Keyboard Player Trying To Play Bass Too

Rick in Dixie · #1 02-02-2009, 06:41 PM

Keyboard player with a heavy left hand and nauseating low end setting has his own ideal how Bass should sound, How in the world do you fix this. Can't nix him, he's the Praise & Worship leader and piano player for the Church. I'm to the point of pulling out myself.

Barisaxman · #2 02-02-2009, 07:44 PM

I'd simply tell him "hey, if you're going to play over top of me why am I here?" No need beating around the bushes. Maybe he's just not aware how bad he's covering you up.

JustDavid · #3 02-02-2009, 08:32 PM

Barisax nailed it.

Plan B; build him a "level correction cable": get a 1/4 to XLR adapter, replace XLR with 3 prong wall plug, plug 1/4" into their keyboard & their power bar.

jaywa · #4 02-03-2009, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick in Dixie

Keyboard player with a heavy left hand and nauseating low end setting has his own ideal how Bass should sound, How in the world do you fix this. Can't nix him, he's the Praise & Worship leader and piano player for the Church. I'm to the point of pulling out myself.

Switch churches, maybe? I am only half joking. Lots of churches would love to have a good bass player, at least where I live.

I have dealt with this a lot in the past few years, only at our church it is classically trained pianists who play every note of the left hand as written and with bad rhythm. Thankfully our sound guys understand and usually turn the piano off in the monitors and almost off in the house, so I am able to function... and, none of those piano players are the worship leader which would definitely complicate things in your case.

bassman1185 · #5 02-03-2009, 10:04 AM

Just explain to the worship leader that the sounds he's making are detrimental to the overall sound and effectiveness of the worship band as a whole. He should be mature enough to be able to say "ok, I'll see what I can change."

Also, try to be willing to meet him half way.

kalle74 · #6 02-03-2009, 03:27 PM

hack off his left arm, or take a chainsaw and cut his keyboard in half. lose the low keys...

seriously, why not just bring it up in a conversation?

JackANSI · #7 02-03-2009, 04:09 PM

Rat poison in his communion grape juice?

Don't try it.. Just joking!

I take it you're not good with confrontation or else you would have already said something.

Explain to him how you want to be a part of the music you are providing to the church. (disassociates you directly and focuses on the bigger picture they are interested in) Explain to him how you feel, your passion, about your instrument, identify with his passion for his left hand. Explain how you don't feel that your part in this is able to be heard because of his heavy left hand. Suggest a solution, like EQ'ing or volume changes (you louder).

If he doesn't give you some room, he ain't doing it for the Lord. He's in it to show off how good he is or is looking for validation of such. Find a new chruch because this one will lead you astray.

**Howlin' Hanson** · #8 02-03-2009, 09:15 PM

I had this happen at choir rehearsal two weeks ago. We don't use the bass frequently, but did a Mavis Staples song for Race Relations Sunday (day before MLK Jr Day). Music Director had planned to play piano with me on bass, but the regular pianist wanted to play.

Got started, and MD had to stop us because...pianist's left hand was muddying up the tone. She could hear it (unlike OP's worship leader) and told him to get out of my range. He did; problem solved.

Rick, good luck getting him to hear the total sound. (Ya know, Ray Manzarek never had this problem...)

Williamsburgjim · #9 02-04-2009, 02:35 PM

The keyboard guy at my church gig , thank the lord, is already sensitive to this and plays higher registers not to walk on me. And the FOH mix sound guy EQ's him so that there is less low-end to his keyboard tone.

I run into this more with the keyboardist in my classic rock band, at times. When it happens I usually just tell him to play in a different octave range but, there ARE times when in order to cover the tune properly he HAS to play a certain low bass riff/part. In those instances, his timbre is so different anyway so it doesn't effect me much. Probably another reason to run single coil pups in a live sitch.

The house mix is really critical. At my church space, I've just recently learned to cut 30hz and below, boost 800Hz and 1.6kHz, and cut 5KHz and up and now am really cutting thru, finally !!!!
Each space is different. Not to mention the limitations of the PA equipment itself.

