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#187747 - 11/23/10 08:12 PM Re: How did YOU get into Arranger Keyboards ? !
Songman55 Offline
Member

Registered: 06/24/05
Posts: 892
Loc: Baltimore, MD USA
I grew up playing organ and piano at home. Piano was my favorite but all of my opportunities for work came on organ. At 15 I started playing organ, Hammond B3 at the Navy Chapels in the Key West area. My first band jobs came shortly after that where I used a Farfisa Organ. I became a OMB artist in 1971 after watching a guy playing a cordovox with a drum machine. This is also when I became an entertainer. I noticed this guy was really working the crowd and that's why he had the job. I bought a Lowrey organ and a drum machine and a Shure vocal master and I was off and running. Great vocals have always been an important part of my show. I later graduated to B3. Several years later in Baltimore I started playing keyboard bass and either piano or another keyboard. This worked well for several years. In the mid 90's I attended a contemporary worship workshop where they had a Roland G 800. It was love at first sight. I bought one immediatly. Then it was a G 1000. Currently I play a Tyros 1 and have an S900 in my studio as well as a Ketron Midjay and Roland RD 700 piano. For me, everyday with an arranger is better than the day before.

Joe

[This message has been edited by Songman55 (edited 11-23-2010).]
_________________________
PSR S950, PSR S900, Roland RD 700, Yamaha C3 6'Grand, Sennheiser E 935 mic, several recording mics including a Neuman U 87, Bose L1 Compact, Roland VS 2480 24 Track Recorder
Joe Ayala

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#187748 - 12/08/10 06:37 AM Re: How did YOU get into Arranger Keyboards ? !
124 Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 01/01/09
Posts: 2195
Quote:
Originally posted by spalding1968:
Just finished a DVD for my choir with 9 songs on it all played live on my PA1X and if i get clearance i will put excerps up on yutube for you all.



Cool! Is it up on YT yet?

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#187749 - 12/09/10 05:08 AM Re: How did YOU get into Arranger Keyboards ? !
spalding1968 Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 09/19/08
Posts: 1264
Loc: United Kingdom
nope not yet. The DVD is still being edited but it looks fantastic and sounds great even if i say so myself ha ha !! There are some issues we need to resolve but hopefully i can get clearance to upload a snippet or two just for a short while. Stay tuned.

Just been working on a new arrangement of the song "how great is our God" I have programmed the style almost from scratch and just need to make sure it sounds good in the majority of chord variations that could be used. Will most likely use the style in our next performance. I will record that separately if i can so you can hear how it works in a live setting. I make all my styles directly on the keyboard so this would be a good example of why the Korg is a stand out instrument as opposed to other arrangers that really need to connect a computer to it to make styles.

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#187750 - 12/09/10 06:21 AM Re: How did YOU get into Arranger Keyboards ? !
Riceroni9 Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 11/15/04
Posts: 1298
Loc: TX, USA
Great Topic, Scotty:

Beaky's southern fried hospital story is a "visual" worth filming. Gee whiz, what an imagination. Loved the line about the Doctor "prescribing" an Arranger... LOL!

I know a playwrite who would probably have a slobbering fit over that story.

I graduated to an Arranger from a care-worn ukelele and a chromatic harmonica... LOL!

Merry Christmas, fellow "Arranger Zoners!"

Dave Rice http://www.ShowCaseYourMusic.com/DaveRice/

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#318924 - 03/10/11 08:46 PM Re: How did YOU get into Arranger Keyboards ? ! [Re: Scottyee]
casiobot Offline
Member

Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 132
Originally Posted By: Scottyee
Coming from a background of playing acoustic piano, I was a bit surprised to discover that there aren't a lot of arranger players here who come from a piano playing background. It seems that the largest percentage of arranger players here come from a background in organ playing. It also seems that a number of forum members are accordian players as well.

I started playing acoustic piano at 4 (classical lessons), getting into rock in jr.high school and jazz type bands in college. Being both a vocalist and piano player, I needed a way to make money performing solo and found the arranger keyboard the best way to achieve this. Before the arranger, I gigged SOLO (playing the piano & singing) with custom made midi backup sequences playing back via my laptop computer. This soon began sounding rather predictable.

Prior to my discovery of the power of arranger keyboards (4 years ago), I had a lot of negative pre-conceived prejudices about them as tacky shopping mall toys for kids and non-legit musicians only. This all changed of course and now I love the arranger keyboard because it permits flexibility and spontaneity: being able to change the number of chorus/verses played, changing styles mid song, adding spontaneous drum fills, and throwing in tasty chord substitions to fit the spontaneous mood of the moment. The arranger keyboard just 'cannot be beat' for a LIVE solo or duo act.

I'm now interested in hearing from other forum members about YOUR music background and HOW you got into arranger keyboards. Also, how has your unique musical background helped you in transitioning to arranger keyboard type playing? - Scott


I didn't get into arrangers for arranging-I got into them because they were WAY less than "Pro" keyboards at the time.

For $300 at Costco, I had at least a very passable piano sound. It wasn't perfect......it was a start....

I sold THAT Casio for a CT-670 and used it for the next five years......


After that, I picked up a WK-1350 at a loss and it has lasted TWICE as long.....


With the WK 7500, my total cost of keyboards would be less than $1400........

In 20 years, you could spend so much MORE, with the "Pro Stuff"......

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