Metaphasic
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Question for ALL musicians!
Dear fellow musicians, I have an unusual question.
When you listen to two guitarists play, you can usually tell who it is that is playing. For example, Eddie Van Halen vs Stevie Ray Vaughn. All the big names have a very distinctive style and sound, from which the very seldom stray. They may have a signature "clean" sound, and a signature "dirty" sound, with the occasional effect, but for the most part, their sound is fairly unique to them.
The very same could be said of bassists. You could probably tell the difference immediately between Geddy Lee and Jaco Pastorius, right? Once again, they stray very little from their basic sound, with the exception of effect selection.
Likewise, drummers are often known for this as well. Try listening to Neil Peart versus Phil Collins. Now, the drummer is typically limited to the pads in front of him, but even with a similar set, different drummers still maintain a unique feel to them.
I don't think anybody could argue this point regarding singers. One's voice is going to sound like one's voice. They are relatively unmistakable.
Then we have the keyboardist.
These poor folk seem to be left to fill in the gaps, and pigeon holed into backup roles. They often have several boards in front of them in order to play the various riffs a song needs. What is worse is that most songs today have such a varied palette of sounds in them. These are sounds that singers, drummers, bassists and guitarists just can not do, simply because of the physics of their instruments. The end result is that it is really difficult to identify a particular keyboardist simply by listening to a random piece of audio.
While it is true that an immensely gifted keyboardist may indeed become recognizable, simply through style alone, it would take a tremendous effort to accomplish. Even if one did this, they hardly get the accolades their bandmates get. In most cases, they and their boards are usually tucked away on one side of the stage, with the more mobile instruments out front.
This all really didn't occur to me until just recently, after switching from guitar to keyboards, due to personal physical reasons. Now that it has though, I have to wonder if keyboardists shouldn't also try to come up with their own unique "basic" sound? You know, that one sound they use in all their songs, even if other "effect" type sounds are used to spice things up?
Lot's of words Drew, but no question.
Right-o! On to the question.
Do we not deserve the right to become audibly identifiable? Is it wrong to want to be front runners in a band? Is it beyond belief that we might actually say "no" to being the jack-of-all-trades we are currently made out to be, or ask the other members of a band to diversify?
I am no singer, and am only a moderately talented song writer. I have seriously considered joining a band, so that all I have to focus on are my parts, letting the others invent their own parts for songs. But I hesitate because I do not want this stigma of being the backup, filler, swiss army knife musician.
Opinions?
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bapu
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:17:47
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Dr. John, Keith Emmerson, Rick Wakeman and Elton John all sound alike?
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bapu
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:18:47
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Ok, Norah Jones and Alicia Keys probably do sound alike.
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:21:39
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Maybe, maybe not. But they have such a unique personal style, they can be identified, and I indicated that some WILL be like that. Mostly. But honestly, another person could be playing the parts, and if you didn't have video to back it up, you might not know it wasn't the original. Piano's sound like pianos, right? And by the way, I am not talking about piano's, but keyboards. You know, synths.
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:24:13
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In other words, why do we have to do the horns, strings, and sound effects all the time. Why can't we have two or three variations of our favorite "analog saw wave" pad, and just use that. Something where, if a new unannounced song comes on the radio, somebody can hear the synth track and go, "oh damn, that sounds just like Drew!, oh wait...it is!" With the vast majority of songs today, one can not do that from synths alone.
[sorry for double post]
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Mesh
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:26:13
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IMO, there's no mistaking Jon Lord's sound........
One way to avoid the stigma of being the backup, filler, Swiss army knife musician is to start a band that highlights the keyboardist with your very own signature keyboard sound?
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:28:23
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That's kind of what I'm thinking of doing. The problem seems to be in that most other musicians (guitar, bass, drum) just seem to expect us to be that knife. How do we go about changing the overall expectations of keyboard players (non-piano)?
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Mesh
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:40:20
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Ad: Need back up musicians (guitar, drums, bass etc...) to backup frontman keyboardist/keyboard centered band. 
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jamesg1213
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:43:47
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I don't think I could tell one drummer from another just by listening to drums only. Maybe Stewart Copeland or Keith Moon. Not sure about bassists either, if I heard them out of context...Mick Karn maybe.
If you played me Elton John, Keith Emerson, Dr John and Jools Holland, each playing boogie-woogie piano, I couldn't tell you who was who.
Praps I'm stoopid...
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drewfx1
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:52:28
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I disagree with your premise.
You cite extraordinary guitarists, bassists, drummers with distinctive styles and then reject keyboard players with the same qualities as exceptions.
