JOHN.... I really did not think that you had forgotten our exchange agreement... Hopefully your life will slow down enough for awhile so that you can get a floppy and your snail mail address off to me soooooon?????

My bro, 14 months my senior, plays bagpipes, guitar, and I do not know what else....his hands are really crippled with arthritis...mine not so much... Bro still plays golf! I never could do that well enough to even justify lugging my clubs to the courses!

Others I know have also given up their music for various old age related reasons. My hands only hurt when I am NOT playing!

Yes, I certainly agree that we play differently for different circumstances...A solo guitarist who plays at high-end dinner places, mostly soft BB music, stops by once in awhile to visit and do music with me. I remove the guitars from my music and of course must play in his key and with very little beyond a soft drum, piano & sax... It is fun for me to have the challenge of playing with him... He has not been here for about a year so maybe it was not so great for him!

A delicious young man from Scotland has been here to visit and play music with me a couple of times... Mike, like my daughter is multi-talented and a real joy to play music with! His wife is a beginning banjo player. We have a great time together. I would love for them to live here or at least have our park as their home park. They live on the Isle of Wight (sp?) and winter here in the states in their RV that is parked in MO some-where....

Maybe you can talk Bob into buying the MotorHome you have for sale, or drive it out here to NM for a KB jam with me? There is very little/no humidity in our bright sunshiny days!

I like this thread very much. Thanks for starting it John...

Elizabeth

Is it possible to zip up the contents of a 7K floppy to be attached to a posting here for people to download and then unzip to a 7K floppy?

If there is Nigel.... I will need VERY detailed instructions! Also no special equipment!

I suspect sending and receiving floppies will be the easiest way for me to exchange music....

Elizabeth

Dear Gang,
For what it is worth, I follow the procedure that Bob uses. Each setup is for a specific song and are saved in a group of 14 or 15 with the name of the CD they are from plus the name of the song. They are a mixture of various styles, intros and ending utilizing anywhere from 8 to 12 panel memories. I don't have a foot-switch like Bob does, so I use Control Preset on the 3rd Bank of the Pads which lets me move forward and backward in the panel memories with 6 and 4 Pad buttons. This arrangement is not perfect if I need to use a Pad style,because I have to remember to change the next PM on the wheel. I put every style in the Composer for easy edit and of course always Save in the Expand mode. I have the contents of almost 50 CD's on each of 3 SD cards and since I no longer play dances, finding the song I'm looking for is quite easy in a concert setting.
Frank

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'Sharing Ideas that make your Song more Interesting' was the heading, and I would like to take this thread in that direction.

As a professional performer and entertainer most of my adult life, I have had to make my music interesting, to keep my audience's attention.

To make my life even harder, I rarely sing, other than when doing home recording, when I can use all the gizmo's, like my Helicon VH Machine, and I also still use a 1950's Tape loop echo, which I love, almost as much as my Valve Amps!! - Can anyone remember the lovely glow, and smell of those old 6V6 valves as they got hot ?? - Ahhh! - an almost forgotten era!
The majority of my work in later years was playing 'strict tempo' for Modern Ballroom Dancing.

The first asset for my music is non-musical. I 'win' the audience with 'patter' - Not 'And the next song I will play is 'So and So' written by 'So and So', and made famous by 'So and so'. I am talking about interaction between the Audience and yourself - Light hearted banter and repartee. The audience will WANT to hear my music! They love me, I have them in the palm of my hand !!

If you are the most miserable and anti social being on the planet, you become an actor, and are the most kindly and loveable person your audience has ever met!!

OK - off we go !!... A song has verses that are repeated over and over again - BORING!! So what can we, as musicians do, to relieve the boredom? ..... Start off nice and quietly, with just a single instrument leading - if its a piano, just single notes .. End of first verse ... Same again, but with right hand arpeggios, twiddles and trills, triad chords here and there, and build up towards a crescendo - end of second verse. Time for a 'Fill' here, while you set up (lets say) orchestra and Violin - another verse, a fill at the end of it, change to Brass section and Trumpet, transpose up a semitone, and give it some 'welly', heading towards the end of the verse with a massive crescendo, and while the 'Outro' plays, some little light twiddles in that key with your right hand. Just one of the many ways to 'build up' a song - adding as you go, keeping interest.
Vary this by building up to the penultimate verse, and go out quietly on the last one, potherwise the format of your music becomes stale and boring.. Using these methods plus whatever you can add to the above example, will make you sound more competent, more 'listenable', and most importantly get you more work !!

