Less is More or the Quest for Authenticity

[Sam Wacker]

The Genos 2 will be the last keyboard I ever buy. There are a number of reasons. The onset of a bit of arthritis means my hands need a rest after about an hour and a half. Limited opportunities for live performance - even in a music city.  I've done lots of charity work in the past so I guess that's an option and busking is not really my scene.  As technology strides on I have to question this incessant desire for better this and better that. Sure, performers will want the best "authentic"  sound possible but do audiences really care that much?

Do you ever play a wrong note or chord deliberately to demonstrate you are really playing live? Do you interpret all songs and tunes to create your own style?

This YouTube documentary from 2017 is about The Analogues, a Dutch band who strive for authenticity in performing Beatles music the fab four only performed in the studio. They search out original instrument and amplification of the period.  A few pre-recorded special effects are used – jet taking off or a cockerel crowing when they can't create these sounds live.  An anvil is dragged on stage for "Maxwell's Silver Hammer": a harpist for She's Leaving Home"; an Indian ensemble for "Within You Without You" and so on.

The White Album - Live in Liverpool (documentary) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxHDoCMsy8

Then there's Dovydas, a YouTuber with 539 million views from 2,800 videos

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I have no idea if his impromptu performances with members of the public are rehearsed in any way
but he appears to build the song on the spot with chord loopers and drum machines.

It's also been claimed that Taylor Swift mimed her songs on the billion-dollar Eras Tour.

Thoughts or comments?

[DrakeM]

the White Album link does not work anymore (it has been removed).

I have seen thumb nails of the YouTube guitar player guy, but I never click on them until now. I only found two songs he did that I knew. Folsom Prison (he did twice recently with a loop/drum machine) and Tennessee Whiskey (he did with a live band).

He gets more views than I get. But he is younger, has more hair and plays guitar.

I could change back to playing a Fender Stratocaster guitar and use my own midi made backing tracks made with my SX920 keyboard. I just like playing live with styles so I can extend any of my songs when performing as needed.

Swift using some sort of voice enhancement equipment would not surprise me.

[mikf]

There is every shade of grey out there. The so called tribute bands often go to to extraordinary lengths for authenticity. There are fairly ordinary performers who are obsessed with sound quality and sound manipulation. There are performers who just want a decent instrument and sound quality to do their own thing. There are some who highly leverage technology, and some who just play and sing. And of course your standards and expectations change when you play hundreds of dollars to see world class acts.
 But the vast majority of performers at the level of most ordinary working musicians, just try to do a decent cover version without going to crazy lengths.
My own view is that unless the audience have ponied up a lot of money to see a tribute band or a star, with the accompanying expectations, most people in a lounge or bar or at a wedding just want to hear decent playing and singing, familiar songs, and acceptable sound quality. How you get there is individual choice.
Mike

[Sam Wacker]

Sorry about the link, the video is still there. Could it be that I used a VPN  - a habit I got from living in China?  Here's a different link for a playlist from the actual concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NMR6F-NJYI&list=PLfVaHYQvTTBrbgOda5X6HEJa7rbJ4HGcw

You gave me a good laugh with this line as it certainly applies to me.
" ...  younger, has more hair and plays guitar"
Thanks for your honest response.

As for your comment on Taylor Swift,  this guy has used software to do a kind of forensic analysis of her vocals over several concerts. He asks a range of questions in a number of videos.
Taylor Swift's $2 Billion tour revenue... for miming?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rMNMURShM

Years ago, Elton John complained about Madonna mining at some awards ceremony.
It seems that it's almost expected.  But when we compare this situation  with Paul McCartney's live shows, McCartney's voice is a bit ragged around the edges these days - but he is singing his songs.

[Sam Wacker]

"But the vast majority of performers at the level of most ordinary working musicians, just try to do a decent cover version without going to crazy lengths.
My own view is that unless the audience have ponied up a lot of money to see a tribute band or a star, with the accompanying expectations, most people in a lounge or bar or at a wedding just want to hear decent playing and singing, familiar songs, and acceptable sound quality. How you get there is individual choice."
Mike
[/quote]
I do agree with this 100%.

Looking at your equipment I would guess you are a classically-trained musician who would not look out of place in a 5-star hotel. And that brings me to another bugbear. Yamaha pianos that play themselves. A Sheraton hotel I visited for their great buffet has this grand piano with a visible electronic unit underneath the keyboard. The keys "play themselves" commented a friend.

[DerekA]

My daughters were at one of Taylor Swift's concerts at Murrayfield last year. I don't think they would have really cared if she was miming or not - it would have been difficult to tell over the noise of the crowd singing along. And like it or not, that sort of concert is more about the theatre and atmosphere rather than listening to the actual singing.

[Sam Wacker]

And like it or not, that sort of concert is more about the theatre and atmosphere rather than listening to the actual singing.

Indeed. At the height of Beatlemania, and with the amplification used at the time (Shea Stadium), the Beatles complained that all the screaming meant they couldn't hear what they were doing.
I think you have answered my question about whether audiences really care about authenticity. It's a spectacular to be experienced by being there and probably recording it on the phone for social media feeds.

