Whenever I think of a true musical multitasker, I picture Dick Van Dyke’s character in Mary Poppins.
There's an element of multitasking that is (while not exclusively) inherent to piano definitely is an important focus.
For instance, I play a lot of stride and blues piano. One of the hallmarks of those styles is having a rock-solid left hand that can maintain ornate but very consistent patterns. Once that’s locked in, your right hand is pretty much free to do whatever it wants. You'll find that your right hand can literally be almost totally independent.
It can sing out the melody, feed yourself grapes, or turn the pages of a book while your left hand just keeps on going - honestly fatigue is the biggest factor particlarly at higher tempos.
OTOH, musical multitasking where the left and right hands (or different parts of the body) are genuinely playing new, independent lines is tremendously more difficult.
Mad respect for Johann Sebastian Bach, who by all accounts could extemporize contrapuntal music essentially inventing fresh, independent patterns in both hands at the same time. I know that’s not multiple instruments in the literal sense, but in effect it kind of is, especially when you factor in the foot pedals of an organ.
Re: Bach, also factor in that an organ player’s two hands would often be playing on two separate manuals (keyboards) that produced different sounds from each other and from the footboard. The player could activate a different set of stops (groups of pipes that provide a consistent sound for each note playable in the range of the keyboards) for each keyboard or footboard, and could also vary those selections to some extent during a piece’s performance.
If you look past conventional terminology, an organ really a single instrument in a similar way as a multi-input and multi-output synthesizer is a single instrument today — the difference is more that even a modern organ generally encodes most of the technology limitations of Bach’s time, whereas a computer-based synthesizer’s additional sound flexibility reflects the broader technology capabilities of our current times.
Many keyboard players will play stacked keyboards today - I've got a big Nord plus a bunch of little Reface keyboards, and they often each have their own pedals attached to control sustain, rotary speaker, etc. This is basically the same situation as what you're describing (except I'm not playing notes with my feet).
Is HN showing post and comment times as recent when they really aren't? I see an exchange between Rochus and jefftk "1 hour ago", ending with a "thanks, posted" and that blogpost is from July 25. Today is July 29.
I've been trying to do something like this for a long time. There are lots of different options, but not many are easially available, and there are no instructions. The big lesson is always "I need a lot more practice". Harmonica has a hands-free brace from multiple manufactures, so that is the most approachable option to combine with a stringed instrument (and I sound terrible when I try it).
Maybe in 20 years I'll get something working. (sooner if anyone wants to fund my mid-life crisis)
The relevant issue is independent or coordinated control of concurrent musical parts, not whether those parts happen to use different instruments. Piano, Organ (with bass pedal) and drum-kit playing are canonical examples of the same underlying challenge. Skilled performance can require separately controlled fingers, hands, and feet, while the player experiences them as an integrated whole.
I started to play the drums with my feed on a bass pedal sixteen years ago and do the bass with my left hand. This worked naturally from day one (though I got better with more exercise). There is just not enough time to think about it, as the author suggests. Here is a recording where you can see it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJV0I7KgsJc, left guy). And here is a more recent solo recording: https://rochus-keller.ch/?p=1317, just one guy, all live, no overdupps.
Rochus, a huge thanks for the comment and discovering your fascinating site. I was blown away by how musical the recent Suno covers of your funk songs are. I would not have been able to guess that they were AI generated. Please post more videos in the future---I am convinced there is a large audience that would be interested in learning more about your setup and seeing you improvise.
Not having tried it, I'd guess your setup is much more flexible, but requires much more work to provide a really steady beat on? And so would be a bit less well-suited to playing dance music (the main thing I do)?
Thanks. I have mostly audio recordings (and even MIDI files from all devices connected to the computer). There are a couple of videos and one short on my youtube account (https://www.youtube.com/@RochusKeller/videos) but thei're more than ten years old. In 2022 I switched to a Mac M1 mini with MainStage and the plugins I still use. This post includes information about the equipment: https://rochus-keller.ch/?p=1268. The bass pedal uses essentially the original drum assignment besides that I doubled the snare (on D and D#, to make rolls), and reorganized the toms to three and used the remaining upper keys for cymbals. The assignment never changes, just the kit.
