Left Hand Sound

I am beginning to question if I need to, necessarily, always play organ, strings, piano, etc on the left. It is probably a carryover from organ.

If the arrangement has full comp, I could do without it sometimes, but I am use to creating movement on my left hand during sustained parts.

The reason I ask is that my Yamaha has left sounds depending on the style. Many times there is none, at least out of the box(MFD). Also, I see many pro videos with the left hand not being glued down and freeing it for port/mod wheels, changes, etc.

I would appreciate a consensus, if indeed, there is one.

I don't think there is a wrong or right answer to this. For me it depends on the tune and the group of musicians I am emulating at the time...and thats part of real time arranging. If it needs a pad/ Hammond sound on the left then I use it.

as for the 'pros' who use left hand for mod/pitch wheel thats a different style of playing that often requires double tracking with your own prercorded accompanimnet track. So although you don't see them holding pad chords - they may have done so in prepeation.

Bernie,
I'm not a pro but I read a lot of manuals ;-)
Your Yamaha and most of the better arrangers have a "left hold" or "lower hold" that will sustain your LH notes when you lift your hand from the keys. It does give some chord changes a much smoother sound when you have to reposition your whole hand.

Another way to achieve this is to program one of the unused accompaniment tracks to sound a sustained triad in strings, organ, choir, etc. Typically this accompaniment track would continue to sound when you release the chord to use the bender, etc.

I notice that Roland's recent BK's have a lot of flexibility when it comes to how each track interacts with the sustain pedal.
My $.02,
Ted

Few of us chose to use footswitches to trigger style Divisions and Fills, etc., so LH sound is pretty dependent on whether the sound is background enough that if you stop playing it to go hit fill buttons or all the other stuff we do, it won't be a glaring drop out.

Pads, strings, E. Piano/Pad layers, all that sort of stuff seems to be the easiest to use in an arranger setting.

BTW, the BK-9 has the same pedal inputs my G70 does. A sustain, an expression pedal, and another 'switch' input. This allows you to have TWO sustain pedals, one for upper and one for lower, should you choose. I find for arranger and for live band use, this is the best option. That way, you don't have to worry about which one is going to sustain.

The BK3/5/7m only have two pedal inputs... a sustain, and another that can either do a expression pedal OR another switch pedal. Plus the BK7m has the FC-7 input, something I find very hard to do without.

There are some interesting tricks you can do simply with your LH if you decide to utilize a combination of Pianostyle mode (where the chord doesn't change until you play a 3 note chord) and setting your LH sound so that it doesn't do anything until you hit it quite hard.

One of my favorite cool things is to set up a slap bass and 'pop' sound that won't sound until you play fff. You can now chord normally and then pop in the occasional 'pull' or slap bass note in addition to the fingered bassline, something that bass players do all the time!

Try it, it's a cool trick.

For more possibilities, take a look back at my Keytar BK-7m demos from a few months ago. Yes, I did it with JUST the RH, rather than left, but if your LH is independent enough, no reason why you can't pull this off with only the left, and leave your right free for whatever else... I did the chord triggering AND the solos with just one hand.