Secondly, my thoughts are that it may have to do with the deep rooted traditions in the different ways piano and guitar are taught. There seems to be a really heavy emphasis put on reading sheet music when learning piano, and very low emphasis on sounding like the actual song. Whereas when learning guitar there is a high emphasis on playing the “real lick“ that is valued so much more than learning how to read notation. For instance when looking for guitar notations of songs, you will probably only find the “real“ way to play it OR just the chords. When looking for piano music you may find the piano solo version in five different levels of difficulty and none of them being the “real notes“ even very simple piano pop songs in piano instruction books are lazily transcribed when simple differences in inversions or register would make them sound so much more accurate to the track. We therefore end up with a guitarist that can play only songs that he/she have already memorized, and a keyboardist that can play anything sheet you put in front of them… but no accurate sheets to put there.
I think you are right on with this, Mike. I play guitar and keyboard and the way I learned each instrument is totally different, because of the traditions, as you said. Guitar is much more connected with blues and rock tradition, while piano still has its roots in the classical tradition. And yes, it sets up the exact situation you describe, which I have seen again and again. I would love to be part of the solution, by at least providing a Keyboardist community where we could help each other out.
You raised very good points, however as keyboardist we play many roles of the song not only like guitar, drum and bass. Depends on band size and complexity of the song, sometimes we also cover the 2nd guitar, synth bass and perc sounds for drum and many other instruments. Therefore it is hard to get the resource. Thanks for sharing your thoughts 👍
Yes, a community would be a great first step. I started playing back in the early 60's on drums, and by the 70's had moved over to keyboards. I had a few years of classical lessons then found a teacher that taught me how to play chords, and how to figure out what they were and how to improvise over them. With that knowledge I joined a wedding band and picked up a Yamaha CS-60 and boy was that a learning curve! But I quickly learned how to create voices and tones and got quite comfortable with making changes on the fly. Now that I'm retired, I picked up a Yamaha Montage and was I humbled! I can see why people don't want to get into keyboards because the learning curve can be quite steep. It is so much fun to learn all the things you can do with modern synths, but it takes dedication and a real "want to" to keep up with it. Now I'm learning about DAWs and using Cubase to record some of my songs and that's a whole other learning curve. I have 4 grandchildren and I'm trying to get them interested in keyboards, letting them use my synths and piano, but so far they've not shown much interest. One just got a bass guitar to go with her sax, and two others are playing violin and ukuleles. Sigh, maybe they will wise up and take advantage of grandpa's mini studio, one can only hope.
The learning curve is a great point! Plus reality is that keyboards can often do a lot more than what the player really needs practically. So what's worth spending time learning? What's not? That decision process alone could definitely be an obstacle. Thanks for joining us and I hope to have an online community running soon.
I do find it interesting like one of the other viewers stated that most UA-cam pianists and/or keyboardist are focusing mostly on gear reviews (I understand people have to eat, but that's not what I am interested). As a newbie like myself a basic entry level keyboard setup is all we really need to start learning to play. We want to learn how to use the gear that we bought, to be pianists, and keyboardists. Seeing YT channels that focus on playing, rather than gear reviews is a welcoming sight. Yes, I would love to learn about creating the actual keyboard parts for any given song. Yes, a community would be helpful since there are few resources, and maybe if there is an decent sized active community focusing on "Band Keyboardist" sheet music, and other resources then it might encourage people, and the industry to follow suit. PS This is my first time watching your channel, thanks for posting. I am just beginning the word of pianos, keyboards, organs, and synthesizers, I don't even know how to play properly yet or read music; but I have a drive to be able to use these instruments for my enjoyment, and learn a skill.
I really appreciate the feedback! Honestly I have been doing this my whole life, and don't pay THAT much attention to gear, except that I want it to work and sound good, which is a lot of equipment. when it comes to gear, try them out and pick your favorite - I don't really care that much what the gear is. The main thing is to play as well as you can, and constantly try to improve.
