You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Why Peter REFUSES To Play Keyboards

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Peter lets the people know why he refuses to play on keyboards for performances. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

to do this. Okay, good. I'm Adamannis. I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music advice flowing lovingly at you. Flowing with lots of love. Via the intranets.

Towards your way. We talk a lot about music. We talk a lot about the piano. We talk a lot about improvising. And we do some playing here. And Peter, we get a lot of lovely compliments about the playing. It's really fun to play with you. It's some of these on some of these.

But from henceforth, I refuse. You refuse. Well, that's what we're going to be talking about because it is oftentimes not our preferred way to play the piano on MIDI controller keyboards. It can often be a very frustrating experience, especially I'm trying to connect with Peter. I want some dynamic range.

I don't really have it here, and I thought maybe we can talk about what that's like. And specifically, I've seen some instances where you've talked about this where people have wanted to hire you to perform. Right. Unhirable. And they say, well, we don't have a piano. but maybe you could bring a keyboard.

And I've seen your response, which is like, well, listen, you're going to pay for me to come here, which is, you know, that's not cheap. It's Peter Martin. And then you're going to have me playing a keyboard, and it's not going to be very good because the keyboard's not going to sound very good. I kind of feel the same way.

I've done gigs where I've actually rented a piano myself, even if I have to build that into the budget. If I know that it's going to be one of those kinds of gigs where it's better that I have an acoustic piano, even an upright, I'll do that oftentimes before. for a keyboard because I like a hammer hitting something and I need that feel to really be able to express what I want to express on an acoustic piano situation.

Now, we can talk about all these different occurrences and maybe some of the pitfalls of just, you know, demanding a piano and how maybe some people don't have that. Get me my Steinway, get me my Fasiole. But I thought we could just talk about that. Like why don't you, you know, why isn't your preferred instrument some kind of keyboard? Yes.

And first of all, full, closure because you forced me into this ridiculous title of why Peter refuses to perform on keyboards. Yeah. It's not entirely accurate. You're going to find some videos. Yeah, we do it all the time. And there's a lot of videos online of me playing. I mean, for years, I played with Diane Reeves and I almost always had a keyboard and a piano.

I don't think there was ever a time I just had a keyboard. I mean, something got really screwed up. Yeah. But that was more repertoire driven. That's right. But just, that's a perfect example. You would do a, you could do a gig with Diane Reeves on just a piano. Yeah.

But you wouldn't do one on just. keyboard, right? Like you would have to have some kind of piano. Right, right. And maybe if I'm doing a gig with Lady Gaga or somebody, not to be associated with the other artist, Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga. Maybe I'm not, maybe I'm not using acoustic piano at all, although she's doing any for Tony Bennett, RIP. Yeah, if it's the kind of music where it's like, what fits it? If you're playing like industrial nine inch nail style music, like an acoustic piano is not, will sometimes be the right fit, but you're going to need a variety of colors for your palette. But for what we usually do, which is like acoustic-based, improvisation-based music, right? Like, if I'm using an acoustic piano

sound, I really want it to be an acoustic piano. If I'm using a keyboard, and I've heard you do this before, too, I'll often use a Rhodes sound as opposed to an acoustic piano sound just because it's so hard to recreate the subtleties of an acoustic piano sound and kind of bums me out when you can't at it, you know. And I wonder how much of it, though, is feel. Because, like, actually duplicating the sound, and I think are we on Keyescape here? Yeah, and Keyescape does it better than anybody. Yeah, and I mean, in some ways, depending on how it's, you know, engineered and stuff, and you play certain things, it can sound as good or better than many acoustic pianos. But in terms of, like, the feel of playing it, and I think if you're going for that sound, it's like, if possible, go for that authentic

thing. Because for me, it affects so much, like, how you interpret. act with the instrument. So I can get like what we did on the intro here. I feel like I can get a good feel and that we can get like a rapport that is closer to two acoustic pianos than in terms of like the actual outcome than we probably think. Probably. But in terms of like how it feels and I would say the amount of energy that you have to expend to be able to get to that is so much higher when you're trying to do piano on keyboard. So it can be done and it can sound pretty good. But the reason like I generally don't like to do it on gigs is because I can do it so much better when there's an acoustic instrument. Now, I realize that a lot of that might not be noticed by a lot of listeners,

but it matters to me. And I think ultimately for kind of the final product, it makes a difference. For me, it's really two major things that affect why I prefer an acoustic piano 100% of the time over an electric piano. I mean, over a keyboard. Listen, if the piano is missing keys, if it's incredibly out of tune, if it's unplayable. There's a point it goes past. Of course, I'm going to choose the Nord here if I can't really play it or if it sounds just awful. But if it's a comparable upright piano or something, I'm going to choose that for a couple of reasons. One is, like you said, the feel. Like there's so hard to recreate a hammer hitting something.