[mikf]

No problem with player pianos, they have always been around. No different to playing tracks over a PA.
The problem for me with technology is with the intent. If it is to provide music where there is no performer, or for performers to improve overall sound, or to deal with environmental issues like noise ... then that's ok. But when its done to take money but fool the public ie I cant sing or play very well so I will just pretend.. then that's not OK.
Mike

[Sam Wacker]

I take your points but I would prefer a real musician was employed in these top hotels: they can afford it. Decades ago in the UK when I was performing regularly I joined the Musicians Union (MU). Not only were they the cheapest for insurance on equipment and public liability insurance but they produced information on contracts for example and had set rates for performers. One of their campaigns was to encourage venues to use more "live" musicians. This was to try and halt the trend of moving away from live acts to karaoke. The MU failed. Some pubs (bars) that had a licence for live music cancelled their licences and just applied for a single licence for specific events at certain times of the year.

My own view, for what it's worth and based on observation, is that many people prefer actual performers and are accepting of less than perfect performances. There was a time when bands and solo singers did a kind of apprenticeship. On the road, playing at the "spit and sawdust" venues but also the halls and nightclubs. Maybe it's like this nowadays and these venues still exist and I'm just too old and out of touch to see it. As somebody once said: "Nostalgia is not what it used to be." Thanks for your comments.

[mikf]

With a player grand piano they get the designer look, and the ambience of the piano sound as many hours a day as they want, without the hassle and cost of finding, employing and paying quality piano players - who with the best will in the world can only play for a fraction of the time. The piano is a capital cost, lost in the cost of the building and amortized over 20 years, so it works financially.
A performer is much more of a focal point, and ongoing cost, and many of these hotels just want the ambience in their reception area. They may not care about attracting customers to listen to a performer. I think it's a very different market to a performer in a lounge.

[Sam Wacker]

With a player grand piano they get the designer look, and the ambience of the piano sound... 
... I think it's a very different market to a performer in a lounge.

Absolutely and a little bit more than just a PA system, I think.

Here's an artist I like very much because of the way she interprets all the different styles of the music she plays. Korean-American Sangah Noon is maximising her earning potential by livestreaming her lounge piano from a Washington DC hotel, Christmas 2021.  Are the guests interested? Mmmmm... The second link is from the Ritz Carlton.

Surprise Hotel Lounge Piano Livestream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFyI74GFZak

How I Became a Lounge Pianist at Luxury Hotels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MLhsdVZIkw

[mikf]

If you want to hear great lounge/light jazz piano playing look up Beegie Adair. Made piles of piano interpretations of songs from the great American Songbook. She was a Steinway artist/performer, a professor of jazz at a college in either Memphis or Nashville, and was still playing beautifully up to her death a couple years ago in her eighties.
She never drifted far from the way the composer intended it to sound, her improv was never 'way out there' yet still made it personal and fresh. I can listen to her for hours, and her recordings are on Spotify and other music sites.
Mike

[Sam Wacker]

Thank you for the recommendation. Completely unaware of her music until we had our discussion. Still, better late than never.
Been listening and clicking my fingers to some of the swing tunes from The Great American Songbook Collection on YouTube for most of the day – what  joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npAlsAZjYvM

Quite an interesting analysis of what we would have to do play in a similar style (that actually made me doze off for a little while) can be found here:

Beegie Adair Piano Lesson - Beegie's Style & Technique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibDtSQxc_2Y

Suspended (sus) chords and chord voicings seem to be the approach, but teaching style is crucial.
The real answer to playing like her is to start playing at 5 years old, complete a music degree and have an interesting musical career including as session musician, bandleader and teacher.

Ah well...

Thanks again.

[mikf]

Sam
The thing is that when you analyze a good players approach to harmony, it sounds very theoretical and pretty intimidating. And even more so when you see it written down. But the fact is that the player who produces the piece almost certainly does not think about harmony theory at all when they are playing. They just think about the sound they want, and they play the notes that make that sound.
 You correctly guessed on a previous post that I was classically trained, and I do understand all that complicated harmony terminology. And it's useful when analyzing or describing what you play to someone else. But when I play I don't think I will play an "F# major thirteenth, second inversion with a flattened fifth". I just play the notes I think will sound the way I want it to sound based on experience. And I am sure that Beegie does as well. It just comes naturally to good players, who use their ears.
Of course I know that instead of a 2,5,1 turnaround I could use a 2, sus5, 1, ....but I never think that way while playing. It just happens because sometimes I hear in my head that it is what will sound good.
As far as sus chords are concerned, it may be true that she uses them a lot, but so do most good piano players, just as they also use flattened faiths and ninths a lot. They just sound good. A good way to think about sus chords is to think about sometimes playing the bass of the next chord with the notes of the previous chord, then resolve it by moving to the notes of that next chord. EG..on a piano play doubled up G bass in the lh with F chord in the rh. Then G bass with the G chord. Or add the flattened 9th (C#). It all resolves beautifully to C. Written down it seems complicated, but when played it's pretty natural.
Mike
Mike

[mikf]

Oops, that last note should have been Ab, not C# ...don't know where that came from !
Mike

[Sam Wacker]

Thank you for the explanation and encouragement. Impossible to disagree with any of it.... but I believe it will come naturally to you, almost second nature and with muscle memory, as you have learned the theory, what works and what doesn't and put it into practice over many hours.