I just found your page and I'd be insterested in a Keyboard group. There are lots of parts that are barely audible from 80's covers that I could use help with. Watching various videos on how people program the Fantom keyboard has helped me learn how to apply those methods to songs. I'd rather program than spend money on a patch of sounds.
I agree with everything you have said Mike. I tend to listen to either isolated multi tracks or a karaoke track where only the instruments are playing. I then try to work out the various bits and pieces by ear. The two places I go to are Karaoke-version and remix packs club which have the stems. The second one is free to use. I have now also discovered your channel Mike which is a big help.
That's pretty similar to how I find my parts. I always transcribe the parts so I won't forget them. And for this channel I simply am sharing what I learned, hoping it can help someone else. Thanks for the feedback!
Just found this video. So true. I am a very amateur musician (though an old one) and am playing in a small band and would love more videos showing how to play keyboard in a band.
I feel like you're on the right track, Mike! So grateful I found you...better late than never! Your channel will be my go-to, moving forward, and I'm happy to contribute, if possible.
You are completely right here. In any track you may have any combination of piano, organ, strings, horns, plus all the synth sounds and as the Keyboard synth player in the band you have to try any understand these lines and work out what combination you can put together for the track. Like you say on line if you want to play songs as a solo pianist then sure lots of options or but sheet music but in a band situation you need something different so I normally use that for the chords and melody line then start to work breaking down all the element's myself, which is interesting but time consuming and can be hard work to get to what you want. Found you from the Africa video and that was great as it gives you information and ideas like the way the keyboard is split and the sounds like having a patch that has a layer 4semitones lower for the into sound. Would love to see more videos that talk about the sounds used and patches that make up the splits for the sections as well as the parts played. thanks for making the effort I have found it really helpful.
I really appreciate the feedback. I do play a lot of songs that require keyboard splits and layers and I'll make it a point to discuss those in more detail. Did you see my video on Livin on a Prayer? There's a whole middle section where I go into more detail on how I approach all the layers.
I would recommend using an open source software package called Sonic Visualiser (with the Vamp plugin pack) to estimate the chords for new/original songs. I am able to configure the software to capture any youtube playback and estimate the chords.
Thank you for the recommendation. This looks like a really useful tool. The challenge I would still see is to translate those estimations back into traditional and accurate musical notation so that someone trained to read music could make sense of it to play it for themselves.
Thanks for mentioning my comment in this video! There are few other things I want to add. Like you said, keyboards are still incredibly popular, and one of the best selling instruments to this day. Companies like Casio, Yamaha, Roland, Korg, and Nord release new keyboards almost every year. Many of these keyboards have hundreds of different sounds available: pianos, electric pianos, organs, guitars, basses, strings, brass, and synth sounds such as pads and leads. You're obviously not supposed to play a strings patch or a pad the same way you'd play a piano, yet there are so few resources out there to teach you how to use all those different kinds of sounds. The only genre that seems to have decent resources for playing keyboard in a band is Christian contemporary music. There are great sites like Worship Online and Worship Artistry, which I use since I play keys in my church. But I also like playing other genres too. Another way to try to figure out keyboard parts is downloading MIDI files and running just the keyboard tracks through Synthesia, but these files are almost always user generated, and not always accurate, since whoever made them probably just tried to figure out all the parts by ear.
Thanks again for the comment Mark. After all these years of doing this, I still think the best way to find the parts is to slowly figure them out by listening to recordings and piecing together the parts note by note. I don't trust the current resources out there, so I pretty much always go back to transcribing by ear and getting it written it out on a staff. If I have access to isolated tracks that certainly helps a lot, but sometimes that's not possible and you just have to make your best guess by listening to the full mix. This is also still not an exact science but I feel like it's the best method for me.
Hey Mike, First a request: could you please do a video for the keyboard parts to Eye of the Tiger like you’re working for the weekend video? I recently ran into this exact problem that you’re describing when looking for the “actual “keyboard part for that song. There are plenty of solo piano versions in varying levels of difficulty online, but I couldn’t find the actual part.
