Any Keys Players? - Thinking of learning

monquixote

I've been pondering learning to play keys for ages. 

I get so fed up with trying to find keys players for bands and even when you find them most of them are shit and use horrible artificial parpy sounds.

The attitude I always take is DIY and it's why I've learned drums and had singing lessons in the past. I was thinking if I had some keyboard lessons I could double on keys for some of the bands I play with and it would add another string to my bow (not to mention do good stuff for my theory knowledge). I'm not expecting to get really good just enough to cover some basic pads and simple melody parts. I'd go and get proper lessons as I think that makes a big difference.

So the questions are ... 

am I crazy to even think about this?

How long is it likely to take to get to a position where it doesn't sound like total amature hour?

What sort of thing should I buy that's not crazy expensive, or massive, good to learn on, and giggable?

Fretwired

You could opt for a guitar synth .. I've played a Roland guitar synth live.

I taught myself to play keyboards to support my recording work .. not exactly Rick Wakeman but I can put down a decent backing track. I bought one book and a full sized midi keyboard and hooked it up to my DAW. I think you have to decide what you want to achieve - simple chords are quite easy to learn ..

monquixote

I do a certain amount of that at the moment as I use a Boss Overtone for covering organ parts, but I've never really fancied the whole MIDI guitar bit. 

I'm pretty sure about what I want to do which is cover basic keyboard parts in a band and also play and sing simple piano songs (something like The Scientist by Coldplay).

stickyfiddle

MIDI guitars playing keyboards always feels very wrong to me. It's extremely hard to play a guitar in a way that sounds like a piano - 6 strings at fixed intervals (whatever tuning you use!) compared with 10 fingers and 88 keys...

I had piano lessons as a kid, and have an electric piano at home. I picked it back up fairly quickly, and while I'm nowhere near as good as on guitar, I can work out simple parts and play them within an hour or 2 now, without too much work. 

Tbh it's not hard to get to a basic standard assuming a certain pre-existing musical competence that I know you already have from your band's vids. The notes and chords are the same, it's just a question of learning how to play them on a piano compared with a guitar. You won't be playing Springsteen or the twiddly bits in Sweet Home Alabama, but bashing out a Killers synth part is easy enough

Roland

Chords come easy because you already know the notes. Ditto scales. I started to learn keys about two years ago. What I've found difficult is two hand coordination, and the twiddly stuff. This will come with time and practice I hope. Given that many songs just need basic chords, or repetitive motifs, it shouldn't be too difficult to get to a point where you can double on keys.

Danny1969

I play keys in 2 bands. It does add another dimension and really opens up new choices of material. 

Most keys stuff used in a rock \ pop context tend to be right hand chords with some left hand bass notes, you generally don't need to arp up and down 4 octaves with both hands unless your playing solo. So it doesn't take long to sound good enough to play simple accompaniment in a band context

At school we were taught to play backing arpeggios with our left hand while playing the lead line with our right and that is a great exercise to practice. Stuff like The House of the rising sun, Nights in white Satin etc. It can be a bit like learning the drums in as much as you need to accomplish more than one task at once and sometimes one hand is playing 4's and one hand 8's etc. 

   

bigjon

I went the other way, ten years of piano before I picked up a guitar. But the head start was enormous, and I'm sure it would be the same in the other direction. I got to a basic level of performance competence (playing acoustic guitar at a church service) in 3 weeks.

exocet

I reckon its entirely possible, I'm starting to think along the same lines myself.

I started out playing Piano many many years ago - I think that providing you just want to add some chordal backing / simple riffs that you could pick it up quite quickly. One thing that does put me off however is starting off on the "gear chase" again

PolarityMan

monquixote said:

How long is it likely to take to get to a position where it doesn't sound like total amature hour?

Actually i think being a beginner might put you above actual keys players in terms of usefulness. A lot of keys stuff is really really simple, single note or octave pad type stuff. On the rare occasion i've played with keys players they overplay even more than guitarists do...bass melody plus right hand chords with melodic runs all tried to shoe horn into a sound that already has bass, guitars and vox.

If you get good at sound selection and are willing to serve the song i reckon you could be useful from a band perspective within 10 mins of picking up a keyboard!

EricTheWeary

Wisdom to @polarityman as keyboardists tend to learn to play two handed versions of everything whereas quite often that's not needed ( and how many pop records had monophonic synths on them so a one finger melody line is all you need). EricJr, for example, has quite a good ear and can pick out a simple, recognisable melody line very quickly on our keyboard - and I suspect Monq could- but couldn't get his head around playing three chords and the melody in lessons.
My pet hate is keyboardists who say 'I have a sound for that' and call up teeth grinding brass/ strings/ hurry gurdy presets. I'd rather they just make classic keyboard sounds - piano, organ, clavinet, electric piano, mono synth noises- otherwise you are quickly into something painfully cheesey.

monquixote

Yep, so many wisdoms there. 

In previous bands I've had people who insist on trying to double the bassline all the time with their left hand, but play it sloppily and clash with the bass player making the whole track into a total mess.

