Earbrass

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My first gig playing keys & weird noises for space-rock band Litmus:

And now for something completely different.... I play nyckelharpa for a bizarre two-person border morris side called Huginn and Muninn. A week or so back we performed along with several other border morris sides in Clacton-on-Sea, at the premiere of the film Morris Men, having been extras in the film about a year earlier. This was our first outing since one of our dancers sustained a bad calf injury at Box Hill Bedlam's day of dance in Dorking in June. This is our most ridiculous dance, always a crowd-pleaser. I give you "Huginn and Muninn Get Lost in the Stormclouds".

With regard to style, note choices and timing, what I thought was that OMG LOOK AT THE DOGGIE!!!! AWWW HE'S SO CUTE!!!!!!....sorry, what were we talking about?

It's a F a n n y

https://www.nme.com/news/music/ian-brown-fans-share-anger-stone-roses-singer-sold-out-leeds-gig-no-band-3316932

I love listening to these guys talking about music. They've really opened my ears to a lot of stuff.

Mrs. E and I recently sat and watched the BBC recording of the Stones live at the Fonda in LA, recorded in 2015, where they performed the whole of the Sticky Fingers album. I am by no means a dedicated Stones fanboy, although I've always really liked some of their music, but I thought it was a fabulous performance - not fabulous "considering their age", but just plain excellent by any standard. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018zwr/the-rolling-stones-live-at-the-fonda

"Did you see Fred about the tenner he owes you?" "No, I think he's pinking me" (Pink Floyd ; avoid)

Have we had Pubic Enemy yet?

One for @BigRedX: The Errortones

Uke Ellington C*nt Basie

Judas Pries Roy Music Prius

The Inkpots (one for the oldies) Cram

Ed Zeppelin Rank Zappa

I have a Kawai MP7 stage piano. For piano, and electric piano, it's first class. With digital pianos, it's not just the sound that's important, but also the way the sound responds to the touch and feel with which one plays. I cannot fault it on that, and the piano sounds are also highly tweakable with the ability to eg adjust the degree of piano lid opening, etc etc. I've not bothered with these features much, as the basic piano sounds are fine as they are for me. I added the optional triple foot pedal (it came with just a sustain pedal) for the full grand piano experience. It has some other sounds, of varying quality and usefulness (basses and strings pretty good, organs not so much, a few synth sounds etc), but it's also a decent controller, having pitch and mod wheels and four layers, each of which can trigger internal or external sounds (on their own MIDI channels) or both simultaneously, and can be split or layered across the keyboard as desired. It also has a stereo line input, so an external synth can be routed back into the piano and mixed with the internal sounds. I don't think they make them any more. I bought mine maybe six or seven years ago for around £1300, and I noticed that recently Bonners had a second-hand one for a smidge under £800, so it might be worth keeping an eye out for a used one. I wouldn't recommend it if you think you might want to gig with it, though, as it weighs about 46lbs.

When I were a lad it was all quite simple...

Another thing that might be important to you if you're going to be gigging with it is size and weight: for example, the Jupiter X is around 37lbs, and the Polybrute is 44lbs, which in turn means a more substantial and heavier stand. The Summit and Juno X are more reasonable, at around 25lbs, with the Nord Wave 2 a little less at just under 20lbs.

If I was in your position I would also want to check out the Nord Wave 2. Not played one myself, but the ability to combine 4 separate synth engines, as splits or layers, which can include sounds from the Nord Sample library as well as the ability to create your own sampled instruments, in addition to the VA/FM/Wavetable capabilities would make it an interesting proposition to me. I think Nord are better at UI and focus more on the player experience than Roland do. Just my 2p. Have fun watching all the youtube vids and going out to try synths!

The rest of you.

(With apologies to all brass players)