Mike, thanks for the comment/question. I will definitely put that on the request list, as I've gotten others. Unfortunately right now I do not have that one because it's not one that I have learned. But I definitely feel your pain, and would like to get that one out asap.
OMG just found this video. Please set up a discord for this. Now I'm not a keys player, I play guitar but.... I'm the person who writes out the sheets for our band. I write for horns, drums, bass and the keys player. Defo a massive whole for keys parts online. Its normally PVG stuff and then I spend ages removing the melody and/or bass lines. From a guitarist then to the whole keys player community please set this up as a discord or forum as, for me, it would be an incredible resource.
Hey Paul thanks for the great suggestion. I have a Discord but I don't know what to do with it. How do you see that being utilized in a way that's helpful for keyboard players or other musicians like yourself?
Dude, I am very happy I found your channel. I love chilling out playing songs and melodys on my keyboard. I have a decent one- Yamaha Portable Grand DGX 660. It has a mess of stuff on it that I don't know how to use but would love to learn. Where would be a good place to start?
As a guitar/bass player who has volunteered to learn some keyboard because our keyboard player is retiring I am overwhelmed by the options on a keyboard/organ and am having trouble wrapping my head around sounds. Could really use some guidance on how to use all these things my keyboard does
How can we get better resources to keyboard players who play in bands, especially cover bands?
Secondly, my thoughts are that it may have to do with the deep rooted traditions in the different ways piano and guitar are taught. There seems to be a really heavy emphasis put on reading sheet music when learning piano, and very low emphasis on sounding like the actual song. Whereas when learning guitar there is a high emphasis on playing the “real lick“ that is valued so much more than learning how to read notation. For instance when looking for guitar notations of songs, you will probably only find the “real“ way to play it OR just the chords. When looking for piano music you may find the piano solo version in five different levels of difficulty and none of them being the “real notes“ even very simple piano pop songs in piano instruction books are lazily transcribed when simple differences in inversions or register would make them sound so much more accurate to the track. We therefore end up with a guitarist that can play only songs that he/she have already memorized, and a keyboardist that can play anything sheet you put in front of them… but no accurate sheets to put there.
I think you are right on with this, Mike. I play guitar and keyboard and the way I learned each instrument is totally different, because of the traditions, as you said. Guitar is much more connected with blues and rock tradition, while piano still has its roots in the classical tradition. And yes, it sets up the exact situation you describe, which I have seen again and again. I would love to be part of the solution, by at least providing a Keyboardist community where we could help each other out.
You raised very good points, however as keyboardist we play many roles of the song not only like guitar, drum and bass. Depends on band size and complexity of the song, sometimes we also cover the 2nd guitar, synth bass and perc sounds for drum and many other instruments. Therefore it is hard to get the resource. Thanks for sharing your thoughts 👍
Really good point, and I agree!
Yes, a community would be a great first step. I started playing back in the early 60's on drums, and by the 70's had moved over to keyboards. I had a few years of classical lessons then found a teacher that taught me how to play chords, and how to figure out what they were and how to improvise over them. With that knowledge I joined a wedding band and picked up a Yamaha CS-60 and boy was that a learning curve! But I quickly learned how to create voices and tones and got quite comfortable with making changes on the fly.
Now that I'm retired, I picked up a Yamaha Montage and was I humbled! I can see why people don't want to get into keyboards because the learning curve can be quite steep. It is so much fun to learn all the things you can do with modern synths, but it takes dedication and a real "want to" to keep up with it. Now I'm learning about DAWs and using Cubase to record some of my songs and that's a whole other learning curve.
I have 4 grandchildren and I'm trying to get them interested in keyboards, letting them use my synths and piano, but so far they've not shown much interest. One just got a bass guitar to go with her sax, and two others are playing violin and ukuleles. Sigh, maybe they will wise up and take advantage of grandpa's mini studio, one can only hope.
