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?