I heard Dave Mustaine say something like this once, with disdain.
Keyboards! That stuff is for weddings and funerals.
Why is it that keyboard players get a bad rap? After all, Eddie’s biggest record was “Jump” and, SRV didn’t hire another guitar guy when he started making some dough now did he? Somebody must like what keyboard players do.
Well, somebody does and, it’s the public. They make stuff sound big and people like that. And, Dave, all due respect but, wedding gigs pay a lot better than these bar gigs and most of us slobs are glad to get them.
What is the deal then; why the animosity towards keyboard players?
For starters-”Keyboard Player” doesn’t roll off the tongue very well and, it’s not much better than “Keyboardist”; that’s a P.R. problem right there. Piano Player or, Piano Man-those are both good but, they don’t really apply because these guys haul around “work stations”. Work Station!!??-”I got my eye on this new Work Station“. How pansy assed does that sound?
See, there I go. I’m not even trying to bust on keyboard players but, it just comes out.
Fact is, you look around at what people have been listening to since the days of the harpsichord and pianoforte up to the work station generated pablum of the modern day and, the majority of it involves some kind of keyboard.
So tonight’s FNCMFPECDAA is simply…
Rock Keyboardist?
There are elements I don’t get. Like around the late 70s, things like Boston saying “Oh no, there’s no synths on this recording, nosirreee. This here’s a rock record.” If more guitarists could sound nearly as heavy as Jon Lord’s organ, the world would be a great and wonderful place.
My all-time fave keyboard bit is “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians. My number two is the original recording of “Lucky Man” by Emerson Lake and Palmer. A nice, delicate English ballad, followed by a huge ugly sine wave Moog solo that lands on it like scat hitting the fan. Emerson lets his analog synth get all over everything in the version on the Moogfest video, so it’s all scat and not much fun.
No, wait. Jon Lord. Made In Japan. “Highway Star”. That’s number one. Drop those down to 2 and 3.
Consider Flock of Seagulls. The singer, with the really odd hairdo. holds one key and gets all that sound. The abstract guitarist takes a good long time in the woodshed before he can consistently be in tune. The keyboard is in tune when the keyboard is made. The abstract guitarist takes a long time to learn time, and from complaints I hear, not every one does. There’s memory, a sequencer and a quantize button. There’s a fair bit of jealosy, because it’s so easy, it feels like cheating.
Keys have to stay in one place. A guitar is strapped to you. So you can run around with a guitar. Not so with a keyboard. You can wear a keytar. You can also look like a big goofball. Well, there are people who can sling a keytar and not look like a goofball. But they’re special and show up in Robert Palmer videos.
But, ultimately, keyboard players are associated with the grandest traditions of western musical culture, and the guitar is associated with phallic projection.
In documented cases where pork tapeworm larvae have been found in the brain, they were embedded, cyst-like, in the neural tissue. They would not be capable of crawling around around freely, nor of boring outward through the patient’s skull to emerge through the scalp.
That is precisely the difference between Rock with Guitar, and someone trying to desperately make up a one man band from keyboard tricks. As far as I know, pianists cannot bend a B, unless they reach into the harp and push on the piano strings.
Keyboard is “in tune.The keyboard is in tune when the keyboard is made.” (Sans) Precisely, that is entirely the point… isn’t it? Keyboard is pedagogy. Thank you Mr Direction.
Father of the orchestralpoysonicsynthphonics era… my pick is Eric Garth Hudson, whose mom played accordion and piano.
Summary:
The piano/keyboard controls you, and keeps that brain worm trapped in your cranium. Your guitar allows your brain worm to bore out of your skull and splatter all over the crowd, stage and the keyboardist. (See: also review Keefer stuff in here.)
I say call the Rock Keyboardist— our “six-toed Accordionist” and continue to spread the worm splooch… my final answer.
Other handles * Bandoneón * Bayan * Concertina * Flutina * Garmon * Harmonium * Reed organ * Trikitixa *Squeezebox *Organ
There are good keyboardists and bad keyboardists.
A good keyboardist is proficient at harmony and will carve out a spot in a song that makes everyone else sound better without doubling the bass line. A good keyboardist can lay down a studio drum track like Buddy Rich or a bass track like Cleve Eaton. A good keyboardist will probably know how to change the oil in the bus and solder a bad mic cable. Good keyboardists are proficient at more than one instrument. One good example is Robert Martin, who not only handled vocals in any style, but played cello, french horn, sax, vibes and percussion as well. They like technology and read above their grade level.
A bad keyboardist will buy a workstation either because they don’t know that they can save money by buying the module version or because they’re married to the sequencer. If they use the sequencer, then they’re either not good enough to play the same lick twice or don’t understand the concepts of splits and layers. Don’t loan them money or let them date your sister.
on tuning- the old analog moogs had real tuning problems and had to be constantly adjusted, but stacking oscillators that were slightly out-of-tune gave us those big fat sounds… When the fm-based DX7 took the stage, all the sounds turned wimpy.
