What's different about your playing since last year?

Perhaps you've bought a new keyboard or you've been concentrating on certain areas which you felt needed improvement. So all in all, is there a difference in your playing since last year or so? Has there been any improvement?

While a new keyboard does not necessarily improve one's playing it does give one a dose of creativity which may lead to improvement. Granted that it doesn't work for everyone, there are always those that take that creativity to a higher level and in the process improve their overal playing.

Old or new keyboard aside, what's different about your playing?

Taike

[This message has been edited by Taike (edited 06-25-2007).]

Good post Taike,
With every new keyboard there has been surge of interest and time. A new toy will do that for me. Because of that time and interest I am not using music often, just the lyrics and chords. I don’t know if the keyboard itself is creating my change, I think it’s just the excitement.

I am playing with more feeling -- The new styles and sounds also add a to my playing.

John C.

My biggest fear as a "solo" player was singing and playing acoustically with little or no backing. I've worked somewhat on that, and although my voice still "is what it is" ( bluesy and never really quite "pretty enough" for some ballads / love songs ), I think I've slowly been able to turn what I had always thought of as a weakness into something that seems to work pretty well for me when I play live. I like playing this way for a good portion of a show, and the added bonus is that everyone can tell it's all "me" when I turn the accompaniment off.. for better or worse, and fortunately it seems to be better most of the time.

In line with using modern equipment, as it evolves it allows us to more closely emulate instruments such as guitars, saxes, etc ( Articulation Voices, megavoices, "Guitar Modes", Multisampled modules / Vst's, and sample sets ). The other area I've tried to work on is recognition of what the emulated instrument actually "does", and then adjusting my playing to best utilize technology available .. for example using the articulation pedal at the right times or working on better velocity control on multisampled voices, or perhaps on guitar sounds rolling my wrists a bit back and forth to produce a more realistic strumming effect.


AJ

I wasn't playing last year.......now I play up to 3x a day, everyday.

With that much, your chops get up to speed fast

The arranger has inspired me to be creative, use the board as designed and have the most fun I've had in years......

All of the above...

Now that I have the E 80, I am once again playing creatively again every day for several hours, like I used to do on the Technics KN7000 but never did on the tyros 2 replacement, so it isn't just a new keyboard, there is more to this equation.
Bebop

My Solos have improved.

Mainly by simply practicing the good ol' Scales - SLOWLY.

In fact what seems to help facilitate my playing in general:

Relaxed Piano exercises (however basic) played S-L-O-W (to a strict tempo).

Then playing fast becomes a breeze.

(pretty obvious I guess, but I think a few of us have forgotten "the power of the slow"!