Welcome to Reeves Motal Piano and Synthesizer Music Introduction Page

Introduction

I've been playing piano since I was three years old.

That is a LONG time ago.

Harry Truman was President when I conned my already long suffering parents into buying me a piano for my third birthday.

Parent voice: "If we buy you a piano, are you going to practice?"

Brat voice: "No, nobody wants to hear me practice the piano! I'm gonna PLAY it!"

I was an extremely obnoxious child. In a more enlightened (and less gullible) society I'd have been drowned at birth.

Anyway - once the piano was delivered the only thing remaining was figuring out how the dickens to play the thing!

Fortunately, I'd already taught myself to read so it didn't take me long to figure out how to read the notes and which keys they corresponded to on the piano.

And, I'd been signed up for piano lessons. Things were on a roll!

Big disappointment! Beginning piano books, particularly childen's beginning piano books, didn't exactly have songs in them that would get me to American Bandstand or Carnegie Hall. They were too pathetic for words - and boring - and no one would want to hear me playing anything out of them.

I knew exactly what I wanted to play - I wanted to play the songs I was hearing on the radio and record player - I wanted to play Rock and Roll!!

(Uh - actually, it was a couple of year later when rock and roll was invented. Yeah - I'm older than Rock and Roll!)

Even if I couldn't have rock and roll yet, I still wanted to play better songs. I haunted the sheet music shelf at the local music store for songs. Another disappointment. "Simplified Piano Solos" were not only lame sounding, a lot of times the melody wasn't even close. The accompaniment was virtually nonexistent.

I tried improvising to dress things up like I'd heard professional pianists doing but my music sense and particularly my fingers were a long way from being able to do that.

Even worse, I decided that with the exception of some of the classical piano pieces, just a piano by itself was never going to produce the sounds I wanted.

As I got older, I started playing with some of my contemporaries in garage bands. That was better - at least it wasn't a solo piano anymore - but bands produce their own problems - lots of problems. Whoever equated difficulty with "herding cats" has never tried to "herd band members."

Eventually, I graduated to a computer based synthesizer and a stack of other computer gear and could play mostly what I wanted. You can read more about that process in the album notes for:

My songs are the end result of that lengthy journey.

A modern computer based synthesizer coupled with computers can produce a reasonable approximation of just about any instrument - in fact, they can produce just about any sound. They can be a solo instrument, a full band, a full orchestra, anything you can imagine. I have digital samples of hundreds upon hundreds of instruments - my current piano count alone is 228 different varieties ranging from a 9 foot Steinway Model D Concert Grand to a rinky-dink upright suitable for a western movie bar.

(You can take a look at Music and Computers to see some personal history of how both computers and music developed and how they've complemented each other.)

So - given that capability, what did I want to do with it? Take a look at the notes for album 10

for some of my musical philosophy. I wanted my cover songs to have the same sort of "feel" as the originals. I couldn't duplicate the vocals - I can't sing enough to please a dog - but I could duplicate everything else.

And in some cases, that's kind of what I've done. Mostly, however, I want to retain the original sound but yet for it to be different - to be my own music - to be something unique. After all, you can listen to the orignals all day long on YouTube (and watch and listen to their stnking video ads interrupting the music!)

I mostly kept the original arrangement style but substitued my piano for as much as I could and mostly replaced the vocals with piano tracks. I'm still a pianist at heart.

If you've played the song excerpts from the Welcome page you've probably got an idea of what can be done.

To see that carried to an extreme, check out Stars and Stripes Forever as originally performed by John Philip Sousa played with nothing but a LOT of pianos and drums.

0080 Stars and Stripes Forever - Track 18 of Album 4

I often use strings to produce a full "wall of sound," such as on Dance Dance Dance as originally performed by The Beach Boys. This is just pianos, strings, electric bass, and drums.

0011 Dance Dance Dance - Track 11 of Album 1

I usually try to stay faithful to the original, but occasionally, I find an opportunity to do something different. I've loved Samba Pa Ti as originally performed by Santana from Abraxas, their second album, since the first time I heard it. But - so much of that song is Carlos' incredible guitar playing. I knew I could never capture that same feel. So - I did a slower, mellower version with piano, strings, bass, and percussion. It slowly builds from the very beginning - each phrase a little more powerful that the one before - until the finale.

0006 Samba Pa Ti - Track 6 of Album 1

Some of the songs just won't work with a piano. Here's an example of what a synthesizer can do for a clarinet.

0019 Stranger on the Shore - Track 19 of Album 1

Here's an example of a tenor sax solo with a baritone sax back beat synthesizer accompaniment.

0071 Diana - Track 9 of Album 4

In some cases, I've used "impossible" instruments. The vocal on this song as originally performed from The Carpenters is a flute below its physical tone range modified with an envelope from a tuba multiple octaves above its normal range.

0110 We've Only Just Begun - Track 23 of Album 5

Finally, here's a few that make significant use of "pure" synthesizer sounds and synthesized envelope shaping.

0157 Your Wildest Dreams - Track 18 of Album 7

0549 All Over the World - Track 19 of Album 24

0537 I'm Alive - Track 7 of Album 24

0235 Africa - Track 3 of Album 11

The main thing, I try to produce "good" songs - ones that people enjoy listening to. Hopefully they bring a little enjoyment to you.

Reeves

Last Updated: Wednesday, December 21, 2022, 1:26:55 AM CST