What's your niche? And weakest area?

[pinkfloydcramer61]

In my case it might be country and southern rock- when you need someone who knows alot of old and new country music on keys and has an affinity for the honkytonk sound, but who also doesn't play organ like a piano. 2ndly and overall I have a rep as someone who can show up and wing it, for most low-tech older genres of music that require keys.

 

​Weakest area would be funk, although working on it and am gaining a little more respect. Blues skills are somewhere in the middle.

 

​How about you?

[Vito Corleone]

I'm probably the opposite of you. I like country and southern rock well enough but I suck at that honky-tonk style piano playing. Whenever I'm forced to play "Sweet Home Alabama" I try to avoid playing the piano solo at all because I don't play it well.

 

I excel the most at synth-pop and prog rock type stuff. I'm a pretty good programmer and good at getting the right "sound". I'm also good at juggling multiple parts on multiple keyboards at the same time.

 

My affinity is for playing jazzy R&B type material because I like the chord changes and passing tones and all of that. I'd hesitate to say I'd excel at that sort of playing, but I believe I'm fairly competent at it.

[senorblues]

Good question.

 

I got my first regular rotation gig because the restaurant owner liked "sophisticated" changes, but I've probably been turned down for the same reason, given that most solo gigs up here are covered by guys playing songs with a lot fewer suspensions. For the jazz gigs, that would be fine, of course, but therein lies my weakness. You might like my blues/soul/jazz/rock offerings, but if you're a purist in any of these forms - and most rooms seem to be clearly defined by genre - you might think I wouldn't be well received.

 

Or maybe my biggest roadblock is that I'm old and crotchety.

 

 

[1001gear]

I'm probably the opposite of you. I like country and southern rock well enough but I suck at that honky-tonk style piano playing. Whenever I'm forced to play "Sweet Home Alabama" I try to avoid playing the piano solo at all because I don't play it well.

 

You might be in the wrong key.

 

 

[Vito Corleone]

 

You might be in the wrong key.

 

 

Oh please. ANYTHING but the "what key is Sweet Home Alabama in?" discussion again!

[pinkfloydcramer61]

Billy Powell played the solo as if it was in G. He had a music education so wasn't confused as to what key it was. You're welcome!

[Vito Corleone]

I've never heard the solo as being in a particular key as much as just a series of arpeggios based on the chords. He plays a lick in "D", drops down and plays virtually the same lick in "C" and then modulates down and plays another lick in "G". As opposed to a "melody in a particular key" type solo.

 

Then again...maybe I never really understood the process which might be why I've never played it well...lol

 

Again, Honky Tonk ain't my thang, although I CAN play a pretty decent "Maple Leaf Rag"....

 

And yes...the song is in "G".

[pinkfloydcramer61]

My weakest area was on full display last night- called on short notice (the night before) to play a birthday celebration for the most popular and successful (he will be fronting BB King's band on tour) blues musician in the state. Everyone else on stage was either a local legend or a professor of jazz at the local urban university. One of those "what am I DOING here?" experiences. No one even called out any Floyd Cramer tunes. But it was a great night to observe and take part and the sax professor got my number.

 

And actually my weakest area by far is the technical part of programming, organizing and getting to a wide variety of patches and sounds. Compared to that part, I'm Joe Sample.

[pinkfloydcramer61]

I was just positing that Powell probably thought of the song as being in G, because I think that someone with a music education would be more likely to hear it and think of it as a G song. I admit I never heard him weigh in on the matter, maybe he did.

 

RE the solo itself, last time I played it (a week and a half ago) it was the last song of the night and I (or the fireball shot lol) messed it up. Ironically, the only thing I got right was the hardest part towards the end, with the descending 6ths in G. I learned it with one hand before I found that Powell cheated and used both hands together when he did it. To me, what makes that solo difficult is that most bands play SWA faster than the original.

[1001gear]

[Vito Corleone]

Powell loved his 6ths!

[ski219]

Country rock and bluesy rock are right in my wheelhouse. Weak in Jazz and metal. Punter in bluegrass.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My niche (as a player) is probably powerpop and country-rock... my weakest area is probably flash and playing really fast.

[Kramerguy]

Cool topic..!

My niche would be how well I can envelop my playstyle to especially moody / dark / deep rhythms and leads.. I'm a sucker for that 'half-step and bend style'. Also that my original material defies genre, and no two songs sound like the same person wrote them.. A jam friend once told me that my music defies logic, being both happy and sad at the same time.

 

My weak points are intertwined and equal to my strengths.. I can't sing or remotely write lyrics, so everything I write is primarily instrumental, and I rely on a singer to write lyrics and rely on knowing his/her timbre and tonal capabilities to create anything around those lyrics, and the curse that follows is that they are never happy with where I take it.. Singers want the end product to be popular in whatever genre they shoot for and I take it way out to left field, then up to outer space.

