Originally posted by The Leans:

I'm Colin Leaney IThe Leans), and I live in Birmingham, U.K.

I'm a very young 73yrs old, play by ear, can't play or read a note of music, but thoroughly enjoy making multi-track recordings. .

Cheers, Colin

Colin I find your post refreshing, nice.

My name, John Cintorino. Started my music career as a Guitar player. Played professionally since I was 21, I am now 73.
My first keyboard was a Psr55, then a Psr6300 with a lid that closed like the KN7000. Since then it has been Technics starting with the KN1000 right up to my KN7000.
For many years I study Guitar with as many teacher as I could find. Scales, chords, and arranging ect. --- but I only took part of this knowledge to my keyboard, I wanted a refreshing freedom from the scales and arpeggio's delivery.From my mind/heart to my fingers, Amen.

I am playing pro keyboard since 1983. It is great to be able to read music and also to play by ear, it's the best of both worlds. I sometimes wonder what the fuss about reading music is all about, in my teachimg days I taught music to 5 and 6 year olds.
As for me, the music is on my stand only as a gentle remender. I feel reading does take away from your playing.
I played with an accordion player who had to read music. Evry song he struggled to turn pages with his nose buried in what he was reading. One day in the middle of the set, while he was playing, I took his music away,from that point on he played without his music book.
I live in West Palm Beach, Florida --and the weather today is fantastic, beautiful, thank God.
My joy is making my KN7 sounding like the real thing,a real band/orchestra. Setting instrumentation, volume balance, and the best style -- I love big band and latin.

My next move is to join Cees site, I think that man is special, he's doing everything with class. IMHO

Enjoy this day, John C.

Evenin' All,
My name is Peter. I'm 75 and threequarters - certainly not the youngest of you but not I suspect the oldest. Since retirement in 1988 I've lived half way up a mountain in Snowdonia National Park in North Wales UK and when I sit at the keyboard it can truly be said the hills are alive....
I had 3months of piano lessons interrupted by the war and not resumed until around age 40 when I had the urge to play again. From the pre-war lessons I was able to relate written notes to the keyboard and on a friend's advice bought Hanon's Virtuoso Excercises. Never achieved Virtuoso standard but enought to give independent finger movement and play scales and arpeggios. For about 10 years I enjoyed making music mixing classics with arrangements by people like Andre Previn, Shearing, Peterson but increasingly frustrated that I could never reach their standard. Could manage Chopin's Minute Waltz quite accurately but it took me nearly 4 minutes. In the late 70's while in a Departmental Store heard an organ and was hooked on the sound and accompaniments so the piano was replaced by a Yamaha C55. Technically found this much easier to play - chords only with left hand and melody on upper manual, but initially faced a problem. Having only played from written scores I had no idea what chords were and as most music from organs came in busker form I had to learn chords - at all chord changes, look up the appropriate group of notes to play left hand. It was a long slow process but after a few months the left hand automatically formed the right shape. Although the number of styles on the Yamaha was limited, no means of adding more, I learned that by pressing two or more of the manual rhythm buttons together you could mix and make some quite interesting rhythms... Also, the manual bass pedals could be used to over ride the auto bass which helped variety. The Yamaha also had a built in rotating Leslie type speaker which was very impressive. I later found that the Hammond people stopped Yamaha from using this speaker in subsequent models and the electronic tremolo/chorale was pretty pathetic, as it was in most organs of that era until the sampled versions became available.
The Yamaha was replaced by an Elka which had nice sounds but very unreliable, kept breaking down. Then, coming up to retirement I bought me a present of a Yamaha HS8, quite something. Problem was that the promise that Yamaha made that " you need never buy another organ" didn't quite come true. The additional sounds and styles were very limited, and expensive, and the styles turned out to be just drum patterns.
After a few years I heard about expanders and bought me a Technics SMAC1200 and midi'd this to the HS8. This little box was a revelation, no need to say more. As I never seemed to use the HS8 sounds or styles, this organ went and was replaced by a Korg i3 and together with the SMAC, music life was pretty good. Came the Technics KN3000 and life got even better. Eventually changed this for a very disappointing Yamaha PSR8000, sounds OK but styles very bland and addition style cards no better so this was quickly replaced by the KN6000 and now the 7000.
Was going to add to the "by ear" debate but have been called away and if you can bear it will come back later.

