Well John, I am no master at it...I consider myself an average player...I keep things pretty simple...strive more for accuracy and detail.

I do find, however that using the PB wheel adds that little "something" to a voice...and especially an SA voice(if it is one that we would usually bend).

I feel it can enhance a performance...but it is not necessary...we can play without ever using the wheel and still sound fine...the SA voices do provide some enhancing tricks on their own.

Congratulations on your S900...you won't get much sleep for the next few days.

Ian

John,

When you one day become a player, you’ll look back at what you said here and understand it better. I think Ian would tell you the same thing. It's not so much a question of do you want to or NOT want to use pitch bend...or....can you sound good and get by without using it…or…will the "pitch bend police" write you up if you don't use it?

It's about hearing an arrangement in your head (while you’re playing) and realizing it through PB. When I’m playing a song, I don’t just hear a flat trumpet line in my mind…I also hear where I want to PB notes and how it adds to my forward momentum of the song. It brings me and my playing to life and hopefully that transcends to the audience.

A good example (though not the only one) is St. Louis Blues. You really can’t play that effectively without PB. Another tune I do is Clyde McCoy’s Sugar Blues. The original is made up of bent notes. The song is so simple you have no choice. And then there’s every other song on the planet that benefits from PB.

That PB really helps get what’s inside of me OUTSIDE of me. I almost get a high when I bend a note. But that’s me….I just happen to have a fetish for PB the way some folks have a fetish for “smilies.”

Lucky

Mmmmmmm! Who could that be?

It seems to me there 2 basic types of pitch bending:

1. The virtuoso type where the hand is constantly going back to the wheel to
deliver bend patterns that are not practical to automate, and where the usual functions of the LH have to be compromised.


2. The more natural types of bend that occasionally happen at the beginning of
notes varying from those barely discernible scoops to lengthier/lazier - up to
1-2 semitone bends - up to pitch.

For me it is these that provide the impression there could be a real person
playing that horn or sax - as important as those other changes of attack and
timbre that can occur through playing technique.

And having to move the left hand over to the wheel every time spoils that impression (for me, as a player ).

So for certain instruments I create custom voices usually based on Ty2 onboard voices (although they don't have to be) which produce those type 2 graded bend effects triggered by velocity, different values of the latter often triggering a "legato" effect and timbre changes.

That way you get the extra realism in solo playing, and full BigBand ensembles become busy, appearing to come alive and all you have to do is play expressively leaving the left hand to do what it does (should do) best and without interfering with your natural rhythm (karma?) of playing.

It's certainly liberating and can be very inspiring if playing freestyle.

John

You wrote: “It's hard enough to just play & control an arranger & all it's features & functions all at the same time. All this while jumping off to a joystick also. The pedal you mentioned could be a viable option for sure leaving your hand available to play & manipulate buttons, flip pages or whatever."

After a certain amount of time (and if you keep pushing yourself) one day it all comes together. It's like when you're out in your car....you're simultaneously steering, talking to your passenger, changing radio stations, checking your rear view mirrors, LOOKING OUT FOR SPEED TRAPS (had to throw that in) and whatever else you do while driving. Think about it…you've been doing it so long it becomes 2nd nature! That’s what happens with playing.

Most of us don't even have to look when we reach for the "wheels." We’ve just come to know where they are from constant use!

"BTW my S900 arrived & I'm in arranger heaven WOW!"

Good for you...you've got 7 days and 7 nights to learn the profession now with no excuses.

BTW...I really appreciate your enthusiasm. I think it "kick-starts" a lot of us. It does me, at least.

Lucky

Ian,& Lucky2Bhere thank you ....The S900 is everything you said it would be and more, I can see why you praise it so much. Coming from the 3k the basics are pretty straight forward but it is so much more sound-wise & the WAV recorder works flawlessly. Your probably right on the no sleep....I am in the process of transferring and tweaking my 3k registrations, so far all is very good.

BTW, I agree with you on the take it or leave it on the PB. But I guess if you can use it correctly it would serve some purpose for sure, especially to the player mostly. I am confident that I will make this all happen & yes when it becomes second nature I'll know its time to give it a go out in the trenches. All of your advice & help was a big part of it for sure.



