Nice video about this keyboard legends home video..




Watched it and from his comments it was obvious there where some instruments he actually never used.. espescially his comments on the Roland top model made me think..

I wish he would demo the Tyros 5 !!! maybe then kids would be interested in it.

From what I've seen of how he uses synths and arpeggiators, I don't really think there's an arranger made he would go for.

I'll bet he would do things on an arranger that would blow your mind....just sayin'

If paid enough money, I am quite sure he would..!

But let's face it... Jordan can afford any keyboard he wants, and has probably played everything there is (he is a NAMM regular).

Ever seen him use an arranger on stage?

One of the best performance of piano playing on youtube is the well known time crunch composed and interpreted live by Jordan Rudess. Strangely there isn't any cover findable in youtube , why ? Because there is no actual score or sheet music nor midi file of this song. The eventual artists that would like to cover it will have to make it by ear ...
This song is the first track of the popular Rhythm of time ( 2004 ) by Jordan Rudess. The cover is performed by myself , Julien Hanck , 15 years old, though this is my eleventh year of keyboards. I play a YAMAHA W7 workstation , a KORG R3 vocoder and synthesizer , a Casio CTK5000 professional arranger keyboard. The sound effects and drum backing track are triggered using Propellerhead Reason 4 . I play two solos in the song !

Reading the blurb under the video, is this video actually JR playing or is it by this 15-year-old Julien Hanck? It's almost ambiguous from the statement. I was sort of hoping JR's goatee would dip into the top of the frame, just to confirm it was him.

Like Diki, I doubt Rudess would bother much with arrangers, not his bag at all. In that league of ability, and playing arranger, look no further than Marco Parisi.

I remember an interview with rudes that states that sometimes using an arranger when looking for new ideas..... But all this might have chnaged after he got acces to karma on his oasys

Agreed. Some top guys no doubt use an arranger just for 'sketching' purposes, but that's about it.

It's worth posting this again . Here is rudess playing " arranger style " . We talked about this here http://www.synthzone.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/291906/jordan_rudess_arranger_style

Question : what do you think he would be capable of doing with a real arranger with styles he customised himself ?

The truth is we have not really even begun to explore the capabilities of arranger keyboards. We have seen the incredible performances by marco parisi . But I'll bet if he really wanted to let loose with an arranger it would blow our minds . It's all about the creativity of the musician and to a much much lesser degree the limitations of the instrument .

Much depends on the specific arranger; Marco Parisi plays Korg arrangers, that have a lot of funky/contemporary/fusion styles, but can you imagine Jordan Rudess playing the "Organ World" section of the Tyros 5, like in this YouTube demo?



I am not saying that the Tyros 5 is a bad instrument, mind you! It's only the way sometimes is marketed, and demo's like this other one

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make it seem like an instrument for old farts (there: I said it!)
To clarify further my thoughts, I think that Yamaha should pay big money guys like Tostie, because at least he shows that the Tyros can play also contemporary music!

make it seem like an instrument for old farts (there: I said it!)
To clarify further my thoughts, I think that Yamaha should pay big money guys like Tostie, because at least he shows that the Tyros can play also contemporary music! [/quote]


Tyros 5 is a great instrument created for the 50+ men in europe which need a hobby, love music and are non technical.. Its a boystoy for grown up men.

They play a little on it, but most importantly they are collectors of new sounds and new styles, and this is where Yamaha excells..


Korg PA3x is a different story they aim at the more professional musicians that love to tweak and tune whats in their box.. this must be more inspriring to Rudess..

However with Oasys and Kronos having Karma onboard, there currently is no reason why Rudess would need an arranger. No they are not arrangers, but they inspire creativity ... and thats the only reason why he would ever touch an arranger.. just to test some new mellodies with a flexible background accomp that follows his chords.

I have to disagree with your dreamer. It doesn't matter what the arranger is ,whether its Yamaha or Korg or Roland or casio .It's all about the creativity of the user what they intend to do with the instrument and how they use the instruments technical abilities to express their creative abilities .

