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I've played with a number of keyboardists and even play a bit myself these days. I only really liked two of them. One actually showed up for an audition sans gear, he assumed we'd provide his rig. But the two I liked I really liked a lot. My all time favorite was Jeff Stivers who actually had some symphony time. Darned guy like to drink though, and when he drank he liked to fight...sigh.

It's funny but after noticing this post yesterday I happened to watch a few old Cars videos. I think they addressed the question of integrating the instruments as well as anyone ever has. It was almost as if they were all backing players, all backing up on thing and one thing only, the song.

But so you boys will know I feel your pain, one of my first bands involved loading the gear for each rehearsal up three flights of stairs. And yeah, that included a B3 and at least one Leslie. (been a while). My own gear was pretty heavy as well so by the time we were ready to play all we really wanted to do was lie face down on the floor and pray for death!

Talbot

It's funny but after noticing this post yesterday I happened to watch a few old Cars videos. I think they addressed the question of integrating the instruments as well as anyone ever has. It was almost as if they were all backing players, all backing up on thing and one thing only, the song.

That's the dream...well, my dream, anyway. I'd love to get together w/ a good guitarist, small horn section (sax, t'bone, trumpet) and a solid rhythm section and be able to hear all of them in the mix. They don't need to be great players, just folks who know how to work together to create a good sound.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?

The problem with sports metaphors is that Pro football teams are not like bands. The comparisons just doesn't work.

Sure it does, but I'll use another analogy if that one was difficult for you to understand.

Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians is usually a problem. MOST of the great bands in (rock) history had only one main soloist for good reason.

Chiefs are football and Indians are baseball

Chiefs are football and Indians are baseball

And Cowboys beat them both!!!

Chiefs are football and Indians are baseball

And Cowboys beat them both!!!

You ever eat your words on Tony Romo last fall?

Chiefs are football and Indians are baseball

And Cowboys beat them both!!!

You ever eat your words on Tony Romo last fall?

Not sure which words but if they held a fair competition in training camp this year, he'd beat Dak.

However, Tony ain't the future so he's retiring....until Dak goes down and Jerry brings him out of retirement to win next years Super Bowl.


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Oh....thanks for reminding me of the biggest reason why I don't usually put up with a keyboard player. This town's only big enough for one enormous ego.

You're welcome! If these Internet forum things serve any useful purpose, it's the ability to be candid and honest. But candor and honesty can easily be confused with ego. Which, if we're being candid and honest, isn't always the worst thing a musician can bring to a band. That honor goes to crab lice and herpes.

The OP asked why are keyboardist (the singular form) so hard to find? I offered up an answer. The OP didn't ask why these singular keyboardists have such honking big egos. Or why musicians in general have such honking big egos. Because guess what? We do! A good one, at least the performing variety, is a marginally sociopathic exhibitionist. Which beats hell out of the guy who stares at his shoes for three hours.

Admittedly, keyboard types tend to attract the ego rap more than, for instance, bass players. Who, usually deservedly, have no egos. See "guy who stares at his shoes" above. Came up with a theory on this one a long time ago. And, like most psycho-babble, it goes back to childhood. And mother. While we were out hanging with the guys, your keyboard player was locked inside the house. With mother. Taking piano lessons. While we were out chasing chicks, your keyboard player was most likely honing his social skills on some elderly spinster piano teacher who smelled like stale lilacs and fresh mothballs. While he had a standing date with the treble and bass clefs, we had a standing date with the juvenile probation officer. Think about it.

Nobody ever got laid by bringing a piano to a party. Period.

Most keyboard players have trouble fitting in because most keyboard players never learned how to fit in. Unless the rock world staged an unlikely intervention before the onset of high school. As a result, most keyboard players lack the political skills needed to survive the world of guitar, bass and drums. Your ego is every bit as big, but you learned how to rein most of it in. The alternative was having the snot beat out of you on a regular basis. Not a problem for the keyboard types. Hell, they never left the house.

