift gears is certainly another good example. It's not all black & white.

This.  I play with a funk trio - keys, guitar, drums - and we have a singer in on part of the gig.  Sometimes I'd love to have a bass player, but the way 3 of us can wring changes, hits and stops on the fly, even with really late calls when the ball's past the batter and almost in the catcher's mitt, that ain't gonna work with a 4-piece.

[harmonizer]

9 hours ago, El Lobo said:

I can't play LHB on keys.  I play LH sax and RH keys at the same time. Sax notes limited to concert F up though C#. Pretty hard to do  D, Eb, E without right hand unless I take it off the keys. 

There are two songs where I use a Roland PK-5a to allow me to dedicate two hands to my sax. One of them is "The Letter", for the bridge ("well she wrote me a letter ....") where I have 4 chords programmed (in my Roland FA-07) to be triggered by my foot pressing a single "white key". It's definitely not a general purpose solution (and it took a lot of work on the FA-07 to set this up), but more in the category of "because I can".

[Threadslayer]

14 hours ago, ksoper said:

My first day of rehearsals with Joe Diffie's band I warmed up on the clonewheel, a shuffle groove with left-hand bass.  The bass player came over to me and said, "You can knock that shit off right now."  

I am so accustomed to playing left hand walking bass on shuffles and related blues-based stuff that I almost can't not do it. This has earned me more than one stink eye from bassists.

[Stokely]

The only time I've ever played any bass was temporarily when our bassist would run out to check the PA sound, or if he had a technical problem.  The low end must continue to roll!  Otherwise I stay out of the lower octave(s) generally.   I really enjoy having a good bassist around, I think they are more important than a good guitarist if forced to choose...the rhythm section makes the band go (or not).

My friend does keyboard bass in his band and it does sound good out front.  He does say it hampers what and how he plays non-bass sounds, which is understandable. 

[wineandkeyz]

I've done LH bass on the occasional jam session, but can only remember twice doing it at "serious" gigs.

 

The first was back in the 80's in a country band when the bass player's rig went tits up right before the show. It went pretty smoothly -- a lot of 1-5 and walking bass lines -- but I did miss being able to cover other parts that I had done with my left hand. The crowd didn't really notice.

 

The other was a few winters ago in my 80's dance band. Our bass player, who works for the DOT, had to work a 24-hour shift during a snow storm in his area. He had warned us it might happen, so I brushed up on some of the signature bass lines in the tunes we do, scratched some songs that involve more complex two-handed keyboard layers and arrangements, and we went with it. I actually had a blast and got quite a few comments from the crowd for soldiering on. Afterwards, though, I assured our bass player that his job is definitely secure.

[KuruPrionz]

4 hours ago, o0Ampy0o said:

When Carlos Santana started working with Clive Davis he released music using a variety of singers popular at the time. I felt both of the songs he did with Michelle Branch were ruined by his stepping on her vocals, especially in the 2nd song. Great catchy tunes sounded like she wrote them, she has a wonderful voice, the songs didn’t benefit at all from Santana playing on them. In the 2nd (name?) he plays lead like singing a duet through the whole song and never sits back with any subtlety. Perhaps if he was more inspired and wasn’t robotically playing cliches of himself the result would have worked better.

No, if the singer is good and the song is good, the guitarist should play some sort of subtle backup part that serves the song. 

If there is a need/place for it in that piece (sometimes there isn't) then that's the time to shine but the challenge is to connect the solo to the soul of the music being played. 

Versatility and intent are everything, screaming doodley-doodley may not fit the atmosphere. Listen, then play. I work at it, not perfect but I don't step on the vocalist, ever. 

Just not the way it works. 

[lightbg]

1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

No, if the singer is good and the song is good, the guitarist should play some sort of subtle backup part that serves the song. 

If there is a need/place for it in that piece (sometimes there isn't) then that's the time to shine but the challenge is to connect the solo to the soul of the music being played. 

Versatility and intent are everything, screaming doodley-doodley may not fit the atmosphere. Listen, then play. I work at it, not perfect but I don't step on the vocalist, ever. 

Just not the way it works. 

Here’s the best advice about how to stop doodley-doodley,  from the great Frank Foster himself:

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

Once my family moved up north some years back, I went from always having a very good bass player on tap to having a total of two bass players in town who also worked through weekends in other jobs routinely. So I had to become pretty good at LHB very quickly. It's been invaluable though, especially for rehearsals. I've also had an occasional gig elsewhere where the bass player dipped for some reason/had an emergency and I needed to cover bass as well as tons of keys parts, so it's been really good to know how to do that. Honestly it's added a lot to my solo piano arrangements as well. Once you start viewing the left and right hands as totally independent instruments in a sense, it can get fun quickly. 🙂

[Sean M. H.]

Growing up playing in a church with no bass player (and given that I wasn't a good enough Hammond player to kick bass), I came to be pretty proficient at LHB...so much so that it has hindered me in terms of actually comping and playing chords with my left hand.  Even now, though I do play with bass players in most situations, playing chords with my left hand (or alternatively using two-hand voicings) does not come naturally to me.  I can do it, but it takes more concentration and thought than it really should.

