Fitting in with covers of guitar-only songs....

[stoken6]

On 9/16/2023 at 3:28 AM, shniggens said:

I probably need more Wurly in my life

Wurly+distortion is your friend. 

 

2 hours ago, time4jazz said:

In guitar-based cover bands, I sometimes think the guitarists want the keyboardist to play a role similar to the sound guy: make the guitars sound good and otherwise stay the hell out of the way. 

Well, that's not as bad as it sounds, provided it cuts both ways. Any musician's role in any band is to make *the whole band* sound good - and "staying out of the way"is a mark of a mature musician (particularly in riff-based songs - think Stones where the rests are as much part of the riff as the notes). In a typical keyboardless song (AC/DC, Weezer, Green Day, Blink 182...) I tend to be the Malcolm to guitar Angus in the verse, with my Wurlitzer. Chorus adds organ - but not too much. 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[time4jazz]

18 minutes ago, stoken6 said:

Well, that's not as bad as it sounds, provided it cuts both ways.

Indeed. I’m referring to the band situations where it doesn’t. 

[Iconoclast]

4 hours ago, Delaware Dave said:

 

???

I get this all the time. I play guitar too and suddenly they want me to cover one part of one song...but do I really want to load up a guitar, guitar stand, preamp, possibly the amp and assorted cables, picks etc...just to get that 1 or 2 songs?  Plus, now I'll need to borrow the wife's SUV.

So yeah, if I'm coming home with a fat wallet full of folding money, it's worth the schlep and making sure that Bessie is tuned up for her brief moment on stage.

But if I'm playing for tips, free drinks and $50, Bessie can stay at home in her case next to all her amp/pedalboard friends.

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

I've learned to be assertive when it comes time to picking new songs.  If I don't pick songs with keys or piano in them, we'll have a setlist totally made up of keyboardless "modern rock" songs picked by the 20- and 30-something "kids" in the band.  Not that those are [i]bad[/i] songs, but they're exactly what the OP was asking about in this thread.  And I find myself generally accompanying on the organ but it's more fun to have some leads on the keyboard.

[stoken6]

Here's a tangential thread derail. Justin Hawkins (The Darkness) recently reviewed "Overcome" by Nothing but Thieves. It's a rock song with prominent keyboards, and Justin (one of the guitarriest guitarrers who ever guitarred) loved it. 

Cheers, Mike.

[DJkeys]

On 9/16/2023 at 5:34 AM, Joe Muscara said:

Quit. 

Something I will never understand. Bands will place an ad for a keyboard player.  I respond, we talk, and they agree to send their setlist.  I look at the list of 40 songs and maybe 3 will even have keyboards.  Just makes no sense to me. 

 

-dj

[cphollis]

Depending on the song, there's an opportunity to come up with a wilder keyboard solo lead than a guitarist would normally do.

 

Think detuning oscillators, big glides, wild vibrato, phat resonant filters, bit crushing -- all of it.  Bring on the firework show.

 

The idea is to give the audience something different than a straight cover of Highway to Hell or whatever cookie-cutter tune the band has chosen.

 

It doesn't matter if the original had it, or not.  It does now, because I'm playing it

[Bill H.]

On 9/15/2023 at 6:55 PM, shniggens said:

What do you like to do in situations where your band wants to cover guitar centric songs that contain no keys on the studio recording? For instance, my band wants to do "Fell On Black Days" by Soundgarden, and they want me to stay put and join in.

 

What I would do in this situation would be to suggest some other song. Speaking with my DJ hat on stuff like Black Hole Sun and this sometimes get requested by a few guys hanging out in the back of the room, and always kills the vibe. 

 

If they want Chris Cornell steer them in the direction of something from Audioslave like Like A Stone. Classics from Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins work pretty decent for grunge too - if that's the focus of the band. Just not as grungy as Soundgarden. 

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, cphollis said:

Depending on the song, there's an opportunity to come up with a wilder keyboard solo lead than a guitarist would normally do.

 

Think detuning oscillators, big glides, wild vibrato, phat resonant filters, bit crushing -- all of it.  Bring on the firework show.

 

The idea is to give the audience something different than a straight cover of Highway to Hell or whatever cookie-cutter tune the band has chosen.