I've heard lots of guitarists, bassists and drummers in my day that weren't particularly distinctive and I can name any number of distinctive keyboard players - including a number of band mates of other musicians you mentioned.
And if you're a bass player in a "conventional" band, trust me on this, no one wants you to play like Jaco or Geddy.
 In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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Karyn
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:55:12
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Serenarules
In other words, why do we have to do the horns, strings, and sound effects all the time.
Simple answer.. Because you CAN. Up until the late '70s if you wanted a convincing horn section on your track you had to hire a horn section. Guitars always sounded like guitars, pianos like pianos, but suddenly in the '80s with half decent samplers it was possible to get half decent emulations of all sorts of sounds from a keyboard (but ironically, not piano...)
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 12:55:39
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Thanks for all the responses. There are some interesting comments here. Let me ask you this then...
How many easily identifiable musicians (guitar, bass, drums only) do you know that have drastically different sounds from song to song?
Keith Richards sound was pretty consistent from song to song, wouldn't you think, with only minor effect changes?
Another point; synth sound selection.
Like so many other great musicians, Van Halen, Phil Collins, and so forth, all have a very unique, unchanging sound. You knew who you were listening too, even if the new song you are just hearing was played unannounced. My approach to playing synths is similar to that. I wanted a small cache of sounds (with minor variants only) to serve as a way of making me more identifiable as a synth player.
My chosen sounds are somewhat dated. I love the sounds of the older analog keyboards. These can only make use of saw, square, and pulse waves (some could do more). One can only add a high pass, or a low pass filter to them, adjust cutoff frequency and resonance, add low frequency oscillation and a volume envelope to them.
Newer synths are more like emulators. They use actual samples or physical modelling to approximate the sounds of things like horns, pianos and flutes, as well as other-worldly sounds.
I've always thought that if you want horns in a song, hire a horn player. I'm not into the replication of other real instruments, but rather the old, fat and warm, analog pads. I even turn off velocity sensitivity and after-touch on my JP-50 because most of my older analogs don't have either one.
So basically, I use my core sounds on purpose for reason of musical identity and consistency across songs, just as a guitarist or bassist would.
I guess that's the real point of this; why do most bands just expect us to run the gamut, instead of allowing us our own identity, even if we aren't front and center?
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:04:35
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drewfx1
I disagree with your premise.
You cite extraordinary guitarists, bassists, drummers with distinctive styles and then reject keyboard players with the same qualities as exceptions.
I've heard lots of guitarists, bassists and drummers in my day that weren't particularly distinctive and I can name any number of distinctive keyboard players - including a number of band mates of other musicians you mentioned.
And if you're a bass player in a "conventional" band, trust me on this, no one wants you to play like Jaco or Geddy.
To be fair, I haven't excluded anybody. There are a lot of great pianist-style players who really stand out due to their style. In fact, these instances are more of a nod towards their greatness than away. These "tickle the ivories" players are not the ones I'm focusing on. But rather, your average keyboard players. We may not have the experience or ability to just let out fingers run amok. We need another way to stand out. But if we are constantly changing patches, there is no consistency from song to song. That's all I'm saying. Shouldn't we, unilaterally, be expected to have a small set of core sounds, despite other fluff sounds we may use from time to time?
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bapu
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:18:36
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drewfx1
And if you're a bass player in a "conventional" band, trust me on this, no one wants you to play like Jaco or Geddy.
The bane of my band experiences.
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craigb
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:26:05
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☄ Helpfulby Mesh 2016/06/02 13:46:54
Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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michaelhanson
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:32:16
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bapu
drewfx1
And if you're a bass player in a "conventional" band, trust me on this, no one wants you to play like Jaco or Geddy.
The bane of my band experiences.
bapu
drewfx1
And if you're a bass player in a "conventional" band, trust me on this, no one wants you to play like Jaco or Geddy.
The bane of my band experiences.
Yep!
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Beagle
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:34:18
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☄ Helpfulby Mesh 2016/06/02 14:10:01
Serenarules
That's kind of what I'm thinking of doing. The problem seems to be in that most other musicians (guitar, bass, drum) just seem to expect us to be that knife. How do we go about changing the overall expectations of keyboard players (non-piano)?
I am a keyboardist (and not a pianist) and a vocalist. I am, by definition a swiss knife kind of player and I play almost every week in a church band. the problem I see with the situation of a keyboardist being top dawg is that in Western music it's a guitarist's world. guitar is dominant in our music and has been since the 50's (or arguably earlier). Keyboardists are support simply because guitarists dominate the culture. this is not a complaint - it's just a fact. are there keyboard and/or piano icons who are easily recognizable in a blind test? absolutely (Jon Lord, Elton John - others who have been named). but they're the exception and not the rule simply because our culture demands guitar as the dominant instrument. who knows - maybe in 50 years that will change. 
