I regularly strip out all but bass drums and rhythm guitar, most styles sound fine. Mind you, this depends on how well you can add back enough to give the style some flavor…

In a way, I tend to approach this as I would have playing in a four piece band. You got a drummer, a bassist and a guitarist who can only play one thing. You need a Rhodes comp and a horn section, that’s all you…. You need a piano and some strings, ditto.

Until the advent of SMF’s or arrangers, that’s how EVERYBODY did it! You figured out how to condense the many parts in a recorded arrangement into something two hands could play and still capture the flavor of the original. Not one hand. Two…

That’s why I’m a big fan of the chord sequencer on songs with a repeating structure. Regular style play forces your left hand into doing something that you wouldn’t in a real band. Everybody already knows the chords (except the drummer! 😂). Your left hand can play string lines, or clavinet chops or whatever, without having to play every chord on the beat.

I guess if you want to still drive the bus one handed, strip the style to the rhythm guitar and the piano comp in addition to the bass and drums, you can do the one handed thing. But an awful lot of standard keyboard playing technique is a two handed thing, from regular piano playing to rhythmic chopping between hands, to lead sound bending technique etc.. To be quite honest, it’s why I don’t use styles a whole lot, live. Having to tie up over half of my abilities to input a dumb chord so the arranger can have all the fun playing the actual parts just seemed such a waste!

I like playing!

All I can suggest is, use the chord sequencer, or make an SMF of the style so the chords are already in there, then strip out as much as possible. For starters, you get the fun of actually playing, but also, you can play something different every time and get away from the style’s intrinsic repetition.

The thing is, probably most of us here are old enough to remember playing back before machines could do it all for us. Be honest…. Didn’t you have more fun back then? 🎹😎

But yes, I guess you pull a style apart, strip it down, it might not always be what YOU’D play, but it’s usually enough.