Fingered on Bass left hand for styles

[bpsafran]

Greetings:

I would greatly appreciate some advice by those of you involved in teaching keyboard as well as advanced players, regarding the use of fingered on bass left hand for playing styles on Yamaha keyboards; I am playing a Genos2 after long periods with the Tyros4 and Tyros5 and am an "intermediate" level player, comfortable with most chords and scales. I used to use AI fingered mode, but found that playing the proper slash chords that are crucial in keeping the proper bass line movement, meant using 5 fingers in some cases. Following the sterling example of Alois Mueller (see his YouTube channel) I transitioned about a year ago to fingered on bass where one must play at least 3 notes to trigger accompaniment, but where the lowest note is always the bass note.  That is excellent for a moving bass line in both popular and classical music, but sometimes means that even for playing some chords where the music indicates the root position (no slash bass ), long jumps in the left hand are required. [  That is contrary to traditional organ-style teaching of using inversions to minimize hand movements in playing left had chords. But of course on organ, you use the pedals for the bass, so the left hand inversions are not as jarring. ]  A simple - but sometimes not exact solution - is to use fingered on bass for slash chords, but in some cases, playing chords with no "slash" (i.e., the bass is su[pposedd to be the root), in various inversions that are easier to finger; this can indicate to the instrument to play the 3rd or 5th as the bass even though that is not called for by the music.  I try to minimize doing this, but sometimes it is the only solution if I am to keep in tempo with a fairly fast piece or for ones with several complex chord changes per bar.  I would be grateful to hear if doing this - sometimes playing non-slashed chords away from  root position, but keeping all the slash chords correct with fingered on bass -- is a terrible musical mistake, or if as an instructor or professional, this is OK if not carried too far.

Thanks,

Sam

[DerekA]

I use fingered on bass, and have done for years. I really like the sound of slashed chords and have never really had good results with the AI modes.

It's true, it can lead to making big jumps, but I am so used to it that it has become pretty much second nature. It did help that my old organ teacher was very good at teaching inversions (that must be 40 years ago now!!!) So I would say just keep at it and it will get easier.

And yes of course sometimes I cheat by playing something that's not quite the "right" chord. I would say that you are in charge of how you play, if it sounds good to you then it's never really a "mistake". Call it an improvisation.

One thing I found when I moved from S770 to Tyros 5 was that the lowest key was a different note. It was strange how that knocked out my left hand for a while until I got used to it. I guess I was subconsciously judging the chord positions relative to the bottom end.

[mikf]

One of the downsides of arrangers and using lh chords to drive accompaniment is that it can lead to some pretty impossible lh fingering positions. Not just with slash chords, but with altered or extended chords.
If you are using a suitable rh voice you can sometimes add chord notes in your rh, but the fact is that every musical instrument has limitations. The job of the player is to. produce the best sounding music within those limitations and their playing skill.
There are no absolutes in music, and you need to balance the sound of a less than 'perfect' chord against the sound of trying to play that chord but doing so badly.
Overall message - worry less about what is technically correct and more about sounding the best you can. We all have different talent, skill sets and experience and some of us will always sound better than others.
The only musical mistakes that matter unless you are a classical concert performer or top pro musician, are when you play things that sound bad!

[bpsafran]

One of the downsides of arrangers and using lh chords to drive accompaniment is that it can lead to some pretty impossible lh fingering positions. Not just with slash chords, but with altered or extended chords.
If you are using a suitable rh voice you can sometimes add chord notes in your rh, but the fact is that every musical instrument has limitations. The job of the player is to. produce the best sounding music within those limitations and their playing skill.
There are no absolutes in music, and you need to balance the sound of a less than 'perfect' chord against the sound of trying to play that chord but doing so badly.
Overall message - worry less about what is technically correct and more about sounding the best you can. We all have different talent, skill sets and experience and some of us will always sound better than others.
The only musical mistakes that matter unless you are a classical concert performer or top pro musician, are when you play things that sound bad!

Thanks. The suggestion to fill in the note(sl purposely omitted in a hard-to-finger chord, or in purposely playing the "wrong" inversion, is a very good idea for players (like me) who can easily play right hand chords.

[mikf]

It's pretty natural to spread chord notes across both hands for piano and some other keyboard players. One of the downsides of learning mainly on an arranger is that this skill is not encouraged.
And it's not always possible.....because it can sound a bit strange when using a monophonic rh voice like trumpet. When using using a keyboard voice like piano or EP, you can also set fingering to full keyboard and happily drive chord driven accompaniment across both hands.
Mike