[CyberGene]

I’ve had a bass player who would often just play anything but the root, so the harmony sounded weird. 

[miden]

Not sure why this is a  "thing" (ie 2 pages of posts?) - tbh I would have thought it pretty basic keyboard technique to play bass lines, and nothing that would garner any real surprise.

[Mighty Motif Max]

37 minutes ago, miden said:

Not sure why this is a  "thing" (ie 2 pages of posts?) - tbh I would have thought it pretty basic keyboard technique to play bass lines, and nothing that would garner any real surprise.

I think there's a difference between playing root notes to fill in space vs actually playing LH parts like a separate instrument. And at least most places I've been in the Midwest so far, it's actually not that common. A keys player is often just that, keys, and not necessarily even lots of non-electromechanical/piano/synth stuff either. But I'd imagine it could be more common in areas with very competitive music scenes.

[jazzpiano88]

7 hours ago, miden said:

Not sure why this is a  "thing" (ie 2 pages of posts?) - tbh I would have thought it pretty basic keyboard technique to play bass lines, and nothing that would garner any real surprise.

 

I would agree it's totally obvious that keyboardists should be able to play bass lines.  The whole jist of the posts, is the question of covering for, or replacing an actual bass player (usually covering established tunes), and its pluses and minuses.

 

Do you have any comment on this?  That is being able to learn and accurately execute bass lines of an entire set list of established songs while still covering the keyboard or piano parts?

[Spider76]

I usually play in bands with bassist and guitarist(s), so all my LH has to do is flip pages of my music book or hold a beer.

 

Partly because of that, I'm amazed at keyboardists who can do serious LH bass: not just root notes and simple arpeggiating or walking lines, but complex harmonic and melodic patterns.

The most unbelievable LH bass I've ever heard was from James Francies with the Chris Potter trio.

[miden]

10 hours ago, JazzPiano88 said:

 

I would agree it's totally obvious that keyboardists should be able to play bass lines.  The whole jist of the posts, is the question of covering for, or replacing an actual bass player (usually covering established tunes), and its pluses and minuses.

 

Do you have any comment on this?  That is being able to learn and accurately execute bass lines of an entire set list of established songs while still covering the keyboard or piano parts?

 

It's exactly how I play my solo gigs (and when I sometimes play with a guitarist) - I play the basslines (using bass sounds) not just 1-5 patterns either

I do the same on the Roland FR-8, however the "octaving" of bass notes makes it a little more challenging haha! I am still getting the freebass chops (of my childhood/teen years) back so eventually will play full basslines using the freebass system on it as well.

 

I just assumed most keyboard players had this ability, my apologies for being so presumptuous (that is genuine, not sarcasm!)

[EricBarker]

I've started marketing myself as a bass player and have subbed for many bands over the years. I can play 4-string too, but LH bass lets me still carry keyboard parts too, so they get 2-for-1! My axe is a Behringer PolyD. Frankly, nothing else really carries the punch and attack of those mean analog envelopes. I picked up a Novation BassStation, hoping the presets would make things easier... but it just didn't sound or feel anywhere as good, so I switched back. I play synth bass full time in a Klezmer group, and then about 2/3 time in my friend's solo band. He's an upright player by trade, but has switched more to guitar recently. He loves my Boog Groove, so we've really made it work. Almost every other band I've subbed when the bass player can't make it, and the gig turns out fine. I use a Fender Rumble 500W for the Boog, it definitely gets a dedicated amp and channel.

 

One of the funkiest groups I've ever seen was a fusion group at a dive in Boston, they had both a full time piano man AND a synth bass player. Dude was off the hook! So much booty in that groove. I realized right then and there that it really didn't matter what your tool was, if you played a good bass line you were a good bass player. Just like Tina Waymouth on those old Talking Heads records, when you've got it, who cares?

I think the one takeaway is you need a dedicated bass keyboard OR at the very least a workstation split that can send to a separate channel. Trying to balance both keys and bass duties on one signal is a bad idea. Bass gain needs to be a lot hotter, and you're just going to make the sound guy cry. You can make it work in a small trio, traditional hammond guys obviously do it, but if you're playing in a larger group with louder music... gotta have a separate signal, and stick with harmonically simple sounds. This is why Piano is never a good bass instrument in a larger group, piano notes are just too rich, and you'd get a lot of mud in the mix. Bass guitars are usually really pure, and there's good science behind that. That said, the quality of the attack is super important. Wimpy attack will just kill a bass part.

My brother-in-law's band has a fairly novice bass player. I sub for him when he's out of town. Not going to lie, band sounds better. But he's coming along, and I'm nudging him with some ideas, but I want to be careful not to make him feel inadequate. I did one gig Geddy Lee style, where I had both a 4-string, Boog Bass and organ. Got a bit complicated, but was fun as heck!