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drewfx1
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:37:18
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Serenarules
To be fair, I haven't excluded anybody. There are a lot of great pianist-style players who really stand out due to their style. In fact, these instances are more of a nod towards their greatness than away. These "tickle the ivories" players are not the ones I'm focusing on. But rather, your average keyboard players.
My point was that you were comparing "average" keyboard players with distinctive players of other instruments.
We may not have the experience or ability to just let out fingers run amok. We need another way to stand out. But if we are constantly changing patches, there is no consistency from song to song. That's all I'm saying. Shouldn't we, unilaterally, be expected to have a small set of core sounds, despite other fluff sounds we may use from time to time?
It's an embarrassment of riches - back in the day keyboardists only had access to a few sounds at a time and different organs and EPs sounded different, and Moogs sounded different from ARPs. And most people were not Rick Wakeman and didn't take a whole bunch of different keyboards on tour. But over the last few decades technology has evolved to allow for a much wider variety of sounds and if you're playing covers in a band you are going to be expected to mimic different classic sounds, as are guitar players. And modern keyboards mostly have tons of presets that are either (deliberately) generic or else kind of out there. Other people expect what they are familiar with. And IME, most band members only really care about instruments other than their own when you are either getting in the way or need to replicate a distinctive part. I would say you should program some sounds yourself that express your individualities and allow for some changes and expression using a few controllers and become intimate with them. Note that guitar players often go to extremes obsessing over every single little component in their instruments and rigs and yet all make different sets of choices of components. IOW, it's not about quality or picking the best components in general, it's about picking the components that give them the specific sounds they individually respond to.
In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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slartabartfast
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:41:00
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One of the greatest what the ... moments of my life was when I learned that the keyboard was considered part of the rhythm section of a modern small pop or jazz ensemble, along with the bass and drums. And this was at a time when the only keyboard around was a piano. The pre-eminent solo and vocal accompaniment instrument since its invention three hundred years ago had somehow fallen so low in pop music practice that it sat with the skin thumpers? Sure it had been invitation only to the full orchestra on concerto night, but really...
I blame the trumpet. In a loud sweaty dance hall someone had to carry the melody over the noise of stomping feet and smashing beer steins, and unamplified strings lacked the definition to direct the riot on the floor. And then they invented the infinitely amplifiable electric guitar and the rest is history. Bye, bye Mr. Armstrong. The power chords and fuzz boxes can drown out even the war horn in battle.
For a while the electric organ got to grab the melody for brief solos rising above the din when the guitarists were busy smashing their instruments, but even a standing keyboardist couldn't look like he was having coitus with his tool and still play, and thrusting his gyrating genitals was a waste when it was hidden behind the Hammond.
And now, as you note, the synth technician is not really a keyboardist at all. Often as not he is triggering loops and lighting effects, and playing not just chords but fancy riffs with a single key strike on a MIDI controller where the only skill is knowing how to make the noise at the right time. Hey. Sounds a lot like he belongs in the rhythm section.
But your point about style is wrong. There are many consummate keyboard players in bands, and they can develop whatever distinctive style they want...or not. What you are really saying is that the fashion in pop music arrangement is still designed around an accompaniment for the visual SEXY of a dancing front man and his sexy string bashing wing men. Find a band that plays the kind of music you want to play, and does not depend on stroking the cliche between the audience's ears. Remain seated and concentrate on the music. And learn to do arrangements that your fellow musicians will respect. Or just do what the front man tells you and stay out of the way and on the beat.
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bapu
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:43:29
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☄ Helpfulby Beagle 2016/06/03 15:37:53
Beagle
in Western music it's a guitarist's world.
Noisy prima donna buggers!!!!!!
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bapu
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:46:28
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craigb
WTF is Waldo? Oh ya, now I see. He's on the clarinet.
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 13:53:27
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slartabartfast
One of the greatest what the ... moments of my life was when I learned that the keyboard was considered part of the rhythm section of a modern small pop or jazz ensemble, along with the bass and drums. And this was at a time when the only keyboard around was a piano. The pre-eminent solo and vocal accompaniment instrument since its invention three hundred years ago had somehow fallen so low in pop music practice that it sat with the skin thumpers? Sure it had been invitation only to the full orchestra on concerto night, but really...