Here is a little example of 'variation' - Played on my FX20 Organ, that was new in 1983 and cost almost 6,000 pounds (9,000 US Dollars) - in todays equivalent due to inflation, at least twice that amount! I played it for over 15 years, and still regret selling it !!

Click Here ........ BLUE VELVET


Now and again, turn, or lift your head to look at the audience - my audience is always the clock or similar at the end of the hall or venue, and I smile, cast glances at it, and between songs talk to it !! People can put you off!

Playing Music is an art. Presenting your art is a job that you serve an apprenticeship to, and is much harder than learning or playing an instrument - Just as some players are 'Naturals' - so are Presenters. You present a performance.

I believe I was so lucky, as when I started, I played piano around the pubs (in the days when every pub had a piano, and employed the same pianist 3 or 4 nights a week). No different voices, just same old piano ssound. You HAD to be an entertainer! Then about 1965 we had electronic organs, then keyboards around 1980 which quickly got better and better, then finally, Karaoke, which killed everything!


Just like a good meal - Presentation and content go about 50% each, without good packaging your music will fail !!

Oh dear! I have waffled and reminsced again (its an old 'farts privilege!!), and possibly upset those who dislike 'chat' on the Forum !! I hope just one member finds my 'epistles' interesting and informative'.

Kind regards

John


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Elizabeth, there is nothing elaborate nor even difficult in what most of us do when we set up the keyboard for a song. And, after you do it a few times you would be surprised at how fast it can be done. I often start with a song that I had done previously that is similar in nature and uses a general rhythm pattern like I want for the new song. Then I change Composer memories and voicing so that the background and voicing is more uniquely suited for the song I am working on. Usually this only takes a few minutes. For me, as I use the setup several times I tend to notice little changes that I want. I make those changes and save the results. So the library is being tweaked often as the setup is being used. No one can teach you because only you know how you want the song to sound. It is just a matter of giving it a try.

You said; “Slicing up one song into 8 pieces just boggles my mind!”. I think that you do it all the time. You just don’t think about it that way. All of us who have played more than a couple of years know the things that John A talked about when he elaborated on the need for variations in voicing and rhythm as we played a song. That’s why we talk about using multiple changes as we play the song. I’m surprised that no one talked about bridging to a different key. You talked about moving between RT-1 and RT-2. When you do that, it is the same thing others do when they change to the next panel memory. You have sliced the song into another piece. Do that four times as you play the song and another four times as you play the song through a second time and you have sliced the song into eight pieces as you said other people do.

The fact that most of us make the changes by selecting a different panel memory as opposed to the way you (and I think John C) change voicing or rhythm is not all that important. As long as your method works for you, it is the right method. I just happen to prefer using panel memory changes with a foot switch because I often find that I want a change right when I am trying to change chords and am playing a fast right hand. It just isn’t physically possible for me any other way. And, I like the ability to change both rhythm and voicing (and sometimes tempo) with a single tap with my foot. The method that you use is almost identical to the way we used to do it with older keyboards before Technics gave us the super fast SD card to work with.

BOB....Yes of course you are correct... I do slice my songs up as I play. My method is just different than yours. That is the beauty of the Awesome 7K!! It is a machine for everyone to squeeze whatever is wanted into glorious music!

This is the very reason I suggested exchanging floppies! I am one of those extremely curious individuals...love to experience how things, and people work their magic!

I was the kid who took everything apart to see how it works!
Also was able to get all the parts back together leaving none out!

Thank you for your wonderful descriptions of how you create your very special music.

Elizabeth

I work similar to Bob. However, sometimes when I think I know of a saved tune that uses just the style I'm looking for, when I play it, more often than not, it isn't the 'masterpiece' I thought it was particularly if a few days/weeks have lapsed since I last played it, but it is fun re-tweaking it. Surprising how many variations you can get out of one tune....Anyone else have this problem I wonder?

Audrey

Audrey
I think playing around with different styles and tempos for the same tune is good fun and can be quite interesting.
Like you say what sounds great on one playing session doesn't always sound good the next time

Peter B

Hi Elizabeth, I am sure SD cards of 2mb capacity are still available down here. They still work in any!! KN7 as far as I know.
I will enquire, and if I am correct I will let you know and you may be able to buy them on the net. Otherwise I suppose I will have to snail mail them to you. Surely you would still like to stay in the 21st century. and avoid using floppies. Although I confess to having quite a collection myself. (They are becoming scarce here as well)!!
Ray
Back to the topic... I use basically the same system as others ....setting up and saving to Panel Memory for immediate recall using the footswitch