Hand Independence in Improvisation

May 8,2012
By Dan Tepfer ART TATUM ONCE TOLD A YOUNG, BOASTING BUD POWELL, “LOOK, YOU COME IN HERE TOMORROW, and anything you do with your right hand, I’ll do with my left!” Tatum had incredible hand independence, yet more than half a More...

The Fine Art of Phrasing

May 8,2012
By Armen Donelian PHRASING IS AN OFTEN OVERLOOKED BUT INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT ASPECT OF KEYBOARD performance, where two worlds merge: science and emotion. Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, and Debussy are just a few classical pianists More...

Live on a Laptop: Top Tips for Hassle-Free Gigs With Virtual Instruments

May 8,2012
Fig. 1. The free utility DPC Latency Checker. Left: A Windows laptop with WiFi enabled and system power plan set to balanced. Right: What happens when you disable WiFi and change the system power plan to high performance. More...

The Art of Synth Soloing: Filter FUNdamentals

May 8,2012
Fig. 1. The Filter Mod page in a sound program on the Korg Kronos. AMS means “alternate modulation source.” I’ve assigned the up direction of the joystick (JS+Y) to open up the filter cutoff and the down direction (JS-Y) to close More...

Monster Leads Part 2

May 8,2012
By Francis Preve LAST MONTH, WE LOOKED AT A CLASSIC APPROACH TO MAKING MONSTER LEADS VIA LAYERING AND blending multiple synths playing the same riff. For the second part of this tutorial, we’ll look at a more complex way of More...

French Twists

Apr 9,2012
By Francis Preve ONE OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC’S MOST VIRAL VIDEOS IN 2011 WAS “POP Culture” by French whiz kid Madeon. He mashed up over 30 tracks in three minutes using Ableton Live. The essential technique was using tiny More...

The Art of Synth Soloing: Beyond the Whole-Step Bend

Apr 9,2012
By Jerry Kovarsky LAST MONTH WE STARTED TO EXPLORE SOME REPEATED NOTE EXERCISES, learning to play a “real” note and then repeating it with a bent note. This month, we’ll expand on those concepts and, most importantly, begin More...

6 Ways to Play Like Otis Spann

Apr 5,2012
By Clifford Carter OTIS SPANN MAY HAVE BEEN FROM JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, BUT HE MADE HIS name as a Chicago bluesman, and was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. On Muddy Waters tracks like “I’m Your Hoochie More...

Go Fourth!

Apr 5,2012
McCoy Tyner’s name is almost synonymous with the creative use of fourths in jazz. By George Colligan DURING MY FIRST YEAR IN COLLEGE, A FELLOW STUDENT SHOWED ME FOURTH voicings on the piano. These are More...

The Keyboard Know-It-All: Tips and Tricks to Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better

Apr 5,2012
It’s no secret that we hope every issue of this magazine helps you do everything better. This month, though, we’ve assembled a gargantuan grab bag of tips on everything from setting up your live keyboard rig to getting the most More...

The Art of Synth Soloing: Pitch-Bend as Manual Vibrato

Apr 18,2012
Fig. 1. Logic’s ES2, with CC16 (our ribbon/X-axis) set up as Ctrl C, routed to Pitch123 (to control all three oscillators at once). You set range or depth by moving the orange and green triangles. By Jerry More...

Monster Leads, Part 1

Apr 18,2012
By Francis Preve A TIME-TESTED TECHNIQUE FOR CREATING A MASSIVE SOUND IS TO KEEP YOUR OVERALL TRACK VERY simple and focus on three components: punchy drums, bombastic bass, and a simple but massive lead riff that remains More...

Think Like a Section

Apr 17,2012
Earth, Wind, and Fire famously used a large horn section to great effect. By Brian Charette KEYBOARDISTS HAVE AN INHERENT UNDERSTANDING OF CHORD CONSTRUCTION AND HARMONY. With a little work, we can parlay More...

Strategies for Supporting Singer-Songwriters

Apr 17,2012
By Josh Dodes FEW GIGS ARE MORE CHALLENGING AND REWARDING FOR A KEYBOARDIST THAN PLAYING BEHIND singer-songwriters. More often than not, my goal in this role is to add richness and texture to the music, while remaining More...

Improvise With Intervals

Apr 17,2012
By Alan Pasqua INTERVALLIC IMPROVISATION LEADS TO A MORE INDIVIDUAL STYLE OF PLAYING. IT CAN HELP YOU find your own voice by forcing you to avoid familiar avenues and improvisational habits. I discovered this style by More...

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