The learning curve is a great point! Plus reality is that keyboards can often do a lot more than what the player really needs practically. So what's worth spending time learning? What's not? That decision process alone could definitely be an obstacle. Thanks for joining us and I hope to have an online community running soon.
I do find it interesting like one of the other viewers stated that most UA-cam pianists and/or keyboardist are focusing mostly on gear reviews (I understand people have to eat, but that's not what I am interested). As a newbie like myself a basic entry level keyboard setup is all we really need to start learning to play. We want to learn how to use the gear that we bought, to be pianists, and keyboardists. Seeing YT channels that focus on playing, rather than gear reviews is a welcoming sight. Yes, I would love to learn about creating the actual keyboard parts for any given song. Yes, a community would be helpful since there are few resources, and maybe if there is an decent sized active community focusing on "Band Keyboardist" sheet music, and other resources then it might encourage people, and the industry to follow suit.
PS This is my first time watching your channel, thanks for posting. I am just beginning the word of pianos, keyboards, organs, and synthesizers, I don't even know how to play properly yet or read music; but I have a drive to be able to use these instruments for my enjoyment, and learn a skill.
I really appreciate the feedback! Honestly I have been doing this my whole life, and don't pay THAT much attention to gear, except that I want it to work and sound good, which is a lot of equipment. when it comes to gear, try them out and pick your favorite - I don't really care that much what the gear is. The main thing is to play as well as you can, and constantly try to improve.
I just found your page and I'd be insterested in a Keyboard group. There are lots of parts that are barely audible from 80's covers that I could use help with. Watching various videos on how people program the Fantom keyboard has helped me learn how to apply those methods to songs. I'd rather program than spend money on a patch of sounds.
I agree with everything you have said Mike. I tend to listen to either isolated multi tracks or a karaoke track where only the instruments are playing. I then try to work out the various bits and pieces by ear. The two places I go to are Karaoke-version and remix packs club which have the stems. The second one is free to use. I have now also discovered your channel Mike which is a big help.
That's pretty similar to how I find my parts. I always transcribe the parts so I won't forget them. And for this channel I simply am sharing what I learned, hoping it can help someone else. Thanks for the feedback!
@@mikebardenpiano Hey Mike, I have signed up to the e-mail list, however I have not received a confirmation e-mail.
I checked and I do see you're on the list. Not sure why you didn't get a confirmation email, sorry!
Just found this video. So true. I am a very amateur musician (though an old one) and am playing in a small band and would love more videos showing how to play keyboard in a band.
I feel like you're on the right track, Mike! So grateful I found you...better late than never! Your channel will be my go-to, moving forward, and I'm happy to contribute, if possible.
Welcome Jody, glad you have found some helpful things here!
I just found your page and yes, I agree with you on this!!!
I would like to be part of it.
Coming to this late, but this is something which has been driving me insane as a learner
You are completely right here. In any track you may have any combination of piano, organ, strings, horns, plus all the synth sounds and as the Keyboard synth player in the band you have to try any understand these lines and work out what combination you can put together for the track.
Like you say on line if you want to play songs as a solo pianist then sure lots of options or but sheet music but in a band situation you need something different so I normally use that for the chords and melody line then start to work breaking down all the element's myself, which is interesting but time consuming and can be hard work to get to what you want.
Found you from the Africa video and that was great as it gives you information and ideas like the way the keyboard is split and the sounds like having a patch that has a layer 4semitones lower for the into sound.
Would love to see more videos that talk about the sounds used and patches that make up the splits for the sections as well as the parts played.
thanks for making the effort I have found it really helpful.
I really appreciate the feedback. I do play a lot of songs that require keyboard splits and layers and I'll make it a point to discuss those in more detail. Did you see my video on Livin on a Prayer? There's a whole middle section where I go into more detail on how I approach all the layers.
