piano sound and when playing the lead parts on my own I’ d feel they were just right. But once I’ d get to rehearsal I’ d often struggle, feeling like my parts were either buried in the mix or overly aggressive.
What I realized was that I couldn’ t rely on whether the lead piano sounded good to me when I was playing parts by myself, the only way to truly know if the sound would have the proper impact live was to find a way to play alongside a mix. Simply making a habit of playing along to a full band recording of the song where I made sure my piano wasn’ t a lot louder than the song playing back led to a drastic improvement in my results, because I was able to check my initial sound design decisions in a much more‘ real world’ scenario.
ACTUAL INGREDIENTS
So with history and context accounted for, what actually separates a‘ lead’ piano sound from any other? It’ s a moving target, but I’ d break it down into two areas: your intent and your sonic space.
As I said before, you can play any piano sound like it’ s a lead piano, if that’ s your intent. This is more about the parts you play, melodic parts, octaves, riffs, than anything else. I think it is helpful to build a bit of a barrier for yourself to consider whether you’ re‘ playing piano’ or‘ playing a piano lead’ for a given part. The former follows conventional best practices for how you approach your voicings and rhythmic choices. The latter shares much more in common with playing a synth lead part, than playing a piano part, much of the time. This is why it’ s paramount to start with your intent to play a piano lead.
Once you have that intent in mind you need to consider the sonic space your part needs to fill. This will inform not just your note placement but the way you choose your piano sound and the processing you apply to it. Some piano leads may just need a bit of EQ and compression, along with tasteful octaves to get the job done, while in other contexts, stacked delay run into a reverb with a good bit of overdrive might be just what you need. When in doubt, err on the side of simplicity and make sure you’ re not filling too much space in the mix, as pianos will be quite full range by default.
In the end, your efforts to separate out this technique from your‘ normal’ piano playing will give you another tool in your toolkit to help fill out the sound of your band. Take some time the next time you have a riff in your head or in a song you’ re playing and consider how you can‘ lead with piano’.
David Pfaltzgraff Founder and Lead Sound Designer at SundaySounds. com, a site that resources worship keys players and guitarists around the world. David currently resides in Des Moines, IA with his wife and two boys. He enjoys volunteering in his church’ s worship ministry, old synthesizers, and a good super-hero movie.
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