[Vito Corleone]

Cool topic..!

My niche would be how well I can envelop my playstyle to especially moody / dark / deep rhythms and leads.. I'm a sucker for that 'half-step and bend style'. Also that my original material defies genre, and no two songs sound like the same person wrote them.. A jam friend once told me that my music defies logic, being both happy and sad at the same time.

 

My weak points are intertwined and equal to my strengths.. I can't sing or remotely write lyrics, so everything I write is primarily instrumental, and I rely on a singer to write lyrics and rely on knowing his/her timbre and tonal capabilities to create anything around those lyrics, and the curse that follows is that they are never happy with where I take it.. Singers want the end product to be popular in whatever genre they shoot for and I take it way out to left field, then up to outer space.

 

Interesting post.

 

Not to get too off topic, but it struck a chord with me because I was recently musing on my 80s band days and thinking about why I never "made it" and my own responsibility for that not happening.

 

I was in two bands that had real shots at it and maybe I sabotaged them both?

 

In the first one in the early 80s, a couple of the guys really want to go more synth-pop while I was trying to pull the band in a more conventional Loverboy/.38 Special type direction. I think that had I been more agreeable to the synth-pop stuff (which was more cutting edge at the time) we may have had our shot?

 

In the second later-80s band, I was trying to push the band towards a more musical/complex direction. Somewhere between....I dunno...maybe Def Leppard and 80's Genesis? Had the band stayed in a more simple Motley Crue/Poison type thing we might have better found our niche?

 

I take responsibility in both cases because, while I pushed for a certain direction, I wasn't contributing the songwriting to back it up. I was more just trying to arrange the material and coax the songwriters in a particular way.

 

Of course, who knows if those other avenues would have worked out any better for either band. All I know is what DIDN'T materialize. No regrets. just musings on what maybe could have been different?

 

 

[Kramerguy]

 

Interesting post.

 

Not to get too off topic, but it struck a chord with me because I was recently musing on my 80s band days and thinking about why I never "made it" and my own responsibility for that not happening.

 

I was in two bands that had real shots at it and maybe I sabotaged them both?

 

In the first one in the early 80s, a couple of the guys really want to go more synth-pop while I was trying to pull the band in a more conventional Loverboy/.38 Special type direction. I think that had I been more agreeable to the synth-pop stuff (which was more cutting edge at the time) we may have had our shot?

 

In the second later-80s band, I was trying to push the band towards a more musical/complex direction. Somewhere between....I dunno...maybe Def Leppard and 80's Genesis? Had the band stayed in a more simple Motley Crue/Poison type thing we might have better found our niche?

 

I take responsibility in both cases because, while I pushed for a certain direction, I wasn't contributing the songwriting to back it up. I was more just trying to arrange the material and coax the songwriters in a particular way.

 

Of course, who knows if those other avenues would have worked out any better for either band. All I know is what DIDN'T materialize. No regrets. just musings on what maybe could have been different?

 

 

 

I think we all have some musings regarding our starts and the 'what never was but could have been'.. I reflect back and see some of the same 'regrets' you mention.. I'm definitely guilty of pushing too hard and being overzealous. It's something I still struggle with even today, although I've learned to keep my mouth shut, by brain is constantly screaming at me to act on those same impulses.

 

I never really had that 'shot' other than at 18, I joined a band by mere luck and happenstance that I knew a guy from school whose sister was dating the drummer, and he got me an audition. The band had big shows under their belts, a manager, and all the momentum in the world and everyone in it was pretty fantastic on their instruments. The problem I found .. was too many problems. They had fired their singer and rhythm guitar (I replaced the guitar), and were restructuring the band.. but little did I know at the time that what I took for momentum was more like watching a balloon fly across the room as all the air escapes it. Everyone had problems and I had joined a band in their final throes.

 

All that aside, my biggest regret was not actually going for it.. saving my money instead of blowing it, and buying better quality gear, and LESSONS.. I just expected to get better and that I was going to 'make it' soon enough. I didn't actually do anything to make it happen, and by the time I learned how much practice, networking, and hard work it takes to get there, I was in my mid-30's and aged out of the game.

 

All said and done, I don't really regret it so much though, I know myself well enough now to see that I would have probably gotten myself into groupie hell (baby mommas), legal troubles, and hardcore addictions, and would probably be dead 20 years past by now. That lifestyle would have enabled me far beyond my ability to control myself, so maybe it all happened the way it was meant to. After all these years, I have a love affair with music, not just hard rock and metal as it was when I was young, but now blues, jazz, prog.. you name it, I probably love it.