playing piano vs. keyboard

[ramela]

does anybody know of an easy way to play the keyboard differently than the piano? I take turns playing the piano and the keyboard and find myself playing "all over "the piano player when I'm on the keyboard because I don't know how to play it differently!!! Also I'm a newbie and want to know how can I utilize this site thoroughly I 'm a premium member and what can we get that the others who come in free don't??

God Bless!!

[cas10a]

There are a number of things you can do when playing the keyboard accompanying a pianist.  First, you don't want to drown out the piano by turning up your volume to high.  Another thing you can do, is pad your chords if the piano player is playing the melody. Also, use different patches, other than the piano on your keyboard.  You can also play in between chords, broken chords, scales, runs, etc.,

Hope this helps! God Bless!!

[JoashStilltheman]

Basically what you can do is let him play the chords and you can just fill-in with a melody. Or like Cas said, you can use a different sound on the keyboard that isn't similar to the piano sound. For example when you're playing a fast song, you can play brass and make some hits to complement the piano player. If you've heard the song "Glorious" by Martha Munizzi, you can study how the keyboard player plays the brass on that song. And if you're playing a slow song, you can play some strings in the background.
If you're playing the keyboard, then you can do more than the piano player. So how the music sounds will mostly depend on you. Remember, let him play and you just fill-in. Or sometime you can play and let him fill-in with the piano like if you're playing some strings or some pad and he plays a melody on the piano.
Anyway, hope this helps. God bless ya.

[ramela]

Yes, that helps!!! But I was wanting to know if you could tell me what you are talking about when you say in between and broken chords?

Thanks in advance!!

[c3hamby]

broken chord is another way to say arpeggio....

for example, if you have reason to play a C-E-G-B chord(which is a C major 7), then instead of hitting all of the chords, play them one at a time, descending or ascending, which ever sounds best.

And really, take the advice of the previous poster, listen to what keyboard players are doing.  It sounds too mechanical in print....

Do you have the 2004 WOW gospel dvd?  I think it's the 2nd or 3rd tune on there, "It's In My Heart"...look at the beginning-that piano player is getting fancy, but look at the keyboard player, he's holding down one note, a high string sound.  And it sounds great.  

You can say, he isn't doing anything, why is he up there...but...he's up there and we aren't, so think about it....

When playing string sounds in this way, there are a couple of things to keep in mind, and you'll see guys doing this on those dvds-use the volume button to fade the sound in and out, especially at the end.  

Try to connect the chords with common tones.  In other words, when you have a string sound don't play like a piano player, play like a string player, or a conductor.  Playing string sounds on a keyboard is kind of like play background organ pads, so that'll help ya there.

[cas10a]

Here is an example of playing behind piano.  1 part is piano on a Yamaha P-120, the other is using organ on a Roland.  I did this a while back but I don't think I ever posted it in this forum. This is Center of My Joy, version by Ruben Studdard.  It gives some basic examples of how to play parts differently with different instruments and also gives some examples on how to play the same verses/parts over, but play them a little differently.  If you use Vanbasco's Midi Player you can slow the song down and see all the parts.  Hope this will clarify some of your questions!

http://myweb.cableone.net/cas10a/Music/Center%20of%20My%20Joy%.mid

[cas10a]

Sorry, here is the correct link.
http://myweb.cableone.net/cas10a/Music/Center%20of%20My%20Joy.mid