"East Meets West" or is it: "West Meets East ?"

Here in the comfort of my home music studio in California (San Francisco Bay Area), I just experienced a tremendous musically rewarding hour (or so) playing keyboards, singing, & jamming together live, with fellow synthzone member-musician Rich Childs (RichUK) performing in his music studio, in Portsmouth, England. It was a terrific first session and I'm anxious to share this experience with my Technics arranger kb friends here.

First of all, prior to our scheduled across the ocean (Atlantic) + across the North American Continent SKYPE internet phone chat session (8 hour time zone difference), we both connected our vocal mics into our respective keyboards: Rich-PSR3000, and myself-Tyros. We then connected the audio outs (L/R) of our keyboards to the 'line in' on our computer's soundcard. After configuring Skpe to receive audio via the 'Line In' of our soundcards, and after donning headphone monitors, we were good to go. We could now speak to each other thru our mics into our keyboards (with talk button on to eliminate reverb), as well as play our keyboard & sing, and simultaneously hear each other play & sing as well. Rich entertained me with his terrific vocal/arranger keyboard rendition of "Blue Moon" as well as a rousing rendition of: El Cumbachero. I in turn played the latin-jazz tune: Route66, and Sway & the "Poor Side Of Town". We were both blown away with how impressive our performances sounded: impressively clear, and possibly equal to the quality of a hi-quality mono MP3. Rich even commented that it was like hearing a LIVE performance of the MP3's we have posted on our websites. We both felt like we were literally in the same room performing together. The only thing missing was it was mono, not stereo. We next decided to try playing & sing a song together. Upon me providing live piano accompaniment for the "Girl From Ipanema" , Rich's vocals appeared to keep coming in a bit (I thought) ahead of the beat. After several unsuccesful attempts at counting in when to come in, it was finally noticed that there indeed is a slight audio signal delay which made it difficult to hit the groove together on that tune. We followed that with "A Nightengale Sang In Berkley (Berkeley) Square" though, and for whatever reason (perhaps the internet tranmission finally improved) everything fell into place on that tune, with Rich singing it first in rubuta tempo with me supplying piano accompaniment (with the arranger off), and then going into tempo at the bridge. I took over the vocals on the second time around, and we then traded off taking nstrumental solos. What a blast, and I must admit, I really wished we had recorded that because we both felt it was a keeper for sure. After trading off on several more tunes from: Poor Side Of Town to Spanish Eyes, we decided it was time for a get down Blues jam session . That was perhaps the most fun , trading off solos and having just a rousing good time jamming (as the Brits might say). I played the B3 hammond sound while Rich deftly handled the piano parts playing terrific manual left hand bass lines with right hand solos. The musical exchanges back and forth we had sounded 'right in' the groove (pocket), if you know what I mean. We had so much fun that we've both promised to meet and play together at least once a week. We plan to record some songs together & I of course will post them on my website . Rich is both an accomplished vocalist & competant keyboard musician who I enjoy making music with. It was truly rewarding and I look forward to our next session. Let's see, is this 'East meets West' or 'West meets East'?

For those interested, here's a link to Rich Child's Website: http://richmusic.co.uk/ as well as my website: http://scottyee.com . I just re-listened to our website MP3 song demos and was amazed how similar the sound quality & performance heard during our LIVE Skype internet telephone connection session today sounded to our MP3s. This technology never ceases to amaze me.

Thanks for listening.

Scott