I blame the trumpet. In a loud sweaty dance hall someone had to carry the melody over the noise of stomping feet and smashing beer steins, and unamplified strings lacked the definition to direct the riot on the floor. And then they invented the infinitely amplifiable electric guitar and the rest is history. Bye, bye Mr. Armstrong. The power chords and fuzz boxes can drown out even the war horn in battle.
For a while the electric organ got to grab the melody for brief solos rising above the din when the guitarists were busy smashing their instruments, but even a standing keyboardist couldn't look like he was having coitus with his tool and still play, and thrusting his gyrating genitals was a waste when it was hidden behind the Hammond.
And now, as you note, the synth technician is not really a keyboardist at all. Often as not he is triggering loops and lighting effects, and playing not just chords but fancy riffs with a single key strike on a MIDI controller where the only skill is knowing how to make the noise at the right time. Hey. Sounds a lot like he belongs in the rhythm section.
But your point about style is wrong. There are many consummate keyboard players in bands, and they can develop whatever distinctive style they want...or not. What you are really saying is that the fashion in pop music arrangement is still designed around an accompaniment for the visual SEXY of a dancing front man and his sexy string bashing wing men. Find a band that plays the kind of music you want to play, and does not depend on stroking the cliche between the audience's ears. Remain seated and concentrate on the music. And learn to do arrangements that your fellow musicians will respect. Or just do what the front man tells you and stay out of the way and on the beat.
This kind of makes not want to play at all. For the record though, I'm not really interested in fronting. I am not a singer by any means, and I am not advocating having the majority of the limelight. I just to be viewed as an equal with the right to choose my own sounds with no pressure from everybody else. Perhaps you are right about the state of modern music. I grew up with Depeche Mode, A Flock of Seagulls, and other similar bands. It is rare these days to see an all synth band. Unless you want pre-packaged Bieber stuff. I really don't want to get into triggering lighting and effects, even though my JP-50 has Visual Control built in. Maybe that, in itself, is a sign I should've stuck with guitar. But honestly, I can't play that anymore. Smoking has left me with several "pointed" fingers, and it is hard to fret anything now, save a few bar chords. So the question is, with my basic method of playing (usually holding bass and a chord for a few measures), with only the occasional melody line, how do I break free from this and start really playing? Keep in mind, I haven't changed since I was 13, and I am now 47. It can't be practice because I've done nothing BUT play, having had a stroke seven years ago. I just can't seem to get any better. Advice?
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drewfx1
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 14:17:44
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If you want to break out of what others expect of you, then you simply need to assert yourself. If it sounds good, isn't inappropriate for the situation and doesn't step all over someone else's toes, you may find that everyone is happy regardless of whatever expectations they might have had going in.
But if you are musical yet they can't accept this sort of assertiveness from you, then you have to evaluate if you want to be in a situation that doesn't allow you to express yourself.
In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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Metaphasic
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 14:28:19
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drewfx1
If you want to break out of what others expect of you, then you simply need to assert yourself. If it sounds good, isn't inappropriate for the situation and doesn't step all over someone else's toes, you may find that everyone is happy regardless of whatever expectations they might have had going in.
But if you are musical yet they can't accept this sort of assertiveness from you, then you have to evaluate if you want to be in a situation that doesn't allow you to express yourself.
I think you may have misunderstood my last question. Assuming that's the one you responded to just now. My hands do not work at the same time. If my right is playing a simple melody, my left is either holding a single note, or nothing at all, and vice versa. Similarly, I am not adept at anything faster than eighth notes, and not for very long. This is true in just about all aspects of my life, outside of music as well. I can learn the basics of things really fast, but then can not get past the "below average" threshold. For instance, I can plink out the melody notes to "Wishing (If I had a Photograph of You)" rather easily, but if I were asked to play "Sad Songs (Say so much)" you can forget it. That's a level of playing I just can't do. When I write a song, I start with a keyboard pad, where I am in A for two to four measures, then D, then C. It is exceedingly difficult for me to do a more "moving" piece where they keys are all over the place. I try and try, and practice and practice, to no avail. What I am now asking is what can I do to break free from this "boxed" method of playing?
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jamesg1213
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 14:30:05
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Serenarules
How many easily identifiable musicians (guitar, bass, drums only) do you know that have drastically different sounds from song to song?
Without thinking about it too much, I'll offer Mark Knopfler. His guitar sound on 'Sultans of Swing' is nothing like 'Romeo and Juliet' is nothing like 'Money For Nothing' is nothing like 'Hill Farmer's Blues' is nothing like 'Quality Shoe' is nothing like 'Sailing to Philadelphia'...etc...but you can still tell it's him on all of them, because of his phrasing.
