SamuelBLupowitz

A lot of people on the forum know that my wife is one of my regular musical collaborators, both in our shared band Noon Fifteen and working as side players for each other and others. It helps to have a partner who is as invested in music as you are. We have some longstanding collaborators, now with families, whose partners are very supportive and have a great system of direct communication around availability so that we can balance our creative outlets and our family obligations. And then there are the ones whose partners don't seem to like that joyful part of their lives ... that chicken always comes home to roost. It's a bummer how many talented, otherwise excellent people have drifted out of my orbit because their partner seems to resent them for having music be an important part of their lives. Didn't you know that when you got together...? Interesting to see some stories here about the temptations of having other genders in your bands. I remember some drama around that in my teens -- usually the mistake of inviting someone a band member was already attracted to to join up (I did want a saxophone in my 8th grade rock band, Emmie, but I was also in love with you). And of course, how could I forget the time that my high school rock band hired a girl singer who both the guitarist and keyboardist tried to hook up with before she quit in disgust. But most of the time, I've found it pretty easy to compartmentalize my working/musical relationships from my "personal" ones. I tend to view bandmates more as siblings/family, in a way that would feel weird if we hooked up (my wife being a major exception, of course, but we were dating before we ever played music together). But I know that's not the case for everyone, and the emotional intensity of playing music can really make the sparks fly in some cases. Now, certainly, in my single days, getting *attention* from attractive people was something I loved about performing. Not long after my wife started spending time together (but before we were really dating), I invited her to a gig of mine, hoping to impress her, but she was going to be out of town for it. After we'd been in a relationship for a bit, she told me that in truth, she opted not to go because she was feeling the spark between us and was worried that I would suck, and it would ruin it for her. Just for fun -- here's a video of the best part of our wedding. Instead of doing a First Dance, we performed a "first song" together, Stevie Wonder's "As," accompanied by a slew of our bandmates from various projects.

It depends on who my collaborators are, but making a Spotify playlist is often the easiest way, rather than having people click through a bunch of Google Drive or YouTube links while they are driving their car. Though again, depending on who's in the project, sometimes it's just a mess of download/YouTube links, because if you don't have a premium version, you're stuck listening to ads or truncated versions of tunes. Sadly, mobile devices make listening to music more convenient, but can really be a walled garden that makes it hard to simply create a playlist of MP3s -- they *want* you to stream. More money in *their* pockets. I just want whatever is going to make it easiest for people to listen to what they have to learn, and I haven't burned my bandmates CDs in a long time... As an OG YouTube user, I *refuse* to give them money for continuing to deliberately make the service worse. Stubborn and self-defeating? Possibly. But I have my pride. 😆

Yes yes, of the Beatles and the Stones did a lot of secret guesting on each other's records, but I'm thinking more about the session musician world. I'm sure there are a few anonymous orchestral players who wound up working with both bands in the 60s, but the Beatles tended to use fewer extra rhythm section guys than the Stones, so other than Nicky and Billy I'm trying to think who else had the pleasure of sitting in with both bands! I saw someone mentioned Eric Clapton -- I know he's guested with the Stones live, but what tune(s) did he record with them?

He really buries the lede there but I love hearing about the mods that gave him that big, fat bass sound! My tech has a Hammond with that percussion mod, where he could turn it on for any harmonic. He was just working on my Leslie and telling me about one of his other favorite mods, the "Steppenwolf Switch," which bypasses the crossover so you get full range of the organ coming out of the drum. We were talking about other mods I would potentially be interested in and he said "anything's possible!" I love it.

I've been seeing promotion for this on social media; definitely interested in seeing it once it's out. Hard to deny Nicky's influence; other than Billy Preston, I wonder how many other musicians got to play with both the Beatles and the Stones?

Much (belated) praise to dB, such a kind and welcoming soul to helm this community.