My ultimate pet hate is people using fake instrument sounds instead of keyboard sounds. In one of my previous bands the keyboard player would insist on using synth electric guitar sounds (surely the worst sound on a keyboard) when covering guitar lines despite my begging him to use a clav or an overdriven organ sound etc. I also had a guy who continually played horrible sounding synth brass lines even though we had a brass section!

rich75

Although I'm predominantly a guitarist I do play keyboard on a few songs in our set and it definitely opens up more possibilities for us. I've tried the guitar synth thing in the past and it never really worked that well for me, so in my experience it works better with a 'real' keyboard. I completely agree with everyone who has said that it's good to keep the keyboard parts relatively simple - I'm very much in the left hand bass notes and right hand chords/melody camp!

As for equipment I've tried to keep it as inexpensive and portable as possible (given that I also have a guitar rig to transport to gigs), and I've ended up with a Yamaha MX49 through a Yamaha DXR10 powered PA speaker - it doesn't take up too much room on stage (or in the car) but it can sound massive. 

thecolourbox

Interesting discussion this. I played classical piano for 12 years before i even looked at guitar, and have had to relearn some things when ive played anything modern (i don't like much piano in pop music) so I understand the crossover but in the other direction

I wouldn't think you'd have any problem to be honest, especially if you aim for reasonable practical targets. I think your approach of learning it to fit in a band will put you at an advantage, because you'll learn to play what fits rather than folks like me who learn to fill the sound as a solo instrument.

Practically speaking, technique wise, the key is learning scales and touch and the control thereof, though the touch is much less important if playing synth as it often makes no difference (i play a church organ and that's the same, no touch sensitivity at all). Its a visual instrument, like the guitar, so to play higher you move to the right etc, which helps getting your muscle memory around the keys into your head.

Like somebody said above, keyboardists like to double the baseline with their left hand, but this is not helpful. Unless you are the Doors. This helps you as to start with you probably only need to concentrate on your right hand to start with.

I'd love to learn to use my Microkorg synth usefully so if anybody has any tips for that, I for one would be very interested...

JAYJO

Beta Riffstation (free) gives you the choice of Guitar, Ukele or Piano chords. It loads the tune you want to learn from youtube and you can learn from that. It uses Maj,min,maj7 min7, etc limited voicings, its free and might be worth a look.

axisus

rich75 said

I completely agree with everyone who has said that it's good to keep the keyboard parts relatively simple - I'm very much in the left hand bass notes and right hand chords/melody camp!

That's what I do. It can work extremely well if you get good at it

TTony

Two things to add.

1.  I've often had similar thoughts.

2.  I remember the amount (lots) of practice my little sister used to have to put in.  And she was still crap.

When I remember (2), I re-assess (1).

You'd need a good teacher, and have you got the time?

Flink_Poyd

I used to dabble with electronic music and got rid of my midi keyboard years ago. After taking up guitar I'm interested in getting one again to make backing tracks/general plonking but due to limited space I'll be buying a 25 key one, plus I don't want to worry about leaving it with the computer when the kids are on it. Probably get something cheap like an Akai LPK25 for start unless there's anything better for £40.

axisus

TTony said:

You'd need a good teacher

Not necessarily, it depends on what you want to achieve. My 14 yr old daughter has been teaching herself with an iPod and Youtube for about 6 months and I'm quite amazed at how far she has got with no other input.

monquixote

TTony said:

Two things to add.

1.  I've often had similar thoughts.

2.  I remember the amount (lots) of practice my little sister used to have to put in.  And she was still crap.

When I remember (2), I re-assess (1).

You'd need a good teacher, and have you got the time?

I'd get a good teacher because I'm sufficiently limited in time now that I can't afford to waste a minute doing things that aren't productive. 

Do I have enough time?

Probably not, but it's something I'd really like to do as aside from the band thing it's been a lifelong aspiration to be able to play keys and I'd also like to have a keyboard in the house for the kids to learn on if they so wish. That being the case it would make sense to learn it so I can give them some pointers without having to immediately resort to lessons for them. 

I would hope that it's really only the mechanics that I'll need to learn as I already know the chords, scales, timing etc that I'd have to get down. I'm quite capable of programming a keys part with a piano roll on a sequencer. The main limitation I imagine would be that I can't read music which seems to be a more significant hurdle compared to guitar.

When I've tried in the past I've gone the MIDI controller route, but I think I want something standalone as without the immediacy of switch on then play it won't get used.

PolarityMan

TTony said:

Two things to add.

1.  I've often had similar thoughts.

2.  I remember the amount (lots) of practice my little sister used to have to put in.  And she was still crap.

When I remember (2), I re-assess (1).

You'd need a good teacher, and have you got the time?

I think it's pulp who have a keyboard player famous for only using 1 finger?

Flink_Poyd

axisus;561157" said:

TTony said:You'd need a good teacher





Not necessarily, it depends on what you want to achieve. My 14 yr old daughter has been teaching herself with an iPod and Youtube for about 6 months and I'm quite amazed at how far she has got with no other input.

Any idea who she uses for lessons on YouTube?
Had a quick look yesterday and couldn't quite find the keys equivalent to Justin Guitar