What music influences your keyboard playing?

[amaverick]

I was wondering what music influenced you guys  to begin playing an instrument ? I create a lot of my sounds based on what I enjoy playing, so I'm curious how many of my influences we all share. I'll try to keep my list to a minimum.

 

My favorite musical influences over the years......

 

1. anything from late 50's,60's, 70's and 80's rock (80's is my favorite)

2.Beatles

3.Bee Gees

4.Boston

5.Ac/Dc

6. C.C.R

7. The ANIMALS.

8. Elvis

9. 38 Special

10. The EAGLES

11. QUEEN

 

My favorite soundtracks......

 

1 The NEVERENDING Story

2. Krull (or anything by James Horner)

3.Forrest Gump soundtrack

4. Legend soundtrack(the original Tangerine Dream version, not the crappy new directors cut)

5 The TRUMAN Show soundtrack

6.DRAGONHEART

7.Legends of the fall.

8. Super 8 (WOW!)

9.O brother where art thou?

10 .Karate kid 1 and 2. (wish I could find these on cd) 

11. Superman the movie

 

I know I can't put down all my influences, but all the above artists and albums inspire me to play a little each day. I'm really curious about you guys and what types of music we all enjoy.

[Display Name]

I go through phases. Right now I am listening to the "Prometheus" soundtrack for inspiration. Also a lot of strange environmental sounds. I like mechanical noises, static, muffled radio communications, computer bleeps and various sound effects - I call it ear candy. I like to imagine I'm on a "dark ride" at Disney or Universal.. going through different themed rooms and try to tell a story. That's the goal anyway. 

[Null]

Over the decades my tastes and musical choices have evolved and I've amassed a large collection of CDs from my favorite artists over the last five decades.

 

My first love is definitely progressive rock and fusion jazz, but I've listened to everything from Louis Armstrong to the Thompson Twins along the way.

 

In the 80's I fell in love with the punk sounds of groups like the Gang of Four, the Police and the Sex Pistols while at the same time grooving to techno pop, new wave, and goth.  Again my collection from the 80's contains everything from Blondie and Madonna to Shriekback and Soft Cell and the Sisters of Mercy.

 

In the 90's I was lost in a musical wasteland and simply could not get into Grunge and Garage Band music nor Rap nor Hip Hop and stayed locked in a time warp listening to my CDs and my MP3's of vintage artists.

 

Today I'm still adding to my collection with some amazing tunes from new artists who I catch on Later With Jools Holland or are recommended to me on the internet.  Nowadays my collection also includes such artists as KT Tunstall, The Hives, Imagine Dragons and Walk Off The Earth.

 

Like I said, I'll listen to almost anything from folk to funk and everything in between and I'll try my best to keep up on the keyboard. 

 

Happy New Year

 

Gary

[Peter]

My influences:

- Alexander Brandon's magnificent video game music from 90's, mostly Tyrian 2000 and Unreal, both fantastic games and soundtracks 
- music from various NES video games, mostly Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 4
- Jean Michel Jarre
- Soundtrack from "Transformers The Movie" from 1986 by Vince DiCola ( see my profile picture   )
- Frederik Chopin and Beethoven, since I studied piano ( I have a trance like half finished track in which I incorporated some phrases from Chopin's Etudes and Nocturnes, they sound fantastic in those trance saw waves )

And so on... Sometimes I just start improvising and suddenly compose some phrases in music genres I never really liked or listened... then I feel funny   

Happy New Year !

 

[amaverick]

So many good posts already guys. A lot of these I enjoy also, and some I'll have to take a listen to. Boy ... Mega Man brings back some good memories. It did have pretty good music for the times.

[Null]

This is an excellent site I use to audition bands and albums before I buy them.

 

http://grooveshark.com/

 

Ignore the sign in and membership crap.  No need to sign in to search an artist or song to play it.

[Null]

Some other favorites in case anyone out there hasn't heard of them

 

Gentle Giant, Weather Report, Roxy Music, PFM, Sensations Fix, Ramases, Deodato, Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Stranglers, the Pretenders, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Bauhaus, The Cure, The B-52's, The Go Gos, Lene Lovitch, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Bow Wow Wow, Elastica, Republica, CSS, t.A.T.u., The Bangles,  Belinda Carlisle, Bjork, Traffic, Blind Faith, icicle Works, Japan, Moody Blues, ELP, The Zutons, Sting, Stewart Copeland, Gary Numan, Yoav, Jan Hammer, Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre, David Essex, Adam Ant, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Kraftwerk, The Monks, Nash The Slash, Yes, REM, Midnight Oil, The Talking Heads, The Tragically Hip, Public Image Limited, The Violent Femmes, The Ramones, The Cars, Eiffel 65, The Psychedlic Furs, The Smiths, The Bronski Beat, The Charlatans UK, falco, Echo and the Bunnymen, Thomas Dolby, Blancmange, Ultravox, Midge Ure, Visage,

 

and that's about 10% of my collection.