What you say reminds me of a scene from the partly fictious movie Amadeus. Salieri, court composer (and a "rival" of Mozart - in the movie anyway), has written a march in Mozart's honour. The Emperor, Salieri's patron and a mediocre pianist, plays it to an array of sycophants all in the emperor's employ, as young Mozart enters. On first hearing, Mozart is encouraged to play it so he improvises and improves the whole tune. It's almost as if Salieri is using root position chords and Mozart is using your "F# major thirteenth, second inversion with a flattened fifth" approach. Here's the full scene, the actual variations are at 7'30":

Mozart insults Salieri - plays his own piece better than he did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI7xtD3bMD0

Then there's Bruce Hornsby, whose style of playing I have been looking at recently. A great favourite of mine is musician and singer Bonnie Raitt. A true storyteller with believable emotion when she sings. Here she does the definitive version of this beautifully sad song with Hornsby providing an amazing accompaniment on two keyboards.  Other covers of this song seem to simplify the arrangement:

Bonnie Raitt & Bruce Hornsby - I Can't Make You Love Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTIu4UbkK94

It's no wonder the audience respond when she reaches a crescendo in the song. Autheticity.

[mikf]

When people ask how some people can play without music, - sometimes even if they have never played it before they can get it almost perfect on the fly - I always say its equal parts musical knowledge, experience and copying. And copying should not be underestimated. Most of what I learned about chords came not from teachers but from trial and error in trying to copy certain pieces and sounds. Once I figured out how to get the right sound and feel I often would not realize until later that all I had done was discover a chord I never knew. But then it gets built into your skill set. When I was about 13 years old, there was a hit recording of Kitty Lester singing Love Letters which had a great piano accompaniment. In trying to copy that piano part I stumbled on a collection of notes that I later found out was a second inversion of a half diminished chord 3. I also noticed how beautifully it resolved to chord 6 maj 7. And then I realized that every time I was about to play a chord 6 major I could precede it with a half diminished. I fell in love with that alternative sequence and started to use it all the time. I still do.

[Sam Wacker]

... Most of what I learned about chords came not from teachers but from trial and error in trying to copy certain pieces and sounds. Once I figured out how to get the right sound and feel I often would not realize until later that all I had done was discover a chord I never knew. But then it gets built into your skill set...

This is all so true. At 17 pre-university I was playing with a 6-piece (including 2 girl singers) in a poor man's version of Caesars Palace in Liverpool (long since demolished and replaced with a multi-story car park). The setlist was 12 songs in 2 sessions - not much really for the money but new "appropriate" songs that we had only just rehearsed for a cabaret setting where people were eating dinner. These were "Fifth Dimension",  "Manhattan Transfer" and other 'complex' tunes and harmonies and not your average 4-chord progressions. No music, no lead sheets, no chord charts. It was a week's residency and on day five I had a brain freeze.  I  had to ask the guitarist on three occasions what key were in. From that day on I have chord charts, lead sheets, and some sheet music close at at hand. 

Discovering a new chord or phrasing is exciting. Paul MCartney tells a tale as a schoolboy of going on the bus to see a guy who knew the BMaj7 chord!  So easy nowdays with websites dedicated to these things. The fun of learning "passing chords" from a book on how to play Gospel or slash chords from a Beatles songbook and Top 50 pop hits book I will always remember.

When I was about 13 years old, there was a hit recording of Kitty Lester singing Love Letters which had a great piano accompaniment ... I fell in love with that alternative sequence and started to use it all the time. I still do.

Such a small world! A young music graduate and jazz pianist gave me 5 piano lessons several decades ago.  He used the Kitty Lester "Love Letters" tune to demonstrate various techniques. He played it on my "new Yamaha PSR 9000 Pro" from memory - I was just gobsmacked.

[mikf]

I accompanied a good female vocalist in variety show, in a proper theater, with full lighting and everything, just the two of us on stage, and we did that song. I got to play a white grand piano. I think she was also only about 15 but she had Ketty Lester's voice and phrasing to a tee. I could play that that piano accompaniment in my sleep. The song was still in the charts and we got a standing ovation, because people thought it was exactly like the record. It was a heck of a thrill at that age!

[Sam Wacker]

The song was still in the charts and we got a standing ovation, because people thought it was exactly like the record. It was a heck of a thrill at that age!

Hi there
In concentrating on updating my profile, it seems I did not post this reply of a few days ago.
Playing live at any age and getting an enthusiastic response from an audience is what makes performance so rewarding. Well done for the standing ovation.

The song by 'Ketty' Lester is a great example of Less is More. Perfect arrangement with plenty of headroom in the mix.

We've probably gone as far as we can with this thread. Pleasure sharing experiences with you and I learned something new. Thanks to you and all who responded.

BTW Sam Wacker was my alias when performing in China as my residence permit was based on a spousal visa and technically you can't work - only assist with a family business.  The number of gigs didn't warrant a full work visa which is full of complications.