Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by IAA »

Johnny Cash's version of Hurt

Yes, that’s a wonderful version indeed, that piano has real depth and drive when it needs it. Great stuff.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by RichardT »

The Elf wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:57 pm Cinema Show. Quite simply perfection. It pulls me in every emotional direction from start to finish. If I can ever create those emotional extremes in my own music I will die a happy man.

For me, Cinema Show too, especially the live version on ‘Seconds Out’. Apart from the amazing beauty of the main instrumental theme, it has a fantastic sense of ‘architecture’ so that all the sections fit together beautifully and lead somewhere.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by tea for two »

blinddrew wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 9:14 pm This may seem snide or mocking but I promise you it's not.
As a non-keyboard player who occasionally tried to add keys to songs I was always over-doing things. So in terms of what's actually influenced my style, listening to the piano part in Johnny Cash's version of Hurt showed me how I could simplify things immensely but still have impact.

I'd go along with this. It's not snide nor mocking at all.

Johnny Cash version of Hurt, I first heard in 2003, became one of the soundtracks for my life for a while.

I've only ever made two Piano pieces that hurt me. They were done around 2009. I don't do more because I can't handle it. One of those Piano pieces I can't listen to it.
Most of my keys stuff since then is airy summery Max Middleton influenced.

A fair amount of my recent stuff can be easily played one handed and with one finger.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by tea for two »

RichardT wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:35 am
The Elf wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:57 pm Cinema Show. Quite simply perfection. It pulls me in every emotional direction from start to finish. If I can ever create those emotional extremes in my own music I will die a happy man.

For me, Cinema Show too, especially the live version on ‘Seconds Out’. Apart from the amazing beauty of the main instrumental theme, it has a fantastic sense of ‘architecture’ so that all the sections fit together beautifully and lead somewhere.

Dawned on me, and I don't know why it didnt before. Every now and then require others to nudge open a realisation as on this thread.
I hear Tony Banks composing playing as lightness of touch, jaunty, uplifting, because I hear it as Fairground music.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by wdsteele »

Can't be be sure how many times I pressed rewind on Jon Lords intro to Speed King , many many hundreds of passes I'm sure - I'm a lousy KB player but if I have any influencers at all I'd pick that.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by tea for two »

wdsteele wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 3:05 pm Can't be be sure how many times I pressed rewind on Jon Lords intro to Speed King , many many hundreds of passes I'm sure - I'm a lousy KB player but if I have any influencers at all I'd pick that.

I listened to this four times with your views WD in my mind.
There is an out there ness to it in my mind.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by wdsteele »

Yes , I guess so - was a teenager at the time and discovering the classic rock acts , plus we had an old Victorian bellow organ at home so could play my not vey good version to my hearts content - for me synths are wonderful things but a classic organ sound still gives me goosebumps.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by wdsteele »

Yes , I guess so - was a teenager at the time and discovering the classic rock acts , plus we had an old Victorian bellow organ at home so could play my not vey good version to my hearts content - for me synths are wonderful things but a classic organ sound still gives me goosebumps.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by Ben Asaro »

wdsteele wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:12 pm for me synths are wonderful things but a classic organ sound still gives me goosebumps.

Very much this. And good rock organ players are like hens teeth to find these days!
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by Arpangel »

BillB wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:59 pm That makes complete sense, Drew. I have sometimes heard guitar solos or fills to great songs and thought ‘I could play that!’. No Steve Morse ‘Tumeni Notes’ (which I love but couldn’t play in a lifetime)... No, just the right notes, well chosen and simply played. Very inspiring.

Yes, you could play the notes, but you’re not whoever that happens to be, the notes won’t be loaded, with the same feelings, and emotions.
I said what you just said, to a great old friend "I can play that" my friend said "you can’t, you’re not him" that has always stuck with me.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by BillB »

You're right Tony, but the point was not to play those notes. The point was to learn that a great instrumental contribution to a song or tune need not be complex or difficult, it can be simple and 'right', and as such, is within reach of less technically competent players.

Having said that, you are still probably correct because a competent player who can do complex can probably also imbue more feeling (timing, tonal nuances) into a simple phrase. Still, it is good to believe that one can make valid music without necessarily struggling to get to Grade 8.
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Re: Name one Keyboard track that influenced your Keys composition style the most

Post by Ben Asaro »

BillB wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:35 pmit is good to believe that one can make valid music without necessarily struggling to get to Grade 8.

I concur. Virtuosity is great, but let's not fetishize it. There is no talent, just hard work, something you want to say, and a fair dose of natural ability (which can be overcome with hard work).
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