Sunday Synth Jam: Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Keith Emerson performs and extended Lucky Man synth jam.
So – who got into synths because of the Lucky Man solo?
via g1inskyms
Sunday Synth Jam: Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Keith Emerson performs and extended Lucky Man synth jam.
So – who got into synths because of the Lucky Man solo?
via g1inskyms
Good heavens, the critics were right – it's quite clear that the audience was hating every minute of this dull, self-indulgent, prog rubbish.
Not.
I bought a Moog Rogue in the late 80s for $100, and it was sitting in the back of this music store collecting dust….still have it. However, I knew of Moogs because of Rush's 70s output. Lucky man is of course THE tune for introducing the masses to the moog, but I didn't find this out til a year or so later….
Good heavens, the critics were right – it's quite clear that the audience was hating every minute of this dull, self-indulgent, prog rubbish.
Not.
Good heavens, the critics were right – it's quite clear that the audience was hating every minute of this dull, self-indulgent, prog rubbish.
Not.
I bought a Moog Rogue in the late 80s for $100, and it was sitting in the back of this music store collecting dust….still have it. However, I knew of Moogs because of Rush's 70s output. Lucky man is of course THE tune for introducing the masses to the moog, but I didn't find this out til a year or so later….
Thank God i didn't get into synths because of a prog rock solo…its very "uninspiring". Don't get me wrong, i like some parts inside these tracks, but it's ultimately boring to see a performer with a giant Moog modular, playing with the most basic sounds this monster can make…I mean, he has the king of subtractive sound synthesis and his performance is full of 3-4 simple and "cliche" sounds which they are even difficult to differentiate them…He use it as an electric guitar tone variation and this is just boring.
I prefer Larry Fast…He really deserves to use a Moog modular!
Thank God i didn't get into synths because of a prog rock solo…its very "uninspiring". Don't get me wrong, i like some parts inside these tracks, but it's ultimately boring to see a performer with a giant Moog modular, playing with the most basic sounds this monster can make…I mean, he has the king of subtractive sound synthesis and his performance is full of 3-4 simple and "cliche" sounds which they are even difficult to differentiate them…He use it as an electric guitar tone variation and this is just boring.
I prefer Larry Fast…He really deserves to use a Moog modular!
Thank God i didn't get into synths because of a prog rock solo…its very "uninspiring". Don't get me wrong, i like some parts inside these tracks, but it's ultimately boring to see a performer with a giant Moog modular, playing with the most basic sounds this monster can make…I mean, he has the king of subtractive sound synthesis and his performance is full of 3-4 simple and "cliche" sounds which they are even difficult to differentiate them…He use it as an electric guitar tone variation and this is just boring.
I prefer Larry Fast…He really deserves to use a Moog modular!
Ah, clearly you are viewing prog in terms of the present day. You had to be there in the 1970s to get it.
More seriously, you have to see things from a slightly different perspective.
1. Like many people, Emerson first heard a Moog on "Switched-On Bach" and wasn't very impressed with the sound. It was the noisier, more avant-garde aspects that got him playing one on stage;
2. Emerson had Moog build him an entire empty cabinet, just the front panels, for show (it is alleged);
3. The early Moog modulars didn't take too kindly to being built and dismantled every day, driven to a new location, and then tuned and played in heat, cold and extremes of humidity. It was dangerous to try to expect too much of this one in terms of complex patches;
4. Finally: they weren't cliches when Emerson WAS THE FIRST to invent and use them…
Forgive me, but I'm guessing that you ain't even CLOSE to fifty years old.. ?
More seriously, you have to see things from a slightly different perspective.
1. Like many people, Emerson first heard a Moog on "Switched-On Bach" and wasn't very impressed with the sound. It was the noisier, more avant-garde aspects that got him playing one on stage;
2. Emerson had Moog build him an entire empty cabinet, just the front panels, for show (it is alleged);
3. The early Moog modulars didn't take too kindly to being built and dismantled every day, driven to a new location, and then tuned and played in heat, cold and extremes of humidity. It was dangerous to try to expect too much of this one in terms of complex patches;
4. Finally: they weren't cliches when Emerson WAS THE FIRST to invent and use them…
Forgive me, but I'm guessing that you ain't even CLOSE to fifty years old.. ?
