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Playing with keyboardist in the band

#21
My keyboardist is cool to play with. It's gotten better with time, I think. He loves pads and is getting into more electronic/synthy stuff, which generally aren't too bassy. Sometimes I actually ask him to play stuff an octive lower...more during slow parts where I really wanna get the air moving ya know..:) A bass guitar generally can't compete with the sustain of keys! Long live the rumble...
 
#22
b to g is yummy said:
My keyboardist is cool to play with. It's gotten better with time, I think. He loves pads and is getting into more electronic/synthy stuff, which generally aren't too bassy. Sometimes I actually ask him to play stuff an octive lower...more during slow parts where I really wanna get the air moving ya know..:) A bass guitar generally can't compete with the sustain of keys! Long live the rumble...
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+100
It's the "sound" of the band that counts, FOH.
 
#23
I play in a classic rock and oldies band. We just recently brought on a keyboardist. I was really nervous at first, for the reasons everyone has already mentioned. My personal concern was that we would sound "80's" or really cheesy/synthetic. When it all came together, the keyboards really brought a fullness and refinement to the band's sound that wasn't there before.
I guess it helps that the keyboardist is an excellent musician and has helped each of us (especially me, being a newbie) rise to a new level.
The bottom line-- I think that a good musician (even keys) is a welcome addition to any band.
 
#24
Being a keyboard player for about 20 years, some of these years as a professional, I have more or less never stumbled in to a situation where I had have clashes with the bass and it became a problem. Often simply because my hands where always on at least two keyboards playing different things at the same time ...

It can become tricky when it comes to piano stuff where you need the piano bass to be a part of the rhythm (gospel/blues etc.), but if the player just listen to the bass and vice versa, that can become VERY neat in the end, piano bass and bass guitar together sounds awesome in a PA ..

And for the moments of "pad lands" when you want the nice landscape filmish feeling of having a pad floating with pad bass as well, most often the keys can just follow the root chords, and the bass takes care of the rest ...

Keys and guitars together can be a really awesome story as well, there's nothing that beats the funky feeling of a guitar and an organ/rhodes sharing the rhythm space and taking changes on the fills .. that's rocknroll!!!

:)

D.Don
 
#26
JimK said:
Playing piano in a 'solo' environment vs. a band situation is different.
The good ones already know that.

Something just as bad is the guitarist that voices his chords so that the ROOT is always 'bassy' & loud.
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+1 to all that. Even worse is when the guitarist (often beginners) don't know they should not play lower notes than the root, for instance the E or G on the E string when they play a C chord. That makes things muddy.

I love to have a keyboardist in the band. It opens up for a lot of music that don't sound right without one. I'm blessed to have a twinbrother who is a pro keyboardist to play with from time to time. He knows what his role is in a band, and you never get the answer "I can't play that" from him. :)
 
#27
There are WAYYY too many keyboardists out there who overplay and especially who get in the way of the bassist.

Take 90% of them, cut off their left hands and they might be of some use in a band situation. I can handle the bass very well myself, thank you very much.

And then of course you have the hacks that think that "any" D chord will work and are playing one form of D chord that's totally clashing with the guitarist's D chord. Ugh. Or the ones who have totally no clue what "sound" to dial up for a particular song (B-3 organ on an 80s cheeze ballad, or strings on a fast-moving song just bogging everything down).

OTOH I have played with a few (very few) truly good keyboardists and that can be a pretty good time.
 
#28
My experience has been a lot better with keyboard players than guitarists, in general.

Any keyboardist that has done any decent amount of jazz work will know how to comp. and stay out of the way of the guitarist and bass player. Usually a lot more conflict will occur between the guitarist and KB. In many cases, the gtr is at fault. I tactfully suggested recently to a rhy gtr that he didn't need to 6 string Freddie Green every song (and please turn down also).

Warning Signs: Keyboardist that can only play as-written parts from sheet music. In this case, you are going to get whats on the paper, unless you have a sit-down.
 
#29
Deacon_Blues said:
+1 to all that. Even worse is when the guitarist (often beginners) don't know they should not play lower notes than the root, for instance the E or G on the E string when they play a C chord. That makes things muddy.

I love to have a keyboardist in the band. It opens up for a lot of music that don't sound right without one. I'm blessed to have a twinbrother who is a pro keyboardist to play with from time to time. He knows what his role is in a band, and you never get the answer "I can't play that" from him. :)
Click to expand...

AMEN BRO!
 
#31
Every practice at some point we have the "that sounds like mud" conversation and like James brown I say "Get up" to the keyboard player. Dude use your octave button or something I'am holding it down. How about Harmonizing! Its a five piece band. I basically use the B and E strings exclusively in an attempt to create some room in our music.

I had to vent.
 
#32
One thing I can say about a crappy situation turning out good... when I started playing at my church a few years ago I couldn't read music. Well I wound up doing a lot of work with the choir, whose pianist ONLY read sheet music and played the bass parts, as written, to the note. So, since I wasn't going to win that battle the only way I could make it work was to figure out what she was playing, which meant teaching myself how to read music. Now I can read traditional music (not just charts) reasonably well and have gotten some pretty fun and profitable gigs out of it (i.e., pit orchestra jobs) that I would have never gotten if I couldn't read.
 

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