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How are people developing in their playing etc?
I started playing guitar at 16 (1977) and electric when I realised I couldn't sing pretty much a year later. Over the years I've experimented with different equipment in worship, starting off with simple rigs, moving on to processors in the 90s, then modellers in the early 2000s and back to simple valve amps and analogue effects. At Christmas I started learning to play bass again, but haven't used it in worship yet.
Most recently I've acquired a Guitar synth, and used it for the first time this morning, providing string fills behind picked guitar on the slower songs. Someone came up to me afterward and said she wondered where all the extra instruments had come from (I was alone). It's been great fun, and I'm really looking forward to my first sax or flute solo.
Does anyone else keep wanting to try new stuff, or do you prefer a quiet life, knowing what you like and liking what you know?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on -
I love the sound of panpipes, Irish stuff, and Indian flutes, with their glorious personalized chiff. A pipe organ is little more than a synthesized set of panpipes. The chiff is cut way back and is equal for every tone. I piano is a synthesized set of harpstrings; it is incapable of the many delicate variations of tone available to different ways of plucking the string (also true of the harpsichord). And since equal temperament (1722 & 1744 and thereabouts), no one in Europe or America has heard what an A Major chord actually sounds like. I've heard, from proponents of natural tuning, that it's like hearing heaven through clear glass.
But without the organ and without the equal temperament, we have no Bach, no Liszt, no Wagner (but we could have Baloche and Tomlin, at least)
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on
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That's like it is with keyboards. A keyboard is essentially an organ with zillions of "stops", some of which mimic various kinds of pianos. But unless you have a high-quality, wide-range and powerful amp, you'll get a penetrating, pushy midrangey sound (which is frustrating when you listen to the great stereo sound you get in the headsets and realize it isn't that way on the platform). Sustain can be weird on certain kinds of strings; and you may find yourself helpless with a tone that sounds great in one register of the keyboard but biting, harsh, or too soft on another -- with an acoustic instrument, all you have to do is play with sensitivity to bring out lines -- you never know if that little "bing" on a high note is going to bing, or BLAM!
Of course, on a piano you can't play a pad and reduce the percussiveness to 1%, either, or whip a cathedral organ out of your back pocket, or turn the keys into a Spanish guitar or a flute.
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Permalink Reply by Wayne Pau on -
>> whip a cathedral organ out of your back pocket, or turn the keys into a Spanish guitar or a flute.
I used to think like that. Especially with some of the advancements Yamaha Motif (ribbon controller) and Roland Gaia w/ D-beam been making in their models. Even to a extent things like newer "modellers"/PCM like Korg wave drum WD-X. Synth.
MIDI, after all the changes and enhancements isn't that realistic yet. After-touch, velocity sensitivity, ribbon controller, jog wheels, 5-way joysticks...at best to me it seems to Y "invoke" feelings like X.
Unfortunately, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Variety of sounds comes normally comes at the cost of quality of sounds. Sadly, that's what I find with my guitar rigs too.
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Permalink Reply by Toni on -
Wayne - I'm having fun with the guitar synth right now, and it's amazing the guys at the church when I play piano or sax. The guitar may be a good control system for synth sounds because the process of note creation is very much under the musicians control.
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on
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Same here. Remember cigar-box banjos? Total acoustic experience, though tuning them was a real pain.
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Permalink Reply by Toni on
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I understand - a lot of people feel that way, but for me and in my hands it's the other way round.
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on
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I began musical life as an organist, fascinated with the millions of tone colours a Hammond could produce. During services I'd play with one hand, pedals, and the other hand to maneuver the little drawbars as the music progressed, symphonically. For flexibility a B-3 way outperforms contemporary synthesizers -- a dozen subtle changes can be made in a single song without ever interrupting the tone, or pre-programming anything.
I'm a bit of a spontaneity freak; I've never played a piece the same way twice in a row, even in classical music (figuring that classical sheet music is only a freeze-dried impression the composer wrote down of something he had improvised).
Being an organist, I've never bought an instrument, only used those in church or a hand-me-down, so I've developed an attitude of looking for possibilities in the existing instrument, no matter how humble. There must have been SOME reason they invested money in building the thing! (exception: the Kimball and Lowrey organs).
When I encounter a Keyboard, the first thing I look to do is create a row of various piano-and-string combos, a brass patch for specialo occasions, and a set of guitar-friendly quasi-pianos (straight piano often sounds harsh and unnecessary when inserted into a matrix of electric guitars). I make sure there is something flutish with a cutting edge with which to make obbligatti, especially when they get into those repetitive songs, like "You Won't Relent."
Sometimes I enjoy just playing real acoustic piano because I am not tempted to fret about the "possibilities", but instead delve totally into the wonder of its instant response, 88-key stereo, infinite touch-sensitivity (humans have about 11 degrees of sensitivity available to their fingertips, synthesizers three, maybe five), and sustain mechanism that resonates with the entire worship band.
The only thing that beats the lovely resonance of a piano is singing in a stairwell. -
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