Piano and Synth Blog

The Darkness’ latest album “One Way Ticket to Hell… and Back” needed to sound authentic, and apparently a synth just couldn’t cut it when it came to getting an authentic panpipe sound.

Perhaps it wasn’t sufficiently programmed. I’m sure it’s possible to achieve, particularly for a recording.

Nevertheless, Justin Hawkins told Blender magazine “I initially tried doing it myself on a synthesizer, but it sounded really cheesy, so we got this guy who’s supposedly the best (player) in the world. He lives up a mountain somewhere in Peru.”

Probably best.

A review of a recent concert and album by Eldar Djanirov by Jazz Police opens:

Close your eyes and listen to the piano. McCoy Tyner? Ahmad Jamal? Herbie Hancock? Oscar Peterson? A little Bill Evans and Fred Hersch? Are you really hearing such diverse influences coming from one piano, one pianist? Wait… it’s none of the above, but a creative melding of many voices and unending ideas. Open your eyes. Who is that kid on the bandstand?

It goes on to describe the rich talents of this young performer, who entered the public eye aged just 12, winning several prizes along the way.

It also reviews his first album.

Read the full article: New Master Chef at the Piano—Eldar at the Dakota

Forget drummers drumming, gold rings and partridges: this is the ultimate pianist/synth musicians dream list.

If someone offered to give you a different piece of musical equipment on each of the twelve days of Christmas, what would you choose, and why?

Leave your 12-piece dream list in the comments below. I’ll be compiling the answers into a series of posts from Christmas Day onwards.

Update: The items can be music-related - they don’t all have to be synths and pianos. What would help you to create better music?

With the Christmas holiday season now less than a month away, there is often a call for the pianists and keyboard players to play seasonal favourites and carols.

So, I’m providing a growing collection of links that might be of use to keyboard musicians, including resource sites around the web, lyrics, sheet music, MIDI and audio files.

They’re accessible from the top of every page, under the tasteful green “Christmas and Holiday Music Resources” banner.

Christmas Piano Resources are links to resources and collections on the Internet that I think a keyboard player might find useful.

Christmas Song Resources are individual links to sheet music, lyrics, MIDI and audio files.

I hope you find these useful. Let me know what other resources you need and I’ll do my best to track them down.

Awadagin Pratt is not the stereotypical classical pianist, but there’s absolutely no doubting his talent.

While he is certainly not the first African American to find success in the somewhat rarefied world of classical piano, he has presented unique challenges to the establishment.

First, there’s his appearance. With long dreadlocks and a full beard, he looks like someone most people would expect to find behind a set of steel drums instead of at the keyboard of a concert piano. Inspired in part by tennis star Yannick Noah, Pratt says he just thinks the dreadlocks look good on him. And, he never wears a tuxedo on stage in order to make classical music feel more approachable for young people.

Second, and more importantly, there’s his musicianship. He has been earning rave reviews since winning the prestigious Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1992 and an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1994. Since then, he’s released several CDs on the Angel/EMI label, including an all-Bach recording in 2002.

It is unfortunate that, like many other African Americans, he has been the target of overt racial discrimination. However, his talent has definitely been recognised.

He aims to be a good role model for young black musicians.

His web site has much more information including his biography, discography and concert listings.

The full article in The Weekly is here: Dreadlocked classical pianist overcame discrimination to launch international career

Bloomberg has published an interview with Marcus Roberts, a jazz pianist who has been blind since age 5.

The interview talks about his musical heroes, including Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, his growth as a professional musician over the past two decades, how being blind has enhanced his musicianship, and his most memorable music experiences.

Read the full interview: Jazz Pianist Roberts Talks About Blindness, Coltrane, Berlin

I’m really glad I found this post by Peter Kirn over at Create Digital Music…

…I think.

Metasonix (careful, that home page hurts) have manufactured and released a synthesizer based entirely on vacuum and gas-filled tubes.

Peter, who’s just returned from vacation, puts it so much better…

I know what you were thinking during the silent news week as I was on vacation: “if only . . .”

If only someone would release a synth based entirely on vacuum and gas-filled tubes. No pretty sine waves, mind you: only saw, square, and square with suboctave. And a filter sweep controlled by a photoresistor. And a joystick that tunes, triggers, and modulates. And glowing green bars that show voltage levels.

And the name should involve vomiting, somehow.

Yes, the Wretch Machine is here.

Oh boy.

We all love specifications, right? Here they are:

The Professional Solution.
The Ultimate Tube Synthesizer.
Pitch sources: two independent VCOs.
Made entirely of vacuum and gas-filled tubes.
Range >2 octaves using CV, octave switching allows range from 33 Hz (low C) to more than 2 kHz.
Three waveforms: thyratron sawtooth, square, and square with suboctave.
VCO 2 may free-run or be soft-synced to VCO 1.
Numerous patch points allow enormous flexibility.

Waveshaper: unique circuit, with soft clipper and pulse adder (shapes waveforms from VCOs by adding small pulses to top of waveform at discontinuity).
Made entirely of vacuum tubes.
Settings: disable, soft-clip only, and soft-clip with pulses added to signal. Latter circuit allows simulation of noise source.

Filter: unique multimode circuit, allows its use as a lowpass, treble/midrange bandpass or bass bandpass filter. Continuously variable control allows mixing of filter forms in any proportion.
Made entirely of vacuum tubes.
Range of treble resonance switchable, 400-1700 Hz. Bass resonance tunes from ~100-350 Hz.
VCA: unique circuit using a pentode tube.
Made entirely of a vacuum tube.
May be modulated with the AR generator only, or with the control voltage generated on modulation bus 2.

Modulation: two envelope generators, A(S)R and AD. Both triggered with input gate signal. Both may be combined on either modulation bus to create ADSR.
Two independent LFOs, triangle waveform, range <0.3 Hz to more than 5 Hz.
Two modulation buses allow combining the A(S)R, AD, and two LFOs as needed to effect any CV input in the audio circuit (VCO pitch, VCO squarer waveshape, waveshaper pulser, filter tuning).

Main CV input controls pitch of both VCOs (Hz/V response).
Gate input triggers envelope generators, accepts 0-5v or 0-10v gate voltage.
6AL7 “eye” tube displays status of LFOs and A(S)R control voltages on three separate glowing green bar graphs.

Miniature joystick performs multiple jobs: vertical motion affects pitch of both VCOs, horizontal motion affects tuning of filter.
Press joystick in to trigger envelopes.

Size: 6U high standard EIA rack mount, 3″ depth below rack panel.
11 vacuum/gas tubes. Weight about 20 pounds with AC adapter.
Draws 12 volts AC ONLY at 3 amps.

Expected availability mid-2006, expected retail price $2500.
Optional internal MIDI-CV interface, add $300.

You mean we have to wait until mid-2006? Noooo. Guess it’s back to standard synths for now, huh?

When the front-man of a band has written his first symphony for a 60-piece band by the age of 17, it’s possibly fair to say that that band can be appreciated by piano-lovers.

That’s what the Austin American Statesman is saying about Aqualung ahed of their concert at the University of Texas.

Not your average rock pianist?

The San Diego Arts site has a review of an intimate piano performance by Jerome Rose at the Athenaeum on Monday night.

In a recent article (at Gigwise.com) Justin Hawkins of band The Darkness has ‘admitted that a piano used on the band’s new album was used by Freddie Mercury on Queen’s seminal Bohemian Rhapsody‘.

Reading that, it sounded almost as if he’s embarrassed to be associated with Queen.

However, he then went on to say that the “English Country Garden” track was very special to him precisely because it features the same piano played by Freiddie Mercury.

Nice.