And I know a lot of companies get really close. I know Roland has the sort of V piano, which is supposed to be one of the better technologies. I'm sure put in the comments if you have your favorite feeling keyboards. But even those things, even those, there's something missing. There's something with the hammer throw that I just. don't get, and I don't know if it's even because they're too consistent, or there's something about it that it doesn't feel real. The other thing is combined usually with a lack of dynamic depth, you know, where the sound is coming from usually one small space. Now, this, a lot of these

things are probably fixed if you had, you know, a $5,000 speaker setup, you know, just perfectly studio set up at you wherever you were. Yeah. So, or headphones or. I don't know. Headphones are a horrible idea for that. But you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like something in the space that really recreated how it sounded in the stereo spectrum and created the box and everything like that,

recreated that soundscape. But nobody's got time for that. Like when you're on a gig, nobody's going to do that. Usually got a little PV wedge right here. Right. That's like shooting out up at you and you have five minutes to get it level. And if I'm on a keyboard,

I just know I'm just going to hear like a tinny, that, no dynamic range and it's going to feel not great. Those three things are usually the sound itself, the lack of dynamic range and the feel of the keyboard. Not to mention little things like the feel of the pedal, you know? Nord has that great three pedal system. Still doesn't feel like a real piano.

There's no manipulating it. There's no finding the joy of finding where the soft pedal like really starts to get this curve on the sound, you know? I love that stuff, man. I know. Yeah, it's just a, it's just. Just a, it's tactile, it's feel, it's how you're responding to the sound as you go. I think that's the hardest thing for me to play a keyboard.

Like if it's a road sound, if it's like some original sound, if it's like a clavinet, even those things like playing a roads versus playing like a vintage vibe or an actual fender, because you got some idiosyncrasies in there. But it's closer in terms of like for me, the amount of energy to kind of adjust my mindset. Because a lot of it is like you just have to think about like how is it sound to the listener? Because like I'm surprised like part of the reason we don't play more in here is because sometimes we feel like oh if we're in the other room with the two pianos we can do so much better. But then we have people, a lot of our listeners like we love it when you guys play and stuff. So it is important to think about the end result.

And a lot of these kind of gradients are bigger to us the differences than they are to the listener. So what that means is you have to kind of suspend your belief or disbelief. in terms of like as you're playing. It's not that different than when you're playing like a gig, a big festival and you love the piano. You can't really hear it. But you can't hear it. Or what you're hearing from the monitor is horrible.

You haven't turned off the monitor and you can't hear. You have to imagine what it's sounding like. But at least then you have the feel of the thing. You got to have a mind here. Sean Jones talks about it in his first open studio course about, he's obviously a trumpeter. And so, but if you're playing a big gig outside festival,

then you actually have to just pretend like you can hear a great sound and then play like that. that's the case. And they hope and pray that that's what the front of house engineer is doing. And I try to do that. I mean, I even try to do that here when we're playing. Because this is so loud sometimes. Like here's as quiet as I can play it.

Yeah. Here's really as heavy as I'm going to play it. There's just not that much. So oftentimes I'll like not play anything, like accidentally miss, you know, because I'm trying to stay under you or I can't hear that at all. And I'll just be like, okay, it's probably going to be fine. You know, we'll see how it is, but it's probably fine. And there's something that's great about an acoustic piece.

I know this is like old school. I want to have my turntables and my typewriter, Mr. Hipster. But it is true. It's like there's no cords attached to it or anything. Yeah, there's a vibe to it. Like this here, I mean, we've got a weird setup because we're trying to do a podcast up in here. That's our primary thing. But I mean, it's like knowing that if the power goes out, and I've been on gigs, big festival

outside with like the power goes out. Hey, the real estate can still go. That's right. That's right. And it's just like knowing that you're kind of in another world. Yeah. That you can still do with this, but you just have to work harder. And it's also, it's a very.

admirable feat of engineering. It hasn't really changed much in a couple hundred years. I know the basic like mechanics of it. I mean it's been improved in some ways. It's pretty incredible. It's pretty incredible. And I think also too for me like the barrier of entry for the keyboards like I said to be good. The barrier Harris of the barrier Harris that no to sound good to feel good and to have a good dynamic range is I mean you're getting up there to what it would cost to buy a piano. You know You know what I mean? Like $5,000 for the V piano. And if you want to get the really nice speaker is probably another five grand. And then if you get the, you know, keyscape or whatever, then we're talking a few hundred or whatever. Like, you can really spend some money to get your sounds right on the digital piano. And I was like, well, I could just rent a piano for less than that, you know. Oh, right. Of course. But what do you think about for folks that are like, okay, I'm somewhere I can't afford an accrual. Look, acoustic panels can be very expensive. Let's talk about some downsides.