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Mesh
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 14:36:57
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jamesg1213
Serenarules
How many easily identifiable musicians (guitar, bass, drums only) do you know that have drastically different sounds from song to song?
Without thinking about it too much, I'll offer Mark Knopfler.
His guitar sound on 'Sultans of Swing' is nothing like 'Romeo and Juliet' is nothing like 'Money For Nothing' is nothing like 'Hill Farmer's Blues' is nothing like 'Quality Shoe' is nothing like 'Sailing to Philadelphia'...etc...but you can still tell it's him on all of them, because of his phrasing.
.....also Joe Satch
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slartabartfast
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 15:35:55
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☄ Helpfulby bapu 2016/06/02 15:55:20
Serenarules
My hands do not work at the same time. If my right is playing a simple melody, my left is either holding a single note, or nothing at all, and vice versa. Similarly, I am not adept at anything faster than eighth notes, and not for very long.
So you are physically incapable of mastering a virtuoso, or maybe even an average, live performance on your chosen instrument, with no cure in sight. Advice is not going to fix that. I have the same problem, but as a result of being too lazy to do the kind of boring practice necessary, which at my stage of life is probably also chronic and progressive. My solution is to use adaptive devices in order to make music without using my undisciplined neuromuscular system. MIDI sequencing will allow even a gumption deficient like me to create a performance that I could never hope to do in real time. If you are not a good composer, well you are not apparently a very good performer either, and rather than trying to force your body to do what it no longer can, you might put your time into learning to become a better composer and arranger. Working alone with your sequencer will let you choose whatever sounds and musical arrangement you want without anyone else's permission. If you produce a body of work that has value to others, burn it to disc, or take it on the road with a band and trigger the performance of your work from storage, using the coordination that you still have. Unless you believe that your struggle to overcome your handicap defines you in some ennobling way that makes the frustration worthwhile, or you enjoy the exercise of doing the best you can without expecting to achieve a goal beyond your ability, why not use your still intact intelligence to choose a more productive path? There is an apocryphal story about the Buddha, who met an old adept who was sitting beside a river. "Tell, me old man," says the Buddha, "what you are doing here." "I am sitting unmoving every day accumulating spiritual power, and have done so for fifty years," replied the old man. "And what power have you attained as a result?" the Buddha asked. "If I choose," said the old man, "I could stand up and walk across that river," was the answer. The Buddha nodded. "For a nickle, I can take the ferry," he said.
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backwoods
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 15:57:05
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For a while the electric organ got to grab the melody for brief solos rising above the din when the guitarists were busy smashing their instruments, but even a standing keyboardist couldn't look like he was having coitus with his tool and still play, and thrusting his gyrating genitals was a waste when it was hidden behind the Hammond.
So true and it just looks awful when a keyboard player tries to be cool -- you can kind of do it on a piano but a modern keyboard with lights flashing like a ufo taking off, placed on one of these ridiculous fragile X shaped stands? come on...
keyboard players generally look like they have their hands trapped in the stocks which turntable DJs also suffer (but DJs can at least release themselves occasionally to drink heavily (and make 'raise the roof' hand signals) and lean over to chat up girls, because their technology does all the work for them)
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spacey
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 18:53:09
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Sorry guy. I was going to play but I have no idea what key you're in.
I do think it's a blues tune...one of those that the same verse keeps popping up so if I'm right...change to a different tune. Much easier sometimes than to keep working on one that sucks anyway.
Freaky. I'm reminded of back when the needle would get stuck and my friends that would get up and bump it...until I got up and threw the album in the trash. I don't waste my time dealing with **** that's broke...not when it's easier just to move on. Time to change the road you're on...who said that? Good when it fits...if it doesn't...kinda sucks I guess.
Sorry....I'm really distracted wondering if slartabartfast screwed up and meant slartibartfast...anyway I think the nickel hit the spot.
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sharke
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Re: Question for ALL musicians!
2016/06/02 19:05:49
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There are a TON of guitarists out there who have virtually no individual character whatsoever. Just take a look at whomever has graduated from the Musician's Institute on any particular year  And then you have all of those guitarists who just use the instrument in a supporting role - like vocalists who strum a little for accompaniment. Most of that sounds pretty generic to me. Unless they're a "specialty strummer" doing intricate rhythm work (someone like John Doyle) then they're pretty interchangeable.
JamesWindows 10, Sonar SPlat (64-bit), Intel i7-4930K, 32GB RAM, RME Babyface, AKAI MPK Mini, Roland A-800 Pro, Focusrite VRM Box, Komplete 10 Ultimate, 2012 American Telecaster!
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