Yes, you are right…i wasn't in that generation (i'm 31) and i agree that Emerson probably was one the first persons who used big synths like a Moog modular in rock with that virtuosity…but the only reason i justify the use of a big modular synth in his music is that he couldn't have the same "control of performance" with anything else those years…it wasn't about the sound…it was more about the performance.
Sometimes i see him in videos turning some knobs on his Moog and i start to laugh because there is no major audible change in sound (especially at his usual performance speed and complexity) and he uses a "monster" to only make some minor timbral and (maybe major) performance changes. Some new Moog video demos remind me of him…there are high class keyboardists who play jazz/fusion/prog rock with a Voyager and the only timbre someone can hear coming out of the mighty voyager, is a simple triangle or sawtooth wave with guitar like pitch bending technique…but…it isn't a guitar!!! It's a Voyager and it has hundreds of parameters that these people don't even care to use even in an official demo!
Anyway…this is my only problem with prog rock and ELP. I really enjoy some of their tracks.
You missing the point of what he's doing.
Emerson uses the modular as a new instrument to play, which almost nobody does. Obviously he does it flamboyantly, but he also does it with virtuosity.
You can make funny noises with all sorts of instruments – you don't need a synth for that.
You missing the point of what he's doing.
Emerson uses the modular as a new instrument to play, which almost nobody does. Obviously he does it flamboyantly, but he also does it with virtuosity.
You can make funny noises with all sorts of instruments – you don't need a synth for that.
Wolfgang Palm, founder of PPG was one of those who were inspired. In his own words:
"At some point in '70 I heard a song from Emerson Lake & Palmer on the radio and it totally struck me. I believe it was the song "Lucky Man" with that synth solo near the end. One must keep in mind that my ears had never before come to hear such a sound. From that day on I was a complete Emerson fan.
I immediately asked myself what kind of musical instrument this could be and also how such an instrument could function." http://blogs.myspace.com:80/index.cfm?fuseaction=…
(BTW, at his blog there is very interesting history of PPG and a bunch of photos and videos).
Wolfgang Palm, founder of PPG was one of those who were inspired. In his own words:
"At some point in '70 I heard a song from Emerson Lake & Palmer on the radio and it totally struck me. I believe it was the song "Lucky Man" with that synth solo near the end. One must keep in mind that my ears had never before come to hear such a sound. From that day on I was a complete Emerson fan.
I immediately asked myself what kind of musical instrument this could be and also how such an instrument could function." http://blogs.myspace.com:80/index.cfm?fuseaction=…
(BTW, at his blog there is very interesting history of PPG and a bunch of photos and videos).
I'm 54 and loved ELP with all my heart and saw them live on one occasion. Lucky Man did get me interested in synthesizers that carry on to this day and I totally get (got?) Keith. That said, I can say this rendition of Lucky Man is pretty terrible. I hate to say it but there you go. I mean they must be tired of playing it, right? It kinda shows. Keith is off rhythm a bit, yeah?
I was inspired by that piece. I was so young but I thought the song so moving if you just listened; especially since the Spector of Viet Nam was just a few years away from me.
Well, I liked that sound so much much so that I practically quit every other instrument and eventually the use of the clavier to input data preferring sequencers instead. Such a sound was so unusual at the time and caught everyone's attention. To me, with the arrival of synth-pop in the 80's the synthesizer just became a rinky-dink piano toy in popular music and lost it's balls.
Artistically, that piece at the end is so fitting! It is abstracted bagpipes piping the Lucky Man from this world to beyond with the decent into Death at the lowest tones, the struggle to live is eventually lost. If you think about it the filter is like the life spark descending after. It's sad. Listen to it.
Then again, I could just be reading that into it. Ha!
I was inspired by that piece. I was so young but I thought the song so moving if you just listened; especially since the Spector of Viet Nam was just a few years away from me.
Well, I liked that sound so much much so that I practically quit every other instrument and eventually the use of the clavier to input data preferring sequencers instead. Such a sound was so unusual at the time and caught everyone's attention. To me, with the arrival of synth-pop in the 80's the synthesizer just became a rinky-dink piano toy in popular music and lost it's balls.
Artistically, that piece at the end is so fitting! It is abstracted bagpipes piping the Lucky Man from this world to beyond with the decent into Death at the lowest tones, the struggle to live is eventually lost. If you think about it the filter is like the life spark descending after. It's sad. Listen to it.
Then again, I could just be reading that into it. Ha!