Jimbob

tommysalami · #10 02-06-2009, 01:00 PM

I think a lot of guys get that left handed playing from their years of piano lessons & don't realize what they're doing in a band situation. I'm sure there's keyboardists out there that don't feel comfortable playing one handed,again from their training. If you don't want to say something, ask the soundman or someone else in your group to mention it to him.

burkhardty10 · #11 02-06-2009, 01:04 PM

A very well respected and busy keyboard player in my area was filling in with my band last week. Before we started he straight up asked if I minded if he played organ bass. I didn't want to be rude and say..."yeah it's pretty annoying". After the first set of his "doubling," I told him it was pretty challenging trying to match my bass parts to what he was playing. It is also very restricting when they do this...pretty much have to stick to whatever line he's giving you.

I just thought it was funny since it wasn't something that he was just doing subconsciously.

tommysalami · #12 02-06-2009, 01:22 PM

Yea, you start asking yourself why am i even up here.

jaywa · #13 02-06-2009, 01:24 PM

Plus it seems like the keyboard, and especially the lower frequencies of the keyboard, are always turned up louder than the bass guitar. Always. And yet we are the ones who are supposed to turn down.

ehque · #14 02-23-2009, 11:01 AM

Just EQ him with an aggressive high-pass on the board, if you're chummy with the sound engineer.

RicPlaya · #15 02-23-2009, 11:11 AM

Man, I hate when these guys do this. Just tell him don't go below half way on the keyboard. The only thing to do is get really Trebly with your tone..or pop and slap over top.

dbassman59 · #16 02-23-2009, 07:53 PM

Very few keyboard players that I've run across know how to play in BAND .. they always seem to want to play as if they were the only instrument in the band ... My advise is to confront him and work with him ... you catch more flies with honey than vinegar ...

You can politely say in practice that he may be duplicating your part. The easiest way is to interrupt right in the middle of song (during practice) ... It will catch everybody's attention. I bet he doesn't even realize what he's doing ...

Or ... you can stop playing in the middle of a practice .. when the leader asks why say you are quite confused with the bass part ... the keyboard player is off ... ask if you can repeat with just bass and no keys ... then add the keys ... making sure he doesn't conflict ...

It's going to be a slow and tuff slog though ... but don't roll over be persistent ... once the key player tows the line ... compliment and thank him ... The trick is to get him to admit that's he's trespassing on the bass line ...

The key to recovery is admitting you (the keyboard player) has a problem ...

burkhardty10 · #17 02-27-2009, 02:03 PM

I just picked up a gig on Saturday night...and the keyboard "bass player" is on it.
It's with some different guys so we'll see if he's as active in the low end this time. Not sure whether to look forward to it or not.

erikbojerik · #18 02-28-2009, 06:01 AM

Have him listen to some Dream Theater...

Keyboard players are trained like this because they mostly tend to play solo - and if your worship leader is making the transition from traditional to contemporary to praise band, this could be really challenging if he has never played as part of a praise band.

Our worship leader is also a keyboardist, but he's done the band thing (and done it very well) and so he does both - stays off the left-side keys (though not entirely), and cuts his low freqs at the board.

But seriously - if you listen to John Myung and Jordan Rudess play together, you can see a situation in which it works very well even when they are doubling.

Projectile · #19 02-28-2009, 06:14 AM

What in the heck is a "Praise & Worship leader"? Is that some kind of church lingo? It sounds like a cult thing IMO. Maybe they should call him something else? I would feel very weird if I had to call my singer Mr. Praise and Worship Leader. Is this normal?

erikbojerik · #20 02-28-2009, 07:08 AM

Worship leader - music director - music minister - yeah it's all church lingo, but he's basically the church staff member in charge of music.

We call ours "Tim" - the guy has an amazing ear. Once for an Easter service rehearsal we had probably 20 people in the band, 3 guitars, keys, bass, drums, 6 singers, horns, etc - we're midway through a song, with about 50 notes in the air, and he stops everyone and says "What's that?!?!".

I was playing guitar, and had Amaj7 instead of Am7....