probs a bit OT, but keytar player -v- guitar player as a solo with trax/drm machine...

[miden]

So I'd like to ask why is it that guitar players can get away with playing solo using either a backing track or even just a drum machine, but if a keys player does it using a keytar device, they don't seem to get the same level of acceptance.

 

Is it because it's an easier medium? IE only one hand needed. Or some other generally held perceptions.

 

Just curious.

[time4jazz]

Perhaps the answer may be embedded in the question…

 

1 hour ago, miden said:

a keys player does it using a keytar device

😁

[miden]

11 minutes ago, time4jazz said:

Perhaps the answer may be embedded in the question…

 

😁

 

So you'd be one of the "knockers" then

[GovernorSilver]

1 hour ago, miden said:

playing solo using either a backing track or even just a drum machine, but if a keys player does it using a keytar device, they don't seem to get the same level of acceptance.

 

fwiw I would accept that, as long as the songwriting/composition and arrangements are to my liking.

[David Emm]

I think its simply the implied fakery of the guitar shape. Most of the people I've seen playing them were adding little to the song, made worse by the tendency to use somewhat squeal-y patches. It hasn't been technically bad as much as forgettable. The best players like Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer, George Duke and Patrick Moraz all had a jazz slant that drew the ear enough to negate the image. I saw a guy play one mounted flat on a stand and he rocked hard. Your playing comes first, but a little showmanship can go a long way.

[time4jazz]

30 minutes ago, miden said:

 

So you'd be one of the "knockers" then

Nah… just couldn’t resist the setup … 

🙂

[Stokely]

I won't sit and listen to backing tracks, so it wouldn't matter.  Drum machine, maybe

I don't know what it is about keytars.   I mean I don't really get into the whole lead guitar thing either (a few bars of lead is MORE than enough for me on any one song) but I've never liked keytars going back to the 80s.   I think it really might be just the whole look of trying to chase what the guitarists are doing.  Not sure, don't really care, will never use one even though in some ways it actually makes sense for me--I sing some lead and that way I could more easily get out front and be a front person.  Another practical aspect is being able to check the mix on smaller gigs where we don't have a sound engineer--I have more engineering experience than anyone else in the band and while I run out to correct things in the first set, obviously that's without the keys playing so it isn't ideal.

Bottom line, I'm pretty much over lead anything.  I like it when bands can groove and be tight but hearing anyone wank away for minutes on end is uber tiring to me at this point.  I play one or two leads a night depending on the set list and that is fine by me.  

[Tom Williams]

Another vote for showmanship (at which I am personally mediocre).  I've noticed that the more you use two hands on the keytar -- e.g., trilling, scoops, and grace notes with the ribbon controller, left-over-right hand crossovers, exaggerated wrist action to show use of aftertouch -- the more people relate and feel you are "playing" the thing.

 

In band situations, it's always nice if the other band members look at you as if you're doing something significant.

[miden]

thanks folks, interesting views. tbh I was thinking more of a chordal style of play, rather than leads as such. You know, comping along, backing a vocal along to a drum machine or drum/bass track. Or even just playing chords backing a vocal. Sorta like a rhythm guitarist.

[Baggypants]

Maybe take some tips from this guy

 

 

Specifically, the skullett.

[miden]

errr, no...and apart from you trying to be a smart-arse your post has no relevance to what I was hoping to be a relatively mature discourse - but I now see the chidren are still up.

[murphybridget]

It's interesting to find out about the varying perceptions of solo performances on different instruments.

[jazzpiano88]

Keytars to me are mostly used as a lead vehicle with one hand on the keys, which doesn’t make a lot of sense in a solo performance context, especially for a full gig.    A keyboardist or Pianist needs two hands to cover a solo gig with tracks and or drum machine. A solo Keytar would be extremely limiting and the performance would probably reflect that.  If keyboard tracks were used to make up for that,  I would have zero interest in watching.  

[niacin]

 

[miden]

7 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:

Keytars to me are mostly used as a lead vehicle with one hand on the keys, which doesn’t make a lot of sense in a solo performance context, especially for a full gig.    A keyboardist or Pianist needs two hands to cover a solo gig with tracks and or drum machine. A solo Keytar would be extremely limiting and the performance would probably reflect that.  If keyboard tracks were used to make up for that,  I would have zero interest in watching.  

 

Yes I agree, but my point was for chording purposes and in that case what is different to a guitarist, apart from forming the chord with one hand and strumming with the other. The accomp is essentially provided by one hand. Bass and drums are covered in the track, as is the case with a LOT of solo guitarists that use tracks, it is bass and drums.

 

It's just an interesting (to me) thing. Is the keyboardist somehow less of a player because he is only using one hand?

 

Anyway bottom line is that the MAIN thrust of the post was the generally held perception that a guitarist can get away with strumming a guitar to tracks, while a keyboard player doing the same thing, but on a keyboard cannot!

[Winston Psmith]

Can a Guitarist jump in here?

 

Couple of thoughts, not altogether related.

 

Long before I saw David Byrne walking onstage with a Boombox and an A/E Guitar, to perform "Psycho Killer," I saw Todd Rundgren in NYC's Central Park, singing "Hello, It's Me," with only a tape deck as accompaniment, no Guitar, no other instrumentation. I guess it's partly about what the audience will accept, which is, of course, part of what's up for discussion here.

 

I have to wonder where Sequencers and Arpeggiators fit into this discussion, or something like the Akai MPC? Are Sequences or SMF's (I know, old tech but . . .) viewed as "backing tracks" as well? Much of 80's Synth-Pop, and a good bit of current Dance Music, would be impossible without Sequencers & Arpeggiators, but I've never heard a Depeche Mode or Vince Clark fan complain. I remember seeing Howard Jones performing sometime in the mid-80's, surrounded by Synths that were being triggered via MIDI, and accompanied only by Jed Hoile, a mime.

 

As far as Rhythm accompaniment, just for a start, almost any Chord played on a Guitar will have to take a different form on a Keytar, so they're not really interchangeable.

 

It does seem that there's a prejudice or pre-judgement regarding Keytars, but I suspect part of that is because they're very easy to play poorly, a trait they share with the Guitar, in many ways.