Yes, you are right…i wasn't in that generation (i'm 31) and i agree that Emerson probably was one the first persons who used big synths like a Moog modular in rock with that virtuosity…but the only reason i justify the use of a big modular synth in his music is that he couldn't have the same "control of performance" with anything else those years…it wasn't about the sound…it was more about the performance.
Sometimes i see him in videos turning some knobs on his Moog and i start to laugh because there is no major audible change in sound (especially at his usual performance speed and complexity) and he uses a "monster" to only make some minor timbral and (maybe major) performance changes. Some new Moog video demos remind me of him…there are high class keyboardists who play jazz/fusion/prog rock with a Voyager and the only timbre someone can hear coming out of the mighty voyager, is a simple triangle or sawtooth wave with guitar like pitch bending technique…but…it isn't a guitar!!! It's a Voyager and it has hundreds of parameters that these people don't even care to use even in an official demo!
Anyway…this is my only problem with prog rock and ELP. I really enjoy some of their tracks.
Yes, you are right…i wasn't in that generation (i'm 31) and i agree that Emerson probably was one the first persons who used big synths like a Moog modular in rock with that virtuosity…but the only reason i justify the use of a big modular synth in his music is that he couldn't have the same "control of performance" with anything else those years…it wasn't about the sound…it was more about the performance.
Sometimes i see him in videos turning some knobs on his Moog and i start to laugh because there is no major audible change in sound (especially at his usual performance speed and complexity) and he uses a "monster" to only make some minor timbral and (maybe major) performance changes. Some new Moog video demos remind me of him…there are high class keyboardists who play jazz/fusion/prog rock with a Voyager and the only timbre someone can hear coming out of the mighty voyager, is a simple triangle or sawtooth wave with guitar like pitch bending technique…but…it isn't a guitar!!! It's a Voyager and it has hundreds of parameters that these people don't even care to use even in an official demo!
Anyway…this is my only problem with prog rock and ELP. I really enjoy some of their tracks.
Emerson often pre-programmed the modular for the next section of a song on the fly. He had an elementary preset system but still need to alter knobs before patches were needed. That is why you see him altering knobs yet percieve no difference in sound.
In the 70s, there were also many experimental composers and psychedelic rock groups who used their synths as synths (complex electronic instruments) and not as "advanced guitars with keyboards"…
Deep!
Never thought about it like that – but that makes complete sense.
I think that those sort of thoughts must come from hours sitting between the speakers in your misspent youth…..
Heh…
Yeah, lots of hours between the speakers…. Any depth comes from having to justify why I was listening to and spending so much money just to make a noise like that! It was great!
I made my whole family sit and listen to Tomita's "Snowflakes Are Dancing" when it came out and they had thought I was spending way too much time with a soldering iron and headphones. 🙂
Anyway, Kieth's Moog is iconic, it is THE prop for his show, and when people see it standing there on stage it says, "Welcome back my friends…."
True, but they didn't make as much money as ELP!
Off-rhythm? When it's someone like Emerson, it's not "off-rhythm" but "self-expression"!
"I made my whole family sit and listen to Tomita's "Snowflakes Are Dancing" when it came out and they had thought I was spending way too much time with a soldering iron and headphones. :)"
Ha! It wasn't just me, then! 🙂
Emerson was, for me, the keyboard god. He was doing some really wonderful stuff with just a Moog synth or two, a Hammond organ (or two) and a piano. I think he went off course a bit once polyphonic synths came into existence. While I admire the Yamaha GX-1, it really emasculated the sound of ELP. It never had the low end of the Moog and by that point, Keith wasn't using a Hammond that much either.
Still, those initial albums from their debut through Brain Salad Surgery were enormously influential to me. I also think his most recent album as a solo artist is really great, though it doesn't manage to catch my imagination like those early ELP albums.
Pierre
Embarrassing.
These people used to know how to play.
It was a challenge to play a lot of their music, even for them.
Now their greatest challenge is putting down a beer bottle.
Greg looks like the Goodyear blimp with a ukulele strapped on.
i lol'd hard
Sad….Lake looks like a cow…bet the poor soul is suffering with diabitis.
Well, this is an old conversation so nobody probably cares anymore, but I do agree things went wrong when Keith started using the Yamaha GX-1. I don't think it was the GX-1 itself, but more so the sounds that Keith was choosing to use. The patches he chose sound more like he was trying to do some sort of 21st century version of a theater/fairground/skating rink organ, like "Oh, here's the future of tacky entertainment" or something.