 

Start looking up some of those bands and prepare to have your minds blown

 

Gary

 

ps. and OF COURSE:  Peter Gabriel and David Bowie!  Duh!

[XW-Addict]

I wouldn't know where to begin I have a eclectic taste in music.

[amaverick]

Nothing wrong with that XW-ADDICT 

[Patrick Arend]

 I guess a few off the top of my head would be, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Jeff Lynne, 70's 80's, Boston,Bee Gees, Genesis,Prince, 

[Gnomo Alegre]

I am a rōnin in the world of music.

 

[Jay C]

When I was quite young, I was introduced to Jean Michel Jarre by a friend, and thus I had my Jarre - period

It (the fascination of this french musician) was futhermore fueled when I saw a live event from Paris in TV with a performing Jean Michel Jarre. Here's a link to (what I think is that) concert.

He had lasers on buildings, and big animated imagery was projected to huge canvases. He even had a laser-harp where he play the instrument with a glove on his hand. Each time he his glove cut off the beam the laser-harp would play the corresponding note. Amazing!

 

Some years later I had my Michael Jackson - period. It was spurred by a classmate who got me to see a live concert with the king of pop. 

This period lasted some years and I accumulated all of his CD's, I believe.

 

Then came my Yanni - period. By coincidence  - or maybe it was meant to be - I saw Yanni performing live from his concert at the Acropolis. It too was broadcasted to TV. I was hooked on his music, to say the least.  

Here's a link to the concert recording.

 

Ofcourse, I have heard other music than what is mentioned above. Quality pop music has always had my keen interest. Add to that jazz, blues and even classical music.

 

So, a little peek down memory lane -I you will. The good thing about music is that keeps giving and it is a joy that lasts your entire lifetime.

 

I think Jim Morrison has been quoted with the famous words: "Music is your only friend until the end". 

 

This will be my final line 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Jay C
added links to videos

[hant7]

  Всю сознательную (и не совсем сознательную) свою жизнь, почти каждый слушает МУЗЫКУ: от колыбельной на ночь и пения птиц в лесу до ХАРД-рока, джаза, блюза и попсы. Чтобы определиться в мире музыки по предпочтениям своим, я слушал ВСЁ, в чём хоть как то прослушивалась гармония с внутренним миром своим. В результате, для себя, определился: в любом музыкальном стиле( жанре) есть гениальные произведения, которые заставляют фибры души генерировать унисонные эмоции. На том и остановился... Что повлияло на желание научиться играть (хоть что то) на синтезаторе? Наверное, повлияла САМА жизнь и любовь к музыке.

[Pravito]

When I was very young, my parents gave me a Richard Clayderman CD and that was the beginning of my musical journey. My other influence is David Foster, Whitney Houston and Al Jarreau, particularly noting their use of electric piano sounds

 

I'm a big fan of electric pianos 

 

 

[Ijomne]

I'd say

 

English

Depeche Mode

Yazoo/Yaz

Erasure

A Flock Of Seagulls

a lot of other 80s synthpop

Tina Turner's Private Dancer album

Prince from Purple Rain and earlier

Madonna's 80s albums

Donna Summers

Bee Gees

Neil Sedaka

Paul Anka

Benny Goodman

Jessica Jay

Aqua

ABBA

 

Spanish

Selena

Los Bukis

Damas Gratis

Yerba Brava

cumbia and grupera in general

Xavier Cugat

Perez Prado

I love Afro Cuban music in general

 

Asian

dangdut music pre modern like 2000s and earlier

Minang music

Batak Toba/Simalungun music

Mandailing/Angkola music

Karo music

Indonesian songs from the 80's/90's especially stuff like Madu & Racun and Demi Cinta Nih Ye (Idk what genre these 2 fall under, its sorta pop and sorta dangdut)

Music from the Pokemon games

Music from the Mario games

Music from HAL Laboratory games

Japanese city pop

Asian folk traditions in general (may not use electronic sounds but still in the playing style)

 

I love the DX7 harmonica preset and ethnic woodwind/bell type sounds.

 

[Jokeyman123]

I'm with hant on this-almost everything and anything influences me, my ears are always open. that is the difficulty for me now, there are so many resources, sources styles of music-it is rather overwhelming. found sounds to ancient music to whatever is current-anything that catches my ear as innovative, unique or exceptionally accomplished can be an inspiration. I guess my working with Charles Wuorinen's music and other contemporary musics/composers really changed me around from a typical rock/pop/jazz/classical listener too much more than that-now the world is open. I can listen to a piece now that may have 3-4-5 different stylistic concepts in it-all in 5 minutes!