How do you guys play with a piano player?

[Versatile]

Just a related thought....it might help to know that many electronic keyboards have a 'transpose' facility which allows the keyboardist to play in 'easy' keys like C whilst blending in with another known key. Particularly useful when playing with an Alto Sax (pitched in Eb)....both players can use the same chart and be in tune with eachother.

 

 

 

[DanvillRob]

Just a related thought....it might help to know that many electronic keyboards have a 'transpose' facility which allows the keyboardist to play in 'easy' keys like C whilst blending in with another known key. Particularly useful when playing with an Alto Sax (pitched in Eb)....both players can use the same chart and be in tune with eachother.

 

 

Kinda like a Line-6 guitar!

[zombywoof]

I have a different take and would say it really depends on your style. I play with my fingers using a style that combines bass, rhythm and single note leads. This can sound pretty busy when you throw a piano (or pretty much most other instruments) into the mix. So on those rare occassions these days when I am playing with a keyboard I tend to play more sparsely to give the piano guy some room. It generally takes a few run throughs for me to figure how just where to back off and, of course, it also will vary song to song. But I have found it is alot easier for me to blend in on lap steel than with a Gibson SJ.

[jefleppard]

Still Trying. OK, I think I got it.

 

OK, so here’s a small sample of the conversion chart I made. The real chart contains listings for 26 voicings of each of the twelve tones of the western music scale.

 

To find the guitar chord of any group of notes being played simultaneously on any instrument you just have to scan the chart to find what chords contains ALL the notes being played. The full chord as listed may contain more notes, but it they are all not important. What is important is what I call the “flavor” of the chord.

 

........C.......Cm......C7......Cm7.....C6......Cm6.....C9......Cm9

9th.....................................................................D.......D

7th........................Bb......Bb......A 6th...A 6th......Bb......Bb

5th.....G.......G.......G........G.......G.........G..........G.........G

3rd.....E.......Eb......E.......Eb......E..........Eb.........E........Eb

Root....C.......C.......C.......C.......C..........C...........C.......C

 

Using a few “C” chords as an example:

If the piano player is playing C-E-G, you can see from the chart that it is a “C” chord. But before you decided this you would also have also checked the “E” and “G” root chords to find the simplest, and easiest (to play) explanation.

 

If the notes are Bb-Eb-C, check the “blocks” for each as the possible root notes to find what fits best, in this case “Cm7”. Not all chords (as played) contain, or need to contain all the notes, it’s just the “flavor” that is needed. The “flavor” is what defines the minor, or the 7th, 13th, etc.

 

One thing to remember is that as guitar players we are used to our lowest note being the root of the chord. This is NOT necessarily the case with piano chords, and theoretically the pitch order of the notes has nothing to do with the “root” or ”key”. So even if the piano player is playing a “G” as his lowest note of a C-E-G chord, it is still a “C” chord.

 

great way to look at inversions etc. flavour is it exactly. if you want to keep a progression feeling like its pitch is descending, ascending, you can figure out your inversions to suit this while your melody dances around on top of it. quite a brilliant way to flavour a song rather than just play a straight C, F, G - you can contour it so the chords seem to the ear as if they're moving in a specific direction. quite common on piano and jazz guitar i would imagine.