Peter

My name is David,I'm well in my fifties!and I've lived in Teddington,Middlesex with my wife and two Daughters for about 20 years.I'm a pro percussionist/drummer(working!),my hobbies are flying light aircraft,golf,and exploring the myriad facilities and sounds of the truly wonderful KN7K.I have on organ workstation set up with pedals etc,it seems churlish not to with all those great classic organ samples!I've had the pleasure of playing Technics since the U60 era through EX30 and KN5000 et al.
Cheers to all,David.

Hi All,

My name is Derek.I'm 81 years young I own a KN7000 having traded a MS60 Solton in exchange.
In the past I have had two Technics Organs
( A U50 then aU90)
Before that a Gem organ but my first organ was a Yamaha BK5.

I have also had a number of accordions.

I play by music (one line + chord symbols),
memory, and ear.

I live in Devon near Barnstaple having moved from Essex 17 years ago.

My wife and I are members of "The Barnstaple Organ and Keyboard Club" We meet every fortnight,and 4to5 times during the season,
we have a members night when those members who are asked to play either the club organ or bring their own keyboard.

Ho Derek, At last someone admitting to be older than me!
On this discussion about ear playing. My Dad could only play by ear and could faithfully reproduce any tune complete with all correct chords. He played using mainly black notes (probably Fsharp) cos he said it was easier. Most of us would I suspect shyaway from that key. I can only play from a score, altho I can pick out virtually any tune on single notes pretty accurately (as I suspect most, if not all of us can do) but cannot find the appropriate chords, so I would guess that most ofus are earplayers in that sense. The lucky ones, like my Dad, can just do it properly without knowing how. On the other hand I believe that in music colleges the students are taught to improvise, which in my book is playing by ear. Some years back I bought a couple of books promising to teach me to play by ear but it didn't work for me. Perhaps I didn't try hard enough or am just too thick.....
What puzzles me is how blind pianists manage. I remember an American concert pianist ( think it was Alec Templeton or something similar)back in the forties playing the complete Rhapsody in Blue with orchestra. George Shearing, blind from birth, can compose, play any tune and obviously improvise. And I remember a blind piano tuner I once knew who was also a pretty good player.
As I said I can only play with the score in front of me. Simply can't remember the music and wish that I could,and that I could improvise and play like Peterson, Garner, Shearing et al. Perhaps in the next life???

Peter

It is good to hear from so many of you regarding where you live, what you play and some general information about yourself. It is my hope that many more of you would add to this thread, that we might all get to know each other better We all have more in common then you might be aware of
Best to all,
Bill the Bebop

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BEBOP
Senior Member SYNTHZONE FORUMS Retired Moderator of Technics Forum
http://www.synthzone.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=25
Bill Forrest in SAN JOSE, CALIF. USA
ICQ # 562519
Homepage http://www.anycities.com/bebop/

Hi! MY name is Roger Bradbury living in the Forest of Dean Gloucestershire England.Nice to look at all your names only wish you had photos? Consultant in Mental health. Play kn7000 in clubs ect.old kn5000 fan.Roger

Hi
My name is Bernie Ackerman. I am 63 and live in Port Charlotte(Hurricane Charley),FL. I moved here last year with my wife Anneliese. I have a KN7000,which I dearly love. Before that I had a kn5000,and a dozen Yamaha's and Rolands. I had 6 months lessons in 1964,then proceeded to learn chords and lead sheets(fakebooks). I originally played a B3 in restaurants and honkytonks,but with the advent of arranger keyboards in the eighties, switched over.

I now play the 7000 every Sunday in church with the piano and Organ players,plus private parties, and a secondtime around band every week.We have dances with around one hundred attending.

Most of my time is spent with one music project or another. What a lucky fello I am.

Thanks for letting me share,

Bernie

HI Roger,
In my post just above yours in my signature is the address of my home page. When you click on that and open my home page you will find a couple of pictures there, One of my brand new motorhome and the other of Jann and I that is a couple years old. Many of the people here in the forums have pics on home pages. Maybe we need a new thread to get address from our members of their home pages
Best to you,
Bebop

Hello to all of you that haven't posted here yet. Let us hear from you.
How are you, where are you, what do you do, what do you play, how do you like this forum,what new keyboards are you considering buying, etc. etc. etc.
Bebop