I have little idea about "how I do it"; it just works; and I think it got better over time by just playing. Just contact me via email if you have more questions ;-)
So cool! The YouTube short is helpful, though it's still a bit hard to see your full technique. If at some point you recorded another video focused on the feet I'd really enjoy being able to get a better sense of how your technique works in practice.
Changing the kit without the assignment seems very much the right way to do it. No need to confuse your muscle memory.
Would it be ok if I wrote a blog post about your approach here, based on what you've written and shown? The general idea of playing drums with the feet is massively unexplored, and while I'd considered using bass pedals this way I didn't anticipate it was possible to get them working this well (which is part of why I went in a different direction).
I should indeed make a video which shows the sound assignments on the bass pedal and how my feet operate on them. Let me see what I can do (video is not my medium).
The "muscle memory" is extremely important, since the feet are working "blindly"; I don't even see them when I'm sitting at the keyboard.
You're free to write a blog post; I will read it with interest ;-)
A few years ago I announced what I'm doing on a few Subreddits, HN, Facebook and some other places, hoping to find people with similar interests. But that wasn't successful. I found an American company building and selling physical/accoustical foot drums, but no one so far using a bass pedal.
I have been using bass pedals just for playing the bass since the nineties, so the step to using them "polyphonically" for the drums was natural, but it took quite some time until the idea manifested and I really tried. Here are my first recordings after a few weeks of practice: http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=317
EDIT: Here is another recording from 2014 where I play together with a very talented sax player. This might be interesting for you because I overlayed a whole big band over the piano and even the bass sound and was able to fade it in and out by key pressure (what you seem to do with the breath controller): http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=962 Depending on the music I use a "bite switch" to operate the sustain pedal. I also made experiments with singing (http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=828) and voice to midi conversion, but that doesn't work good enough yet.
Whenever I think of a true musical multitasker, I picture Dick Van Dyke’s character in Mary Poppins.
There's an element of multitasking that is (while not exclusively) inherent to piano definitely is an important focus.
For instance, I play a lot of stride and blues piano. One of the hallmarks of those styles is having a rock-solid left hand that can maintain ornate but very consistent patterns. Once that’s locked in, your right hand is pretty much free to do whatever it wants. You'll find that your right hand can literally be almost totally independent.
It can sing out the melody, feed yourself grapes, or turn the pages of a book while your left hand just keeps on going - honestly fatigue is the biggest factor particlarly at higher tempos.
OTOH, musical multitasking where the left and right hands (or different parts of the body) are genuinely playing new, independent lines is tremendously more difficult.
Mad respect for Johann Sebastian Bach, who by all accounts could extemporize contrapuntal music essentially inventing fresh, independent patterns in both hands at the same time. I know that’s not multiple instruments in the literal sense, but in effect it kind of is, especially when you factor in the foot pedals of an organ.
Re: Bach, also factor in that an organ player’s two hands would often be playing on two separate manuals (keyboards) that produced different sounds from each other and from the footboard. The player could activate a different set of stops (groups of pipes that provide a consistent sound for each note playable in the range of the keyboards) for each keyboard or footboard, and could also vary those selections to some extent during a piece’s performance.
If you look past conventional terminology, an organ really a single instrument in a similar way as a multi-input and multi-output synthesizer is a single instrument today — the difference is more that even a modern organ generally encodes most of the technology limitations of Bach’s time, whereas a computer-based synthesizer’s additional sound flexibility reflects the broader technology capabilities of our current times.
Many keyboard players will play stacked keyboards today - I've got a big Nord plus a bunch of little Reface keyboards, and they often each have their own pedals attached to control sustain, rotary speaker, etc. This is basically the same situation as what you're describing (except I'm not playing notes with my feet).
Is HN showing post and comment times as recent when they really aren't? I see an exchange between Rochus and jefftk "1 hour ago", ending with a "thanks, posted" and that blogpost is from July 25. Today is July 29.
I've been trying to do something like this for a long time. There are lots of different options, but not many are easially available, and there are no instructions. The big lesson is always "I need a lot more practice". Harmonica has a hands-free brace from multiple manufactures, so that is the most approachable option to combine with a stringed instrument (and I sound terrible when I try it).
