[jakejas]

I play piano and also play in several cover bands. I am constantly getting people coming up to me requesting songs that we don't normally play. Sometimes I know them and I don't mind playing them, but in many instances, even if I know how to play them I don't remember all/any of the lyrics, and some times I can't even figure out how to play them on the fly. How do piano bar players do that? I understand that many of them have been doing it since longer than I have been alive (I'm 24), and I have great deals of respect for older musicians, but they had to start somewhere. What did they do before they had memorized every song ever written, just sit around learning random songs?

[Paolo Di Nicolantonio]

Modern semi-pro and pro accompaniment keyboards allow you to display lyrics on their screen from .kar files. There are also tabletop units dedicated to piano bar with large displays.

 

The "older" keyboardists had printed sheets on a music stand.... the modern day equivalent would perhaps be an iPad

[jakejas]

If I have heard the song and I have the chords and lyrics on the screen, that would be no problem. Is that what accompaniment keyboards do? I did a search for "accompaniment keyboard" on musiciansfriend and I couldn't find anything. Do you have an example?

[Miket156]

Are you talking about "Standards" or are you talking about a variety of genre?

 

Mike T.

[Paolo Di Nicolantonio]

 

If I have heard the song and I have the chords and lyrics on the screen, that would be no problem. Is that what accompaniment keyboards do? I did a search for "accompaniment keyboard" on musiciansfriend and I couldn't find anything. Do you have an example?

 

 

you need to look at higher-end accompaniment / arranger keyboards. Some names would include the mid and high range from Yamaha -PSR-S910 , Tyros 3 (or 4 when it comes out) , the Generalmusic Genesys and smaller models, Ketron Audya, Ketron's smaller models and their respective table top units, Korg upper range like Pa2XPRO

 

Basically, not all arranger keyboards allow for lyrics to be displayed - but usually the upper range models do.

 

You load the song files (General MIDI + lyrics, .kar (karaoke) files etc. and as the song plays back, the lyrics scroll on the keyboard's LCD screen. You can also mute the parts that you want to play live in real time, so it's more fun to play.

[mrcpro]

The piano bar phase of my music career began in 1984 in a small out of the way resort lounge that was close to where I lived. I had been in bands throughout the 1970s.

 

The place was very patient and let me put together the pieces of this thing, which believe me is a lot of work and requires a lot of memorization. Once I had 500 songs down pat (and more in fake books) I started doing other gigs.

 

Piano bars were really big there for awhile and I had lots of work. But they gradually faded out of popularity. My last gig at this was in 2005, and it was pretty sad. Unless you see an opening I wouldn't suggest it now that we're well into the 21st century.

[jakejas]

 

Are you talking about "Standards" or are you talking about a variety of genre? Mike T.

 

 

I'm just talking in general.

[wwwjd]

the couple of piano bar players I've seen play that took requests like that, faked it. they would play the MAIN and recognizable parts and repeat it a few times (all they knew) then add-libbed new stuff into it and then moved on quickly usually while taking or into another short version request. seemed kinda cheesey but the people didn't seem to mind since they were mostly ignoring him anyway and talking

[frogmonkey]

I think that old-school cats who are into that kind of thing just learned a lot of tunes over the years. And like wwwjd said, a lot of it involves "faking it". Still, I think of it as a specialty (learning a giant repertoir) that I'm not interested in pursuing.

[jakejas]

 

Unless you see an opening I wouldn't suggest it now that we're well into the 21st century.

 

 

I agree that there aren't as many piano bars as there should be. I live in a small town and there are lots of small to medium sized bars in the area. I used to go out and play with a guitar and piano and had a list of a little over 100 songs for people to choose from. I would print out at least a dozen copies and put them all over the bar and have people yell out what songs they wanted. That seemed to work out well because people still got to request songs, and I just so happened to know all of the songs so I didn't look like an idiot (as much). People loved the piano songs for some reason. I think it is because there are no piano players in the area (relatively rural area), so it was something different than the guitar songs that they are used to hearing. I am thinking about switching to all piano songs with the same sort of "request list" format.

 

Has anyone had any experiences with doing this piano-bar-ish type of format or have any thoughts on trying this?

[wwwjd]

Maybe Des Moines, Iowa is backwards, but we just opened 2 or 3 new piano bars in the last few years. Even in the newest upscale section of town. I thought maybe Piano Bars were making a comeback? Only in Iowa maybe?

[jakejas]

@wwwjd Maybe you are right. In Houston there are some piano bars, but in the rural suburbs I don't know of any.