I would love to play together, dude! Let me know if you're ever stateside (and I will certainly let you know if I/we make it over to Germany -- our drummer is Danish so some European gigs aren't entirely out of the question assuming we can do it without losing a boatload of money). As far as divvying up the parts -- I hear you, sometimes it doesn't seem to make sense to me until I find the coordination thing that works. For instance, in the chorus/bridge section, I'm playing the chords in my right hand and that melodic line in my left (while I move to play the bass on the pedals). It seems weird to not play the line with my right hand, but because my left hand is playing basslines the rest of the tune, it just feels more natural to cover that melody with my left hand. 🤷‍♂️ I dunno, I'm making this up as I go along!

As promised/threatened, I've got a little self promo I'm going to do here; hopefully that's cool with everyone. This organ trio project, Pocket Bandits, has been a really thrilling new challenge for me, and something I'm trying to figure out how to build on as much as possible -- playing in new cities! Getting out in front of a larger audience! The whole bit. It's a process. Anyway, we released our debut single today, and I wanted to share with this group. Hope you dig.

Thrilled to release the debut track by my long-incubating (but only recently getting out and gigging) organ trio, Pocket Bandits. It's a little prog, a little fusion, a little funk, and a really exciting new challenge for me as a player (no vocals! Covering all the bass parts! Lots of melodic playing over weird changes both harmonically and metrically!). We're trying to get this band outside of our little hometown music scene as much as possible, and any streams, shares, plays, or engagement in general really, really helps. I appreciate the support of this community (and I know all y'all love some proggy Hammond and synth-heavy tracks).

I've been playing left-hand bass in a project pretty regularly for the past six months, and ergonomics are SO important. I also like having a dedicated bass board (I've gone the analog synth route in this case; gives me some Stevie Wonder energy, but like if Stevie's synth bass parts were toddlers still learning to walk...) but getting it positioned in a way that is comfortable and intuitive for my left hand the whole show is paramount. I'll let you know when I've finally figured out how to nail it!

There are a couple of great stock flute sounds in the Roli NOISE app that would probably do the trick -- I'm not sure if that's still free since I have a version of it from like 2019 on my iPad that I don't update anymore. You could take a look though; the "Breath Flute" patch would be pretty close.

Yeah, it's all little compromises and I figured it was worth brainstorming with the crew here! I'm playing left hand bass a lot, so three octaves is great in that instance. But I also play bass with the pedals, and if I wanted to do that while playing a two-handed piano part, I'm much better off doing what @D. Gauss suggested and just using one of the Mojo manuals to control a piano sound over MIDI (unless I want to go the full L-shaped setup like Eric Finland does in the video below).

Yeah, thanks for turning me on to this, y'all! It's not in my budget at the moment of course, but it's very much the sort of thing I was looking for. Good to know!

I've got a Korg Prologue 8 that I've been using for bass, and that's on a stand above the Mojo with the low C keys lined up vertically (it's also MIDI'ed to a set of Roland PK-5 pedals underneath). I either send it to a dedicated bass amp, or to a separate channel of my Motion Sound so I can EQ it differently from the organ. I often pair it with a SansAmp DI as well. The Prologue is bitimbral, which is another way I've thought about getting some extra sounds, but since I'm amplifying it in a way that will emphasize it as a bass instrument, it's not the simplest solution.

Sure, I'm definitely trying to give myself as little to schlep (and to fit in the vehicle, if it makes the difference in the number of cars going to the gig) as possible. So switching non-organ sounds on and off the manuals is definitely a simple way to do it. But to answer your question about how many hands I have... 😉 There are times in this project when I'm kicking bass, playing a pad or comp on the lower manual, and playing a lead line on the top manual, and sometimes I want to be able to hit a bell or jump to a synth lead in the same tune. What's easier in those instances: having to change patches and then change back while I have all four limbs engaged with playing the instrument, or having the patch already cued up and waiting for me if I move my right hand up and to the right a bit? "Easy" is a bit of a compromise, since having sounds dedicated to certain boards rather than having to scroll through them is my always my preference, but space considerations and *my* aging back lean in favor of fewer things to carry. It's likely I'll be going the organ-doubling-as-MIDI-controller route at some upcoming gigs, but I'm trying to brainstorm to see what my options would be if I wanted to simplify the workflow without bringing a full-size third board.