@@mikebardenpiano I haven't, I will have a look at that. Thanks
I would recommend using an open source software package called Sonic Visualiser (with the Vamp plugin pack) to estimate the chords for new/original songs. I am able to configure the software to capture any youtube playback and estimate the chords.
Thank you for the recommendation. This looks like a really useful tool. The challenge I would still see is to translate those estimations back into traditional and accurate musical notation so that someone trained to read music could make sense of it to play it for themselves.
Thanks for mentioning my comment in this video! There are few other things I want to add. Like you said, keyboards are still incredibly popular, and one of the best selling instruments to this day. Companies like Casio, Yamaha, Roland, Korg, and Nord release new keyboards almost every year. Many of these keyboards have hundreds of different sounds available: pianos, electric pianos, organs, guitars, basses, strings, brass, and synth sounds such as pads and leads. You're obviously not supposed to play a strings patch or a pad the same way you'd play a piano, yet there are so few resources out there to teach you how to use all those different kinds of sounds. The only genre that seems to have decent resources for playing keyboard in a band is Christian contemporary music. There are great sites like Worship Online and Worship Artistry, which I use since I play keys in my church. But I also like playing other genres too. Another way to try to figure out keyboard parts is downloading MIDI files and running just the keyboard tracks through Synthesia, but these files are almost always user generated, and not always accurate, since whoever made them probably just tried to figure out all the parts by ear.
Thanks again for the comment Mark. After all these years of doing this, I still think the best way to find the parts is to slowly figure them out by listening to recordings and piecing together the parts note by note. I don't trust the current resources out there, so I pretty much always go back to transcribing by ear and getting it written it out on a staff. If I have access to isolated tracks that certainly helps a lot, but sometimes that's not possible and you just have to make your best guess by listening to the full mix. This is also still not an exact science but I feel like it's the best method for me.
Hey Mike, First a request: could you please do a video for the keyboard parts to Eye of the Tiger like you’re working for the weekend video? I recently ran into this exact problem that you’re describing when looking for the “actual “keyboard part for that song. There are plenty of solo piano versions in varying levels of difficulty online, but I couldn’t find the actual part.
Mike, thanks for the comment/question. I will definitely put that on the request list, as I've gotten others. Unfortunately right now I do not have that one because it's not one that I have learned. But I definitely feel your pain, and would like to get that one out asap.
OMG just found this video. Please set up a discord for this. Now I'm not a keys player, I play guitar but.... I'm the person who writes out the sheets for our band. I write for horns, drums, bass and the keys player. Defo a massive whole for keys parts online. Its normally PVG stuff and then I spend ages removing the melody and/or bass lines. From a guitarist then to the whole keys player community please set this up as a discord or forum as, for me, it would be an incredible resource.
Hey Paul thanks for the great suggestion. I have a Discord but I don't know what to do with it. How do you see that being utilized in a way that's helpful for keyboard players or other musicians like yourself?
Dude, I am very happy I found your channel. I love chilling out playing songs and melodys on my keyboard. I have a decent one- Yamaha Portable Grand DGX 660. It has a mess of stuff on it that I don't know how to use but would love to learn. Where would be a good place to start?
Hey George, I don't know much about that keyboard but this might be a place to start?
ua-cam.com/video/TZsIIJf06Zw/v-deo.html
Narfsounds has really helped me find sounds for keyboard parts.
Sounds like a good thing! Isn't that specific to Korg products?
@@mikebardenpiano No, he does Roland, Yamaha and a couple of others
Oh good to know! I'll have to look into that
@@mikebardenpiano keep the content coming when you can Thomas Dolby
As a guitar/bass player who has volunteered to learn some keyboard because our keyboard player is retiring I am overwhelmed by the options on a keyboard/organ and am having trouble wrapping my head around sounds. Could really use some guidance on how to use all these things my keyboard does
Maybe a breakdown of the basic sound types and how they might be used in context? Would that be a useful video for you?
@@mikebardenpiano that would be great
Ok I really like the idea for me to consider for the next video. Thanks for the idea!