Maybe in 20 years I'll get something working. (sooner if anyone wants to fund my mid-life crisis)
The relevant issue is independent or coordinated control of concurrent musical parts, not whether those parts happen to use different instruments. Piano, Organ (with bass pedal) and drum-kit playing are canonical examples of the same underlying challenge. Skilled performance can require separately controlled fingers, hands, and feet, while the player experiences them as an integrated whole.
I started to play the drums with my feed on a bass pedal sixteen years ago and do the bass with my left hand. This worked naturally from day one (though I got better with more exercise). There is just not enough time to think about it, as the author suggests. Here is a recording where you can see it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJV0I7KgsJc, left guy). And here is a more recent solo recording: https://rochus-keller.ch/?p=1317, just one guy, all live, no overdupps.
Rochus, a huge thanks for the comment and discovering your fascinating site. I was blown away by how musical the recent Suno covers of your funk songs are. I would not have been able to guess that they were AI generated. Please post more videos in the future---I am convinced there is a large audience that would be interested in learning more about your setup and seeing you improvise.
[author]
This is fantastic! Do you have more videos of your foot-drumming? Or could you say more about how you do it? Are the pedals velocity-sensitive?
This is my setup: https://www.jefftk.com/p/making-a-pedalboard Four beaterless kick drum pedals. Another example in use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQLBfuaNqs
Not having tried it, I'd guess your setup is much more flexible, but requires much more work to provide a really steady beat on? And so would be a bit less well-suited to playing dance music (the main thing I do)?
Thanks. I have mostly audio recordings (and even MIDI files from all devices connected to the computer). There are a couple of videos and one short on my youtube account (https://www.youtube.com/@RochusKeller/videos) but thei're more than ten years old. In 2022 I switched to a Mac M1 mini with MainStage and the plugins I still use. This post includes information about the equipment: https://rochus-keller.ch/?p=1268. The bass pedal uses essentially the original drum assignment besides that I doubled the snare (on D and D#, to make rolls), and reorganized the toms to three and used the remaining upper keys for cymbals. The assignment never changes, just the kit. I have little idea about "how I do it"; it just works; and I think it got better over time by just playing. Just contact me via email if you have more questions ;-)
So cool! The YouTube short is helpful, though it's still a bit hard to see your full technique. If at some point you recorded another video focused on the feet I'd really enjoy being able to get a better sense of how your technique works in practice.
Changing the kit without the assignment seems very much the right way to do it. No need to confuse your muscle memory.
Would it be ok if I wrote a blog post about your approach here, based on what you've written and shown? The general idea of playing drums with the feet is massively unexplored, and while I'd considered using bass pedals this way I didn't anticipate it was possible to get them working this well (which is part of why I went in a different direction).
I should indeed make a video which shows the sound assignments on the bass pedal and how my feet operate on them. Let me see what I can do (video is not my medium).
The "muscle memory" is extremely important, since the feet are working "blindly"; I don't even see them when I'm sitting at the keyboard.
You're free to write a blog post; I will read it with interest ;-)
A few years ago I announced what I'm doing on a few Subreddits, HN, Facebook and some other places, hoping to find people with similar interests. But that wasn't successful. I found an American company building and selling physical/accoustical foot drums, but no one so far using a bass pedal.
I have been using bass pedals just for playing the bass since the nineties, so the step to using them "polyphonically" for the drums was natural, but it took quite some time until the idea manifested and I really tried. Here are my first recordings after a few weeks of practice: http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=317
EDIT: Here is another recording from 2014 where I play together with a very talented sax player. This might be interesting for you because I overlayed a whole big band over the piano and even the bass sound and was able to fade it in and out by key pressure (what you seem to do with the breath controller): http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=962 Depending on the music I use a "bite switch" to operate the sustain pedal. I also made experiments with singing (http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=828) and voice to midi conversion, but that doesn't work good enough yet.
Thanks! Posted: https://www.jefftk.com/p/organ-pedals-for-drumming
If you do end up making a technique demonstration video I'd love to see it!