[This message has been edited by John DiLeo (edited 04-28-2008).]

John, I guess if you are planning to only learn what the 'average' listener notices, you might as well forget about learning the correct chords, words and melody for a song, as well...

The audience doesn't often know WHY it likes one player over another. The technical details are beyond them. But like they say "I can't tell good art from bad, But I know what I like.."

They don't need to understand how, or why you are doing something. They just need to like it. But if you base your learning about what YOU think the audience does, or doesn't understand, you are making a big mistake, IMO. It is easy to make false assumptions about what non-musicians like or not.

Let's face it, if these bends, or any other technical performance 'trick', are performed by those 'greats', including, of course the 'greats' on the instrument that you are emulating, well, they are not playing them because they go over a non-technical audience's head. They play them because a great bend, at the right time and place, is a EMOTIONAL experience that needs no technical knowledge whatsoever.

The technical knowledge, that's OUR job. We do the work, so they don't HAVE to think about it.

Anyone, by the way, that thinks that bending while you are playing a LH chord section is as good as when you are NOT, there's an easy test you can do. Record into your sequencer JUST the backing for a song you like to solo over. Now, play back the backing, and use the audio recorder (or another track in the sequencer) to record yourself playing the solo.

Now do the same thing, but play the chords and the solo at the same time. Listen to the two. Count how many times you were in the process of doing a bend when the chord changed, on the SMF backing version. You already know how many times you did it while you were playing it all live... ZERO!

For most players that learned in bands, you never have to think about this, but if you learn on arranger, you have to start using the sequencer, even if it is simply a copy of what your LH would have done, anyway, and you can finally get to understand the MASSIVE difference between playing bends when YOU (or the music) need them, and playing when you have a spare second to jump to the wheel and back.

Night and day, I'm afraid.

To be honest, most of the really juicy bend opportunities come DURING chord changes. That's what makes them so expressive - they transition from one mode to another. And these are the very ones you cannot do in arranger mode, so it's easy to assume that they are not as important as they are. But give the arranger a rest, sometimes, and just let your emotion allow you to play what YOU want, not what the arranger MAKES you play, and you can start to understand why all the REAL instrument players that you are emulating use those bends in the first place. Guitar players, sax players, violin players, fretless bass, horn players, you name it. If it CAN be bent, the good players DO...

Don't sell your audience (or yourself) short, John...

On this subject of how important is pitch bend: I found a sound file I made of myself demonstrating pitch bend for a talk I was doing a while back. The song was a big band oldie where I took a trumpet "ride" in the middle of it. Listening to it myself, I can see how lifeless it would be without PB.

It's about 20-30 seconds. I have no way to post it. If anyone would care to place it on a "downloading" site they have access to, I'll mail it to you as an attachment.

Lucky

The cool thing about the SA guitars is that you can get an expressive bend without using the wheel.

John...you'll get used the S900's neat features in time...it's a great instrument.

Sure it's a little harder using the wheel in arranger mode, but you can still use it enough to add expression to your lines.

Ian

And, of course, there's always the sequencer or audio recorder... (it's on there, so I GUESS it's OK to use it, Ian?! )

Even if you just use it to capture the backing for a song from the arranger section, and go no further, you gain the ability to use the bender when you need it. But add in the ability of Yamaha's to go seamlessly from arranger play to SMFs and back again without interruption, and you can continue to use the arranger mode for most of the song, and simply get the sequencer to play the backing you WOULD have used if you stayed in arranger mode, and gain the use of the bender for the ENTIRE solo, not just the bit the chords let you use.

Then back to arranger mode, no stopping...

Best of BOTH worlds (except for the Chord Sequencer!)

The trick is to not let ANY process railroad you into a style of play. Decide what the MUSIC needs, rather than HOW you want to play it, and your options open dramatically. But the best thing is your Yamaha lets you do BOTH systems with no interruption to the creative flow. Don't ignore this feature, or Yamaha might drop it like Roland dropped my Chord Sequencer (that few understood, either!)

Use it, or lose it!

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 04-29-2008).]