 

It doesn't matter if the original had it, or not.  It does now, because I'm playing it

I like your attitude!!!! Bands need to adapt the music to reality. A three piece band will never duplicate a production recorded in the studio. Signature licks are one thing, the melody on the chorus is important. The rest of the song is "do what you can or do what you do". 

I'm glad you included the word "normally" in your comment regarding guitarists and solos, some of us can get pretty outside and do. Groove comes first but usually percussion and bass are the groove kings. Keyboards and guitars bring different crazy to solos but there are plenty of options for both to express something unique. 

[Stokely]

I take very few solos (by my request) so once in a while I'll whip out some moog sound unexpectedly.  I added some "funk synth" (which isn't my forte by any means) the other night to the last verse of Funky Music and the lead singer whipped her head around with a big grin    I went berserk on the end of Styx's Renegade recently with a big oberheim-ish lead (usually I riff on organ) and the bass player got all excited.  When I actually jump in with a solo it's like the band saw a unicorn  

Post above says it perfectly.  Adapt, or play karaoke along with a bunch of perfect tracks I guess.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

Personally, I find adding keys to a song that doesn't have keys on the original recording to be one of my favorite challenges. I've done many of the things that have been mentioned on this thread (but seriously, no keys on Whole Lotta Love?! There's that whole freak-out middle section where you can make every weird, cacophonous sound imaginable!), and Benmont Tench was one of the first guys to turn me on to the power of guitar-style voicings on the organ to add a little grandeur.

 

For that particular Soundgarden song you mentioned, I can totally hear some atmospheric, Rami Jaffee-style 90s Hammond licks on the intro and pads behind the solo, and some simple electric piano chords behind the main verse riff. Just some footballs and maybe an occasional fill or riff double. Honestly, Rami Jaffee is a great person to look to for this kind of gig -- aside from his iconic time in the Wallflowers, I think about how well he gets paid to stand up there with the Foo Fighters and be inaudible 90% of the time...

 

Since it's appropriate to this discussion, I'm going to share the not-for-public-consumption video evidence of the time my little soul-rock band covered Metallica's Master of Puppets for a Halloween show. I did, in fact, run my Wurlitzer through a Big Muff. At one point, a coked-out audience member tried to take the mic away from my wife. It was pretty silly, but it was fun.

 

 

 

[Delaware Dave]

On 9/17/2023 at 4:09 PM, Iconoclast said:

I get this all the time. I play guitar too and suddenly they want me to cover one part of one song...but do I really want to load up a guitar, guitar stand, preamp, possibly the amp and assorted cables, picks etc...just to get that 1 or 2 songs?  Plus, now I'll need to borrow the wife's SUV.

So yeah, if I'm coming home with a fat wallet full of folding money, it's worth the schlep and making sure that Bessie is tuned up for her brief moment on stage.

But if I'm playing for tips, free drinks and $50, Bessie can stay at home in her case next to all her amp/pedalboard friends.

 

i feel at this point in my life that i'm a pretty good player, so does most of the music community around here.  my days of playing for tips, free drinks and $50 are long over and actually has never and will never occur. The only time I consider skinnying down my rig is due to a stage space restrictions, but NEVER has to do with 'what the gig pays'. my gigs pay well, so it isnt even a consideration.

[D. Gauss]

Whurly is your friend here. Blends in like nobody's business and fattens everything.  Bob Rock or one of those big heavy metal band producers says he adds Wurlitzer underneath almost every song and pulls it down in the mix til you only notice it when the track is muted.

[Justin Havu]

I don't do the cover band thing anymore.  When I did, I'd use a beefy, slightly amped Rhodes sound.  Then I started getting more confident on acoustic guitar, and for the last 6 months or so until I quit the band, I just played acoustic guitar on anything that didn't have keys.  Everyone loved the idea--except for the singer.  Go figure.

[Old No7]

On 9/15/2023 at 10:17 PM, Anderton said:

...you could always make a "guitar face," hit on someone's girlfriend, or turn up your amp louder than everyone else's 🤣

 

 

I really like the mix of thoughtful, constructive and helpful comments above and I've filed them away for future use.

 

I'm just surprised no one picked up on the gem quoted above!  That's classic!  And true!!!

