Best Line-Up

[calicowriter]

Sigh. At the risk of saying something I've said before, I miss Johnny Lawry.

I do too. I'm really kind of torn, because I loved the stripped down version of Petra I saw last month, but it's sad to think of the songs we might never hear live again because they practically require a keyboard.

Maybe John could learn to "push a few buttons" for a song or two!
(Just kidding!)

[Michael]

Whether you need a studio type of player or merely a live type of player might depend to some extent on the type of music you're playing, too. If you're doing techno or something where you want some wild sounds, you want someone who can craft unusual sounds and maybe sequence them or whatever. If you're just doing some pretty generic pop or pop-rock, you can settle for someone with a keyboard who knows how to select a preset, 'cause all you're going to use is Piano, Hammond B-3, String Pad and maybe that DX/7 pop keyboard sound from the 80's anyway.

I don't know... I'd say just about anyone with decent piano chops could have come up with the "Jesus Loves You" thing, as long as he owned a sampler and knew how to press "record" on it. It's just a keyboard solo using one sample mapped across the 'board... don't most samplers do that mapping automatically anyway?

[Historymaker]

If you're doing techno or something where you want some wild sounds, you want someone who can craft unusual sounds and maybe sequence them or whatever

Actually, what you said earlier (someone who can push the right keys...)is now holding true for techno. One board I use both live and in the studio is called the Korg KARMA (Kay Algorithmic Realtime Music Architecture) and the whole gist behind the board's software is interactive realtime controls which allow broad adjustments of patches and programs (turning a knob makes the rhythm more complex, or shuffles the beat, or intensifies the hi-hats, etc, etc). With a brief orientation, the novice user can produce original techno music that sounds decent, but is all experimentation based.

someone with a keyboard who knows how to select a preset, 'cause all you're going to use is Piano, Hammond B-3

PLEASE let me know if you know of a keyboard that has a decent onboard B-3.

and maybe that DX/7 pop keyboard sound from the 80's

No. No way. Please no. For the love of my mother no.

I'd say just about anyone with decent piano chops could have come up with the "Jesus Loves You" thing

As played on CITAS, yes. As played in tours toward the end of his tenure (briefly shown on 'Backstage Pass'), maybe not. He's flying pretty nicely. Whatever the case, maybe I'm unqualified because I don't have decent piano chops and I will forever be in awe.

It's just a keyboard solo using one sample mapped across the 'board... don't most samplers do that mapping automatically anyway?

Pretty much... there can be some parameter adjustment such as increasing pitch without increasing sample speed (which I don't think Lawry used. The high samples were fast, the low samples were slow), and rate of pitch increase from octave to octave (steep or shallow slope).

[daffy]

I would have to disagree on the comments that keyboardists are easy to come by. They are not. Stating that 'pressing keys' is all there is to it is so inaccurate.

Being a keybaordist myself, I have found great difficulty in finding a replacement for myself in my current praise and worship band. I have tried to train an accomplished piano player to 'press keys' even when i've done all the midi and programmed the sounds myself...and they just don't get it. It's trully an art form.

The reason why i want to teach someone is that i know i won't be doing it forever and want to not leave a void when God wants me to move on.

John Lawry leaving petra trully left a void. It's not all about trying to 'emulate' someone elses sound...you have to be creating enough in a band to trully know what's needed and when.

I loved his (John's) solos...not every keybaordists can do it.

[superfly]

The thing with keyboards in rock music nowadays is that they seem to be used more as sound effects with bleeps and blurps rather than as having a musical impact (as in the John Lawry days). It seems that in a lot of the new ROCK bands that have keyboardists, it's almost as if someone said "hey, we're starting a band but we need someone to do the keys, do you wanna do it?" "I don't know how to play" "you don't need to know how to play, we'll show you which keys to press and when" "oh, ok". I know that's a stupid example, but that's the impression I get about some bands. It's like when (back in my day) Tommy Lee played the piano in Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home" and kids were like "wow, he can play drums and the piano". And I, having come from a musical family, was like "anyone could play that part...the elementary students that my mother taught piano to could play that!" The thing that made Petra different was that they had true keyboard musicians with John Slick and John Lawry. Not only could they play and write, but knew all the keyboard tricks, programming, etc. They would be hard to replace.

Again, just my opinion on the state of some modern music. This is a good discussion. Peace All!!