Just like the human voice, basically anything not run by keys alone (pianos, organs, accordions, Clavinets etc.) the movement of pitch is part of that musicality. Whether it’s intonation adjustment (blues thirds and sevenths etc.) or it’s melisma from one note to another, any real music cannot be expressive in its absence.

We all have heard the horrors of taking a human voice, and crushing all pitch movement out of it by using extreme amounts of Autotune. But playing sax sounds, guitar sounds, things like that from a keyboard with no pithbend is to my ears as equally horrible. It sucks the soul out of the sound.

To be quite honest, if I can’t spare my LH for the bender, I won’t solo on any pitch flexible sound. It is one of the many reasons I use very little ‘pure’ arranger play in my shows. Too much conflict between wanting to work the bender, and the tyranny of inputting a stupid damn chord so the arranger knows it!

I don’t mind using the arranger stuff to prepare a MIDI or audio backing track (although I still like to insert Markers so I can alter the structure, live), but when it comes to a choice between using my LH to input a stupid chord or using my LH to extract more expression and realism from a sound that traditionally bends like crazy, I’ll take the bender every time.

Starting out as a horn player perhaps has colored this, but I think I would have ended up here without the horn. Perhaps it’s a bit rough to say this, but I honestly feel that the only people that find horn or guitar sounds acceptable with no bending are pianists and organists!

I can’t honestly remember any regular listener going ‘That’s a great sax solo’ to a keyboard sax solo with no bending. And, let’s be honest, it’s hard to get most musicians to admit it’s a great sax solo even WITH the bending!

From the earliest days of electronic music, even from the days of the Ondes Martinot, or the Theremin, and definitely from the start of the Moog days, the ability to move the pitch and vibrato was considered its strength, not something to avoid. What would Chick, or Herbie, or Joe have played without the wheels?

It doesn’t have to be emulation, Chas… synth sounds are the better for pitch manipulation as well, but if you are going to use a sax sound, don’t dismiss the very thing that makes it the go to solo instrument in almost every popular style. Go grab that bender, try to think of it as something that adds to the music, not detracts… 🎹😎