 

Old No7

[Konnector]

Back in my cover band days (long ago) there where always a few guitar heavy songs to try and fit into. I'd use a grungy Hammond sometimes IF it complimented the song, but for others I'd program an electric guitar type of patch from a synth or sampler -> thru an amp sim, which always blended nicely. For others I might use an FM based patch programmed to sound somewhere in between a clav, piano and ep -> again, thru an amp sim. I like some "grunge" on keys. Plain vanilla keyboard tones don't float my boat as a rule & can sound quite wimpy and "out of context" when trying to blend with a cranked up guitar. 

[Stokely]

That's a really good point, and for a lot of stuff I agree.  Adding for example a standard "Jump" poly synth sound (as nice as that Obie sounded) changes a hard rock song into...well, something else for better or worse.  Not everything should sound like Loverboy.   

I need to think outside the box a bit, some hybrid sound that is vaguely guitar-ish with some hair on it (not necessarily a guitar sample) might work great and won't stick out as recognizable, but might blend right in as a rhythm instrument.

Not sure I like the drive on the Nord Stage all that much so far, I have a Lester K that I might try out (not sure if it has a brake mode) as I like the overdrive on it.

[ProfD]

10 minutes ago, Stokely said:

I need to think outside the box a bit...

IMO, every KB player in a cover band should be thinking outside the box. 

 

KB players show up with 1 or more KBs full of sounds and other gear.

 

Yet, in certain types of music, KB players allow the band to relegate them to either playing sounds from the record or sitting on their hands and laying out of the song(s). 

 

Again, taking such a gig makes zero sense to me.  But, if band really wants a KB player, there is no shortage of KB parts that could be played.  Just a matter of creativity. 

 

Think along the lines of remix, rearrange, reharmonize, etc.  It works for any genre/style of music.😎

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, ProfD said:

IMO, every KB player in a cover band should be thinking outside the box. 

 

KB players show up with 1 or more KBs full of sounds and other gear.

 

Yet, in certain types of music, KB players allow the band to relegate them to either playing sounds from the record or sitting on their hands and laying out of the song(s). 

 

Again, taking such a gig makes zero sense to me.  But, if band really wants a KB player, there is no shortage of KB parts that could be played.  Just a matter of creativity. 

 

Think along the lines of remix, rearrange, reharmonize, etc.  It works for any genre/style of music.😎

I fully agree with this. There are Tribute Bands that play everything "just like the record" but if you go to see the band that created the song in the first place, they often are playing a variation of that song, not a duplicate (and it's their song!). 

 

I could be wrong but it's my impression that many keyboard players are given lessons when they are starting and have bonded with "dots on paper" as their language. Nothing wrong with that but when I saw Herbie Hancock there was no sheet music in sight and he didn't play Headhunter just like the album, he gave his energy to creativity and played fantastic music for the entire show. Just one of many examples, I'm sure Herbie can read music and play to the paper but he went beyond into the music in his heart and soul. 

[ProfD]

16 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

I could be wrong but it's my impression that many keyboard players are given lessons when they are starting and have bonded with "dots on paper" as their language. 

In fairness, many musicians whether they learn how to play from taking lessons and reading music or learn how to play by ear may never learn how to improvise.  Therefore, they might lack a certain amount of creativity. 

 

As a result, musicians who lack creativity and/or cannot think outside the box will have a harder time coming up with music to play especially if it doesn't exist already.

 

Herbie Hancock is a gifted and talented musician and composer.  It's almost unfair for one person to have that much musical ability but the universe gave it to him.  Of course, music as we know it is better off for his contribution and body of work.   

 

Herbie Hancock could sit in with any artist/band/musician and take their music to another level.😁😎

[KuruPrionz]

40 minutes ago, ProfD said:

In fairness, many musicians whether they learn how to play from taking lessons and reading music or learn how to play by ear may never learn how to improvise.  Therefore, they might lack a certain amount of creativity. 

 

As a result, musicians who lack creativity and/or cannot think outside the box will have a harder time coming up with music to play especially if it doesn't exist already.

 

Herbie Hancock is a gifted and talented musician and composer.  It's almost unfair for one person to have that much musical ability but the universe gave it to him.  Of course, music as we know it is better off for his contribution and body of work.   

 

Herbie Hancock could sit in with any artist/band/musician and take their music to another level.😁😎

All truth. I feel lucky that Herbie Hancock gigged in Fresno, being in between San Francisco and Los Angeles had its advantages. 

