Well, I have had T2 for 9 months now and am slowly getting comfortable with it. One area that I could use improvement is to be able to play realistically the various acoustical instruments that are so well modeled in T2. You see, I never studied other instrument than a piano so it is rather difficult for me to play on a keyboard, say, an acoustic guitar sound and make it sound passable.

I have heard some good examples of acoustic playing (e.g. Chris Valenti's renditions) and was wondering whether anyone could give me some pointers. I know that SA voices help make the sound more realistic but I think you need to think like a Sax player or Guitar player with your phrasing to make it realistic. I know some of you play other instruments than keyboards so you will for sure know how to play in style.
Thank you.

If you want to get better at playing guitar parts, you might pick up a classical guitar primer or two... Reasonably simple pieces to play in standard musical notation (NOT Tab!), and these will teach you a lot about guitar voicings and techniques. And there are also a few that transcribe more modern styles like James Taylor, and the like (PLENTY of hard rock 'shredding' primers out there, but I doubt that's what you are after!).

Just be prepared to understand that it is VERY difficult to play convincing guitar with just one hand... The spread on guitar chords and lines is very wide. Simpler lines and 6th intervals will get you close, but full guitar chords often span two octaves - a simple E chord goes (from bottom to top) EBEG#BE, and picking patterns for folk and folk-rock can span even greater distances, as 'open' notes are used for drones at the low strings, and other strings are played higher up the neck...

Welcome to the wonderful, wacky world of guitar voicing... it's a whole different world to keyboard playing!

Now you got the idea...this is the MOST Important thing an arranger Kb player HAS TO LEARN for Every Instrument played mostly in your RH......

For the Acoustic Guitar, in some times I need to use both hands fpr the correct voicing and spread, and keep in mind, the Guitar has only 6 strings, so, NEVER play more than 6 notes at one time. ;o)

Barty:

I highly recommend "Arranging Techniques For Synthesists" , by Eric Turkel (including CD of musical examples), of which I used for a music compsition arrangement class back in college (1989), and find it as applicable now as back then. It covers all the different orchestral music instrument families, the specific octave range of each, the unique aspects of the instrument, including (chord) voicings as well as orchestrated harmonies when played ensemble: brass, reed etc. And of course, keyboard emulation & articulation tips to best emulate these unique instrument qualities are discussed as well. This book remains at the top of my music reference book to this day.



Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 08-17-2007).]

Thank you all for suggestions. I will also try to check out that book.

Probably the simplest and quickest approach is to listen to a lot of recordings of artists playing the styles of music you want to emulate.

The main ingredients are how the note(s) is/are attacked, what they do with a note, when they do it, and how they release the note.

I notice that when I do this I unconsciously picture a performer in my mind and hear it in my head while trying to get the spririt of that type of playing.

Then of course being that we are playing an arranger keyboard, the next thing is to work with what we have and do what is convenient. Some things like wide open guitar harmony may sometimes be difficult or other such things, so you may have to comprimise a bit so it can work smoothly and effectively for you.

Best
Scott
www.ScottLMusic.com