I was kinda the piano player in that situation this year.... Playing keyboards in a funk band, with my previous experience being classical lessons, some not-quite-there jazz attempts (and a bunch of bass playing). The band died recently, alas, for mostly unrelated reasons.
Anyway, I definitely knew that I had homework to do, and worked really hard on it. It was fun but almost overwhelming. Things that helped me:
- Setlists: for the first gig they chose a largely guitar-and-bass-driven setlist where the keyboard parts were pretty easy and/or repetitive.
- General workload: each new song could be a lot of work for me, so I was pretty happy the more we could limit new songs at each gig and keep old material in rotation.
- Feedback: I had an idea what to do, but not necessarily which was most important to get to first, so any feedback (like "the riff that ends the verses is an important cue for the singers, make sure you get it") helped me prioritize.
- Recording: Any time I could listen back to a band recording it helped me identify the biggest problems and, again, prioritize.
Out of curiosity: do you know which Yamaha, exactly? Yamaha makes a huge range of keyboards.
The issue for me with keyboard gear is it can be pretty expensive and time-consuming to learn your way around. So it's a big commitment to make while you're all still trying to figure out if the band is going to work.
I totally understand that it's not always realistic to find someone who can hit the ground running. It's a bad sign if they've already played together a couple times and he doesn't seem to be improving. You want to have evidence that he can listen and learn stuff. But if nobody's actually explained what you need from him, then maybe that's what's needed.
Anyway, I definitely knew that I had homework to do, and worked really hard on it. It was fun but almost overwhelming. Things that helped me:
- Setlists: for the first gig they chose a largely guitar-and-bass-driven setlist where the keyboard parts were pretty easy and/or repetitive.
- General workload: each new song could be a lot of work for me, so I was pretty happy the more we could limit new songs at each gig and keep old material in rotation.
- Feedback: I had an idea what to do, but not necessarily which was most important to get to first, so any feedback (like "the riff that ends the verses is an important cue for the singers, make sure you get it") helped me prioritize.
- Recording: Any time I could listen back to a band recording it helped me identify the biggest problems and, again, prioritize.
Out of curiosity: do you know which Yamaha, exactly? Yamaha makes a huge range of keyboards.
The issue for me with keyboard gear is it can be pretty expensive and time-consuming to learn your way around. So it's a big commitment to make while you're all still trying to figure out if the band is going to work.
I totally understand that it's not always realistic to find someone who can hit the ground running. It's a bad sign if they've already played together a couple times and he doesn't seem to be improving. You want to have evidence that he can listen and learn stuff. But if nobody's actually explained what you need from him, then maybe that's what's needed.
.
