Alot of good advice here but you’re biggest hurdle when first learning to play with others will be timing.
Instead of keeping your own time, you’ll need to learn follow the beat and rythm of the other band members, usually bass and drums. You’ll also need to anticipate starts, stops, etc…
Keep your head up, follow their lead, try to stay in the groove and watch for visual cues.
This will be difficult at first but you will pick it up fairly quickly.
Believe me, you can only learn synchronization by a practicing with other musicians.
After listening to the linked-to clip, wow, looks like antonio has got his work cut out for him as a “first rock band” experience. Talk about trial by fire.
My approach, now that I have familiarized myself with the sound, would be to ask the songwriter or band how they envision the keyboards. My initial instinct would be to lay back and do very simple, open, “paddy” kind of stuff with synth rather than orchestral sounds. But I’ve heard a lot of string-type keys in proggy Scandinavian heavy metal, so that might be something to explore, too. I personally would veer more towards synthetic type sounds, and just provide background with fairly openly voiced chords (maybe not more than a root-fifth, maybe lots of suspensions, I don’t know for sure, but that’s what I’d be playing around with at first). I assume there is going to be space for more up-front synth parts as well. I tend to like strong melody lines, so that’s what I’d be looking for in coming up with parts, but that might not be desirable in this type of music–I’m not sure. It all depends on what they’re looking for.
I also think there will be times they will want you to showcase. This is more some kind of new jazz than prog rock, but I like Hiromi Uehara’s approach in terms of the sounds she uses and how she approaches the synthesizer in terms of textures, the way she bends the notes, and otherwise colors them. You’re not going to be doing this most of the time, but that’s what I like to hear. But, for all I know, this may not be appropriate for that type of music. You probably will be using “harder” sounding patches, and the scales/modes you’ll be using are likely to be quite different, but I like to hear the synth used as a synth, not just a keyboard with a bunch of patches on it. It really is an instrument unto itself. I’m a decent keyboardist, but not a great synthesizer player.
Listening to the linked song a little more, I do hear some background swirly/ethereal/pad type keyboards in the quieter section at 1:30 sections, so maybe just laying back and finding appropriate synth sounds to create texture and atmosphere without getting in the way might be a good first approach, before the band desites to give you a blistering keyboard part.
I have never been in a band but a bunch of my friends have and from hanging around practices it seems that it’s critical to make the entire experience about you and you alone. Every band has an alpha and you job is to make sure it’s you and to crush all who oppose you. You must dictate not only the playlist but also the tempo of each and every song to suit your quirky personality. Complete control is of the utmost importance. Everyone in the band should have this attitude.
At least that’s what I learned from drinking free beer and watching practices.
Another question occurred to me - is this supposed to be a cover band (listen to this CD, we want to play this) or an original band (listen to this CD - we want to write stuff like this)?
In a perfect world, I want to compose myself at some point. But the ultimate goal is learning this completely new musical language, and just try to absorb, observe; make mistakes.
See if they’ll let you play the glockenspiel. Not only is it likely to be the only glockenspiel in the band, but also “glockenspiel” is fun to say. So when someone asks you what you play, you can just say “GLOCKENSPIEL!”
I can understand not liking it, but it is *nothing * like death metal bass drumming with the exception that there’s a lot of kick going on. Death (and many other forms of) metal can often be characterized as having almost nothing but either 16th or 32nd notes on the kick with a few breaks; all speed little imagination. With this guy, I doubt he even plays 8 16ths in a row during the whole song. That might [url=]actually be true. It’s all a complex pattern of rests and notes. Very complex. Not that everyone has to like or appreciate it, but lumping that part in with a guy that just runs on his kick pedals for 4 minutes isn’t fair. I guess you did say you admire the technical brilliance. Maybe there is a groove of sorts, but since no one in their right mind plays in 9/4 it’s harder to hear/feel.
I also told them I’d try singing if the keyboards thing didn’t work out good. I can do a mean impression of Cookie Monster and Chad Kroeger, so I basically can handle all rock music vocals. Oh, and I do Queen songs at Karaoke night. Easy peasy.
Wait, is this your report? They’re letting you go hog wild? If so, sweeeet.
Ahh, but can you do Cookie Monster while doing prog metal three voice fugues? If so, who needs these guys? You’re the one with the talent and vision. Go all one-man band!