Yeah. They're big and heavy. Can't move them. their maintenance on them for like tuning. I know some people just have them and they get a tune once a year or whatever, but I mean to really keep it up. They're pain in the ass. They are pain in the ass. But where do you think the kind of line crosses over between the benefits versus the pain of the ass factor for acoustic piano versus say a keyboard?

And let's not even say like the $5,000 set up. Let's just say, well, a Nord can certainly get up into that range to. But like a really quality, well, maybe something like this. That's a little cheaper because it's a controller, You've got to get the software, but you get the really good sounds, you know, and some pretty good speakers. But like with an acoustic piano, you can get like in most cities around the world, I believe, certainly here in the U.S. If you look around not that hard, you can get a spin at piano that's in pretty good shape for 500 bucks, sometimes less, sometimes just to go pick the sucker up. I mean, you can find one if you want to pick it up and put a little maintenance into it.

You can get good work. You know, we're really lucky here in St. Louis, actually, we've got a local piano shop called Jackson Piano's. His mission it is is really to put pianos into venues. Right. And so like every little restaurant and live music venue here and around town, you'll see at least an upright piano that'll have a little card on it that says, brought to you by Jackson Piano's. And I know for a fact, they usually put those in there on their own as a little business card

and just to get pianos being played, which is an amazing. And not everywhere is as lucky to have that kind of thing for sure. Absolutely. And shout out Jackson Piano. Also shout out Piano's for people. Totally. We have both these organizations here in St. Louis that are really kind of put us at the epicenter, I think, and the vanguard of like putting pianos, older pianos to great use pianos for

people, of course, amazing nonprofit that puts pianos into homes, much as Jackson piano. But I mean, they do it for free. Yep. They include free lessons. It's a visionary. I mean, they've been featured on CBS Sunday morning and NBC with Lester Holt. I mean, they're doing amazing things and really changing the game with that. You would be surprised, Peter, you know, if you are in a city somewhere and you're playing a venue that regularly has music and they don't have a piano, talk to the venue owner or the person that is in charge of the finances. The proprietor. And you know, you can actually, I've talked people into buying pianos for their venues. Right. And saying like, listen, this is not. But you're very persuasive. Well, I can be when it comes to this because it's like,

are you going to have live acoustic jazz six nights a week and you're not going to have any kind of piano in here? Right. You're really shooting yourself in the foot. And also you should probably have a drum kit too so that there's house drums. And, and, You know, this music is best when spontaneity happens and when people come up and start playing. But I know it's a bit of an investment, but you could actually talk venues into or even restaurants into saying like, you know, this would be 10 times better with an acoustic instrument. Absolutely. And then, you know, you can lie a little bit and say, they're not a big deal to maintain.

Right. But I've actually even worked with venues on trying to like, you know, shown them Jackson Piano's inventory and say, like, listen, you can get this for. you know, $1,000 or whatever, and it'd be better than what we have here, so, which is nothing. Right, absolutely. And then for me, I have my Nord here, and this lives at the studio, but I do, the only reason I have this is I ever have, which don't happen very often anymore, but if I have some kind of gig that's not a performance, that's like a background gig, or I'm supporting someone, and, you know, it's, it's really like, it's not worth it for me to try to get a piano there or whatever. I bring the old Nord, and it's, it's fine. I used to haul around a suitcase fender roads, which

was actually back in our shot. It's still in there. It's still in there. That suitcase used to be in the back of my car for 10 years. And I would take it everywhere I went that didn't have. Because I just loved the feeling of a hammer hitting at time. Absolutely. I used to do that on gigs before I could drive.

So it was in the back of my mom's car or get my sister to drive me down. Right down here to play. That's supportive parents right there. Actually, my mom would do it. She'd make my sister. Yeah. Cool. All right.

Well, should we play a little since I'm refusing to. Should we go in the other room? Yeah, let's do that. All right. Until next time. You'll hear it. Thank you.