Simplifying Rock Keyboards

Video Transcript

In this clip we're going to be talking about how to simplify what you play when you are playing with a group. Like we've said before, a solo piano or solo keyboard player has to fill up all the sounds by himself or herself. When you're playing with a group, you've got other people doing part of the work for you, you know, so it makes it a lot easier, well, not necessarily a lot easier but it does make it simpler, it makes the part simpler, you know, what you're going to be playing compared to what you would typically do as a solo, as a solo musician. So let's take a look at that piece, at the rip that we're using and let's simplify it. Like I showed you in the last piece, there are ways that you might change what you're playing based on what the other guys in the group are doing and in some cases that might just mean completely removing what you're doing. The bass part that we looked at here, right? The left hand, you might not even need to do that part just based on a bass player that's doing......or something to that effect, you know? So all of a sudden, if you imagine my left hand as the bass player, if you think about that being the bass player, then all you have to play is, it makes it a lot easier as far as what your part's going to be. Now the hard part is really thinking about what it is that fits, you know? But listening to the bass player, listening to what the guitar player is doing, if there's two guitar players, that means there's even more sonic space being taken up and you know, you only have so much to work with and you have to kind of find your way to fit in where no one else is fitting in, whether that's rhythmically, you know, or whether that' melodically like in that case. In some cases it's not even a matter of just doing it just out of the simplicity of it but it's there just to make it sound better. It's not because you're too lazy to play the left hand, it's because there's no room for it. It's just going to muddy up the sound, it's going to make everything less defined. So don't be afraid to simplify things. And you know a lot of the things that you'll play in a rock and roll keyboard context will be pretty simple. You know, you might just be doing something like this, you know, but in the context of the whole band, everybody else is holding down the rhythm of it and you become kind of the featured instrument, you know, so in a rock and roll setting, the keyboard player is really kind of like the icing on the cake. You know, the rhythm section of the drums and the bass and the rhythm guitar, those are providing the foundation and you're just adding some texture and some color and making what's happening that much more interesting.

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