Remember Hiromi? Looks like she is playing live tonight and tomorrow night at Jazz Alley in Seattle. Title link takes you to more info. Via Brian in the comments of this post.
Update via Brian in the comments:
"I missed the Tuesday night show, but I caught the Wednesday one...WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel it is my duty as a Matrixsynth frequenter to report on the keyboard aspect of Hiromi's performance.
Gear: Nord Electro 2, microKorg, and a Nord Lead 2. The Korg and the Lead 2 were sitting on top of this truly massive polyphonic analog monster made by...Steinway??? Maybe it was a spin off from Steinberg.... Anyways as far as synthesis is concerned, no envelopes were pushed...mostly square wave leads with LOTS of really good mod wheel and pitch bender action. The Nord Electro 2 electric piano was very expressive, going from soft and sweet sounding to harsh and overdriven like "that"!
Technique: This woman has AMAZING chops! I know in this blog most people are concerned with synthesis parameters, component specs, range of "that knob". But when you hear someone that can really play, it doesn't matter if it's a Casio POS or MIDI'ed CS-80 with the sampling option- they can make ANYTHING sound great!
The rest of the band: Hiromi is no show hog. The bass player and drummer have been with her for about four years and they are the definition of tight. The bass player plays a HUGE 6 string electric bass with about 10 pedals that have lots of blinking LEDs. His playing style reminds me of Les Claypool from Primus...very fast fingering and quirky progressions. The guitarist has only been with the band for TWO WEEKS, but shared the spotlight with Hiromi more than any of the other band members.
I did get her autograph but at the time I couldn't think of any keyboard related questions, so I just said "You were REALLY good!" Duhhhhhh...but at least I saw some kick ass jazz (are those terms ever used together?) by one awesome keyboard player!"
Well, you could have said, "Hey don't you love Matrixsynth!!!" Hah! Just kidding of course. ; )
all pointy anime style hair
ReplyDeleteI missed the Tuesday night show, but I caught the Wednesday one...WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI feel it is my duty as a Matrixsynth frequenter to report on the keyboard aspect of Hiromi's performance.
Gear: Nord Electro 2, microKorg, and a Nord Lead 2. The Korg and the Lead 2 were sitting on top of this truly massive polyphonic analog monster made by...Steinway??? Maybe it was a spin off from Steinberg.... Anyways as far as synthesis is concerned, no envelopes were pushed...mostly square wave leads with LOTS of really good mod wheel and pitch bender action. The Nord Electro 2 electric piano was very expressive, going from soft and sweet sounding to harsh and overdriven like "that"!
Technique: This woman has AMAZING chops! I know in this blog most people are concerned with synthesis parameters, component specs, range of "that knob". But when you hear someone that can really play, it doesn't matter if it's a Casio POS or MIDI'ed CS-80 with the sampling option- they can make ANYTHING sound great!
The rest of the band: Hiromi is no show hog. The bass player and drummer have been with her for about four years and they are the definition of tight. The bass player plays a HUGE 6 string electric bass with about 10 pedals that have lots of blinking LEDs. His playing style reminds me of Les Claypool from Primus...very fast fingering and quirky progressions. The guitarist has only been with the band for TWO WEEKS, but shared the spotlight with Hiromi more than any of the other band members.
I did get her autograph but at the time I couldn't think of any keyboard related questions, so I just said "You were REALLY good!" Duhhhhhh...but at least I saw some kick ass jazz (are those terms ever used together?) by one awesome keyboard player!
Awesome. Thanks for posting back. I updated the post with your notes.
ReplyDelete: )