I've heard and played with all sorts of players and you are correct, some can improvise and some cannot (or will not). I think part of it is fear, I've learned a long time ago that you are going to make mistakes here and there and for the most part, nobody cares but you. I'm pretty fearless although I'll be the first to admit that is on a fairly primitive level. Jazz eludes me, I can play "jazzy" on songs that are "bluesy" but that's about it. So it goes... 

[KuruPrionz]

3 minutes ago, Dave Ferris said:

Herbie's core band has been together for awhile, so they don't need charts.

 

Yes Herbie reads. He played the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 5 in D Major at a young people's concert with the Chicago Symphony at age eleven.

https://cso.org/experience/article/8587/the-70th-anniversary-of-a-milestone-pianist-h

 

His touring piano is coming up for sale in April of 2024. Pierre replaces it every couple of years. Me want.

I've not doubted that Herbie can read music. Considering that I saw him on the Headhunters tour and that album came out in 1973 so I would have been 18 or 19, I'd be amazed if he still had the same band. One of the greats, no two ways about it!

And he could improvise beautifully. 

[stoken6]

4 hours ago, Stokely said:

Not sure I like the drive on the Nord Stage all that much so far

Are you using it alongside an amp sim? The plain/vanilla drive is characterless,  I agree. I find the Twin sim works well with Rhodes and Clav, and the Small for Wurly. No surprises there - and all those are viable options for "keys in a guitar song that doesn't sound like Loverboy".

 

Cheers, Mike.

[stoken6]

2 hours ago, ProfD said:

Herbie Hancock could sit in with any artist/band/musician and take their music to another level

And create an entirely new genre. "Thank you for inventing hip-hop." (Snoop Dogg, 2013)

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Stokely]

57 minutes ago, stoken6 said:

Are you using it alongside an amp sim? The plain/vanilla drive is characterless,  I agree. I find the Twin sim works well with Rhodes and Clav, and the Small for Wurly. No surprises there - and all those are viable options for "keys in a guitar song that doesn't sound like Loverboy".

 

Cheers, Mike.

yeah, mostly the Twin iirc.  I honestly haven't take the time I should to do any tweaking, haven't touched EQ etc   Part of it is surely that I never played the originals so I may be expecting something else.   It sounds a bit "grungy" to me but for all I know so does a rhodes into a real twin  

[Dave Bryce]

On 9/17/2023 at 1:09 PM, Iconoclast said:

I get this all the time. I play guitar too and suddenly they want me to cover one part of one song...but do I really want to load up a guitar, guitar stand, preamp, possibly the amp and assorted cables, picks etc...just to get that 1 or 2 songs?  Plus, now I'll need to borrow the wife's SUV.

 
I have two solutions for that.  

 

Bringing a guitar in a gig bag and a small A-frame stand isn’t that much of a problem (for me).  Cable, clip-on tuner, picks, extra strings etc live in the gig bag, so no big deal there. I usually bring my Strymon Iridium pedal to handle the amps and cabs. Sounds excellent, ridiculously easy to use, and plugs right into my keyboard mixer.  

 

The other solution is that I bring a little Supro 8” Blues king occasionally.

 

 

On 9/19/2023 at 11:14 AM, SamuelBLupowitz said:

Personally, I find adding keys to a song that doesn't have keys on the original recording to be one of my favorite challenges.

 

Me, too.  

 

dB

[Stokely]

If I ever do play some guitar, I'd probably pick up a Helix HX Stomp.  Before our guitarist upgraded to an Axe 3, I worked with his to dial it in and was plenty happy with the results.  I have some really nice IRs as well that I can load in if I don't like the default cabs.  As a bonus I could probably figure out a way to use it with keys though I'm not sure how easy it would be to switcheroo that.

[Dave Bryce]

32 minutes ago, Stokely said:

If I ever do play some guitar, I'd probably pick up a Helix HX Stomp. 

 

I have one of those as well.  It has a bunch more power than the Iridium - including lots of onboard effects - but the interface is nowhere near as WYSIWYG as the Iridium, which makes the Iridium more desirable for me for live work.  

 

I keep my HX Stomp in the studio, where I can configure and tweak it using its computer editor.

 

dB

[CEB]

If I am doing a keys and guitar gig that is basically what I do. I use a Helix and go direct through the keys submix.  If on IEMs I prefer direct over a stage amp.  I also like the cleanliness of the footprint. 

[D. Gauss]

what keyboard stand is that?