A lot of successful keyboard players were never trained. They picked it up along the way. The folks probably parked a spinet in the living room back when, and it just sorta happened. You figured out that all those chords, the ones that worked on the guitar, also worked on that big ole Hammond. The one you and the other guys soon began smuggling out of the house. Until the folks got tired of staring at that empty space next to the sofa and decided it was easier and cheaper to shell out a few bucks for a beater B3, a throwaway 122 and a set of ROK's.

That B3 didn't come with an ego attached. It was already there. Came with the Twin Reverb. But unlike Piano Boy down the street, you'd already learned how to make that ego play nicely with others. Mostly. Because it mattered. In the real world. The one that isn't the online world. Where candor and honesty can easily be confused with ego. Which can often lead to long-winded responses. Like this one.

Ego? Guilty. Taken in its entirety, it's something that might just help answer the OP's question. About that keyboardist. The one who's so hard to find. The one who isn't. But is. Sorta. Go figure.

I don't agree keyboardist can't fit or have a problem fitting in any genre of music. Most will play what they like musically.

They are hard to find because there aren't many left. Keyboarding is expensive to start. Then there's the commitment to compositions. A good player can also be pricey to hire. Most live of they're earnings, so time is money.

Bottom line...keyboardist draw the line I'm the sand between hobby and work. That's the hard part...committing your talent to the biz.

Oh....thanks for reminding me of the biggest reason why I don't usually put up with a keyboard player. This town's only big enough for one enormous ego.

You're welcome! If these Internet forum things serve any useful purpose, it's the ability to be candid and honest. But candor and honesty can easily be confused with ego. Which, if we're being candid and honest, isn't always the worst thing a musician can bring to a band. That honor goes to crab lice and herpes.

The OP asked why are keyboardist (the singular form) so hard to find? I offered up an answer. The OP didn't ask why these singular keyboardists have such honking big egos. Or why musicians in general have such honking big egos. Because guess what? We do! A good one, at least the performing variety, is a marginally sociopathic exhibitionist. Which beats hell out of the guy who stares at his shoes for three hours.

Admittedly, keyboard types tend to attract the ego rap more than, for instance, bass players. Who, usually deservedly, have no egos. See "guy who stares at his shoes" above. Came up with a theory on this one a long time ago. And, like most psycho-babble, it goes back to childhood. And mother. While we were out hanging with the guys, your keyboard player was locked inside the house. With mother. Taking piano lessons. While we were out chasing chicks, your keyboard player was most likely honing his social skills on some elderly spinster piano teacher who smelled like stale lilacs and fresh mothballs. While he had a standing date with the treble and bass clefs, we had a standing date with the juvenile probation officer. Think about it.

Nobody ever got laid by bringing a piano to a party. Period.

Most keyboard players have trouble fitting in because most keyboard players never learned how to fit in. Unless the rock world staged an unlikely intervention before the onset of high school. As a result, most keyboard players lack the political skills needed to survive the world of guitar, bass and drums. Your ego is every bit as big, but you learned how to rein most of it in. The alternative was having the snot beat out of you on a regular basis. Not a problem for the keyboard types. Hell, they never left the house.

A lot of successful keyboard players were never trained. They picked it up along the way. The folks probably parked a spinet in the living room back when, and it just sorta happened. You figured out that all those chords, the ones that worked on the guitar, also worked on that big ole Hammond. The one you and the other guys soon began smuggling out of the house. Until the folks got tired of staring at that empty space next to the sofa and decided it was easier and cheaper to shell out a few bucks for a beater B3, a throwaway 122 and a set of ROK's.

That B3 didn't come with an ego attached. It was already there. Came with the Twin Reverb. But unlike Piano Boy down the street, you'd already learned how to make that ego play nicely with others. Mostly. Because it mattered. In the real world. The one that isn't the online world. Where candor and honesty can easily be confused with ego. Which can often lead to long-winded responses. Like this one.

Ego? Guilty. Taken in its entirety, it's something that might just help answer the OP's question. About that keyboardist. The one who's so hard to find. The one who isn't. But is. Sorta. Go figure.

That's some funny shiite, man. Good to see someone with a little humor and experience on the boards.



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The problem with sports metaphors is that Pro football teams are not like bands. The comparisons just doesn't work.

Sure it does, but I'll use another analogy if that one was difficult for you to understand.

Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians is usually a problem. MOST of the great bands in (rock) history had only one main soloist for good reason.

Wrong. While a large number of great bands in rock history only had one member good enough to be the front/soloist, the best bands had contributions from all of the members. It's almost too easy of an example, but consider the Beatles. Consider Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Deep Purple.

Yes, sometimes there's only one singer. Yes, many bands that pass themselves off as a band of equals is really "Star and the Sidemen". I get that. But go back to what I said in the first place. What part of, "In any really good, working band, the kind of band who can play at a venue all night long, there should be some variety to the songs played. If every song sounds more or less the same, then the band is either a hit recording outfit with a lot of charting songs that get (or got) a lot of radio airplay, or the band is really, really boring for the audience." did you not understand?

Since this seems to be really irritating you, lets continue!

That's bullshit. Every member of a band should carry his position and be able to solo under a spotlight, but that isn't the same as being a soloist.

You mention "MOST of the great bands in (rock) history", but that was a reference to "the band is either a hit recording outfit with a lot of charting songs that get (or got) a lot of radio airplay". I specifically and expressly stated that was NOT the kind of band I was talking about. I thought I made it clear I was referring to a, "really good, working band". Not just a bunch of guys who can only play a dozen derivative "originals" from their self-published EP, and who have to recruit four or five other bands to share the bill to put on a "show".

Don't think Zep had a hit besides "Dyer Maker"? For every (really good working) band that has multiple soloists, there are 20 (really good working) bands who have a single person in charge of doing the solos, maybe with a couple of scabs who throw in for variety. Of course those average soloists only make the audience more appreciative of the real soloist in the band.

Now, I don't know who you are.

And that's the nature of a discussion board. Hi, I'm Ted, one of the irritating people on the board.

And if you insist on dragging inappropriate metaphors around, even when there are lots of Indians but only one Chief, a good Chief decides when to have his best archer lead the attack, and when to have his best horse-riding spear thrower lead the attacks.

And a good band knows when to sacrifice the bass player. Or burn the drummer at stake. So that the singer and lead guitarist may live on.

Or he might pick his best hand-to-hand fighter to attack a sentry with a tomahawk. The fact that a band might have a lot of "Indians" doesn't mean that they don't each specialize in their particular instrument, and it doesn't mean that the "Chief" doesn't coordinate their actions so that each one gets the opportunity to put his particular skill to their best use.

One can specialize in an instrument without being a great soloist. Ever heard of The Ventures? The Chief can't turn Pocohontus into Jimmy Page just because he wants a break in the middle of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"

To be fair... Yeah, Ted can be annoying at times--as he concedes--but at the same time, he puts out some good music. I had never really listened to it much until someone posted a link to his site, which I checked out. Almost 100 tunes, all well constructed, good voice, very skilled production...from a purely musical standpoint, def. worth a listen. Can't say I'm ga-ga over the content of the lyrics--I'm the agnostic Ted once was--but that's what he wants to say w/ his music and apparently there's a market for it, so there you go. In one post, he described himself as primarily a producer, and judging from what I heard, if I were in a band in need of a producer, we could do far worse. So rag on his opinions and call him annoying (but as Trop suggests, aren't we all in some way?), but recognize the ability and experience. This ain't some poser blathering on 'bout this and that...

As far as the ego thing, I must be the anomaly. I like to hide behind my stack, and while I don't stare at my shoes, I do at my hands--or shut my eyes--and never look at the crowd. I always wear a headset (an unobtrusive Koss) w/ one ear off, so I can clearly hear myself in the mix w/o blasting away. Given my disdain for haircuts, even if you could see around the stack, the hair mostly blocks my face. Oddly enough, folks used to seek me out during breaks, I'm guessing just to see the furry guy playing the keys. Like most folks, I'd rather watch the guitarist.

That's the nicest review I ever got, bro. Sweet!


I captured 3 songs in VR on the National Mall for you. This is a mix of Afghani and Bosque. You "can" watch it on a computer screen but it is, of course, meant for an Oculus or Samsung Gear VR. I think you'd like it just for the sounds if you don't want to watch it.

Here's the first one and links to the others should come up after it plays.

https://littlstar.com/videos/174a7ecb