Bobby Martin on “Whipping Post”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TItmXT8DkM
So far, I say…
John Lord-I seem to remember wathching Midnight Special or, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert with some pals when Deep Purple was on. We all went aha! that’s how he get’s that sound! when we saw a stack of Marshall’s behind him. Don’t know for sure if that was for effect or not.
I used to work with a guy named Swede when I was at the blacksmith shop. Swede is one of the best whistlers I’ve heard. I heard him whistle the entire solo from “Lucky Man” not for note on several occasions.
The 80s/DX7/Keytar-that was messed up man.
Tapeworm/Garth Hudson:I think I agree with both points. I know I dig Garth. He is a sort of a stylist in my mind. Lowery organ btw. Richard Manuel was a handy sort too.
J-I’ve always thought that keyboard players maybe knew how to change the oil, an alternator and/or back a trailer but, I’ve never seen one do any of those. Sandbagging I say.
I like playing with a good keyboard player. The chords make more sense, guitars aren’t always suited for the third. However, and anybody can answer but, I’m directing this in your general direction, there are a few things I wonder about. Keyboard guys always seem to have at least two machines on stage, at least guys I play with often. I ask; can you get a piano sound without that chorus and the scooped mids? They just give me a look that I interpret as; “You Sir, are an uncouth Ass”.
“Why don’t you use a B3 sound there?”
“None of the B3 sounds I have will sound good on that.”
“Can you get it to sound like a Rhodes or, even better, an old Wurli?”
“Why would you want that?”
They all have thousands of dollars wrapped up in gear but, they either can’t or won’t get the most useful sounds in the history of butt thumping music. What up wit’ ‘dat?
And, oh yeah…They all have thousands of dollars wrapped up in gear but, they play through some kind of Peavey guitar practice amp.
In closing (for now) I’d like to say….
“I wear my fingernails long so they click when I play the piana”
What about the piano cats…Fats
Leon
Dr. John…
…
J, Moogs were monophonic. One note at a time. It’s a generation earlier than the ones that Flock of Seagulls used. Moogs are cool. I just saw the Bob Moog documentary. I love that stuff. But it ain’t rock’n'roll.
Piano is rock’n'roll. Even on a Steinway. But it depends on who. Nawlins piano is blues, jazz and rock all in one. Dr John can rock. Professor Longhair. Fats Domino. And of course, rocknroll was built on Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Even some of Elton John. But when I said that the keyboard is associated with the finest music of western civilization and the guitar is associated with phallic projection, well, which is more rock ‘n’ roll? And the other Elton John stuff, even all piano, is just too pretty or too poppy and just not rock.
And that’s it, isn’t it? The great rock key sounds of the early years are the B3, the Rhodes, the Wurlitzer, the Farafina and maybe a few others, but the keys guys chose that big ethereal cloudy tone with no attack.
Sans, -on tuning, point taken. Tuning really hasn’t been an issue since the late 1970s.
Jack, I’m at a loss as to why folks won’t buy a good keyboard amp for their rigs. Since most of the units have stereo effects and zoned samples, it’s really a shame to not hear the imaging. But for wedding gigs, I use an Ampeg bass amp. I use a old Korg Stage piano for the controller and will take a module (usually a tiny one like the extinct Roland JV 1010 with orchestral expansion board. That gives me roughly 1100 sounds to play with. I tend to reach for the same dozen “bag ‘o tricks” sounds, though. But the B3 is a truly different animal. I won’t admit to being happy using a module as a substitute for the real thing. That reminds me, I’ve got an old Leslie Cabinet that I restored that needs a B3 for friendship, long walks on the beach, etc…
If you know of anyone with one in storage, I’d be happy to consider taking it off their hands.
Can you hook up an XB3, the modern keyboard version, to the old Leslie? That would be the cheaper way, because the B3s I’m seeing online are into five digits.
I have heard some keyboards that do reasonably decent Hammond sounds.
I dont know about an Xb3; I’m heading to Atlanta next week and will see if I can locate one. Thanks for the suggestion.
Hey J, the only guy I consort with that has a B3 is Lou at the studio (It’s a real good apparently; Joe Terry says he likes it better than the one at Oceanway in Nashville). Lou is always interested in stuff like that because he has a cool studio. But, because he runs a cool studio he’s always broke too. You know the deal. I’ll tell him about it.
What ever happened to Zach Gill? Anyone?
I am on a music listening binge this AM… hoping you are too. I am grateful I can share some of my own druthers this way… don’t ya’ know?
YouTube [HERE] Zach Gill Family Keyboardist/ Accordionist
or cut paste here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcDdyeITczg
You don’t have to slyly push Pause on Reverbnation, if it is not your taste.
I think I have been patient enough with all the shop talk… We don’t need no stinking B#3Rhodesorevenbetteran oldWurli..Moogfestvideosinewav…scat hitting the fanorchestralpoysonicsynthphonics
We just need Flaco… Hey, Baby .. Que Paso?
Flaco is, of course, great.
Flaco; Bueno Bueno!
Quotable Quote:
Ray Manzarek SOURCE HERE
Yeah, those sticking keys, you have to lift them up after you punch them.