Let's break an arranger down to its base components and take out all its musical content. What you have left is an incredible keyboard with brilliant realistic real world sounds. You also have a functionality that until quite recently no other keyboard has and that is the ability to prerecord sequenced pieces of music, bass drums guitars strings that will change chords appropriately depending on the chords you a might play. You can even program instrument to play back different sequences of notes based upon the particular chord variation that you might play, four example minor ninths, thirteenths diminished chords augmented chords etc . You can segment the song you want to compose into verses, chorus, beginnings, endings you name it if you can think it you can create it !

If Yamaha create demonstrations for old folks they can just as easily create ones for young folks . Using exactly the same instrument !

We need to stop relying upon how we see instrument demonstrsted in the hands of people are demonstrating for a particular market group. Look beyond that, and look at the actual potential of the instrument. Every time I do that and I mean every single time, I resist the urge to buy the next arranger because my current Arranger Is The Next Arranger if I have the imagination for it.

I've only once seen Bert Smorenburg play an arranger when he demoed making a style on the S950 - I don't think they like being confined or defined By the arranger.

BTW the Time Crunch posted is clearly labeled "COVER"!

Look... this whole thread is about Jordan Rudess; well, he is so technically proficient that could record whole songs in a matter of minutes, meaning that he could record all the parts (including the drums track) in a single take from the beginning to the end, no matter how complex they could be.
This is to say that he has absolutely no need to record single snippets of a song like intro, variation 1, 2, 3, 4, fills or ending the way a common mortal would do (maybe in step mode).
And this is exactly what Rudess does with his Kronos: he pre-records whole tracks and then plays along them in his live concerts/shows. So, why in the world would he play an arranger keyboard?
And why would he like being associated with an instrument that has buttons with labels that read "Ballroom" or "Ethnic/Folk"? These guys have an image to look after and their followers can be unforgiving: you make a "faux-pas" and you are screwed for good.
There has been only one instance when I saw a famous artist playing an arranger: it was two years ago at a Winter Namm. Peter Baartmans was doing a demo of a Tyros 4 and all of a sudden Keith Jarrett appeared behind him and, after the dumbfounded Baartmans gave him his seat, began to play some of the scat voices, doing also a decent EW&F cover.
But Jarrett is sponsorized by Yamaha and was there to try the new Yamaha grand pianos; I bet that some Yamaha executive had the idea of asking him to sit at the Tyros for everyone to see... but I doubt that Jarrett did it for free!

Here are two videos referring to the event; BTW they were posted by Scott Yee:

Did you look at the clip of what I referred to dreamer ? He is playing arranger style on a kuzwiel keyboard. He did not sequenced the entire song from beginning to end. He programmed parts just like an arranger . Then he brought in those style parts as and when he wanted to live and not in a linear sequenced order like a typical sequenced backing track.The point I was making is that it does not matter what the name is on the keyboard . What matters is who is playing the keyboard and what their creativity is . Look at the clip .

PS Keith Jarrett actually looked quite impressed by the sound of the tyros and I would bet you he didn't even know it was capable of making those kind of sounds. I'll go further, and bet you that he isn't aware of the capabilities of the tyros keyboard in terms of its style/groove making capabilities either. But it's a great clip !

Spalding,
I looked at the clip and felt kind of sorry for Rudess; I guess that Kurzweil made him an offer he couldn't refuse to showcase the K 2600, but to me the clip would have been much better without all those annoying shouts in the background.
That said, I have seen that you already had your fair share of replies in the other thread, so I don't understand why you are re-opening this debate here. I will give you the same answer I have already given before: Rudess has no need of an arranger to showcase his talent because he can record on the fly whatever backing track he needs and for his purposes a workstation with top notch sounds like the Kronos is just perfect. The arranger, on the other hand, becomes a must for people (like me) who otherwise would need a week just to record a decent drum and bass track.