keyboards

Early in 2005, I caught up with Amarevois to talk about her debut album currently in production ‘Unravel’, and her playing on the album, in particular her favourite keyboard – a Yamaha CP70B.

SL: You say that the songs on ‘Unravel’ are based largely on the sound of your CP70 piano, can you tell me a little bit about how that all came about?

A: Well, the problem I had after so many years of writing tunes, was that I simply had too many tunes and they were in a zillion different styles, because I was interested in every kind of music and I really didn’t know how to group any of the songs to put on a release. After a few years, I realized that most of the earlier tunes were written on my Yamaha electric piano, and it has a really bell-like washy kind of sound that isn’t like a normal piano. It’s quite surreal, I suppose. So that’s where I stared, with the surreal piano songs, so that’s why it plays such an important role on the album.

SL: What unique challenges does the instrument present?

A: Well it’s extremely temperamental when it comes to tuning. My piano tuners (I have two or three that I use from time to time) all struggle with it, because you have to tune the bottom notes progressively flat, so that the fundamental notes don’t beat with the upper harmonics. It’s tricky, by all accounts. I don’t know – I just keep making the coffee and let them worry about it! The slightest change in temperature affects it, the temperature in my apartment changes about five times a day, so that’s tricky from a recording point of view! It’s mainly the bottom octaves that go out.

SL: Apparently it folds up and is portable. Is this good for live performance?

A: Yeah, well they were designed, I believe in the 70’s for touring bands like Santana and Sly Stone and the like. These bands would want to use pianos, but found that the traditional pianos weren't durable  enough to take the punishment of touring, and took up way too much space on stage, as well as being tricky to mic up. So I think this is what they came up with. Yeah, the legs come off, the string casing separates from the keyboard itself, and road case tops just clip on, it takes about a minute to take apart and maybe five minutes to assemble, but it’s really heavy – I mean I’ve almost done my back several times heavy! But I love it! What can you do? The pickups on each string mean that its easy to put through the PA and really easy to treat with processors etc. The fact that it has real strings puts it miles and miles ahead on non-stringed electronic keyboards. I’ve tried using those live and they really suck. They feel terrible and they sound horrible. There’s no substitute to me now.

SL: There’s not too many of these instruments around, how did you come to own yours?

A: I was working in a PA hire company and the boss had an ex girlfriend that was selling it, he thought it might be up my alley and we went to see it. He had warned me that it wasn’t exactly in pristine condition, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what I saw. It had been in the spare room, but the roof had collapsed over winter and everything in the room had been badly damaged by the incoming water. They set the thing up and I had a play and fell in love. When they opened the top lid, it literally had barnacles growing of the circuit board! I can’t begin to explain – it was a micro marine biology experiment in there! Rodney, my boss seemed pretty confident that it could be fixed up and so I bought it for a mere $400. Is sounds cheap, but by the time I had a new set of strings, which had to come from America and a few tunings, I was up around the $2500 mark. I think today, in pristine condition, they fetch around $3500, so I’m cool with that, though I never did have the circuit board redone! The marine biology can still be heard in every take!

SL: What is special about it’s sound to you?

A: Well, it doesn’t sound like a traditional piano in that it doesn’t have a sound board, so that really ‘woody’ tone isn’t there. Instead it’s like a bell to me, it shimmers a bit. It’s hard to describe. I just know that when I play chords on it, I just leave the room and go off somewhere else. That’s the mark of a good instrument in my books. It’s ethereal, I guess that appeals to me and seems to fit with my music.

SL: When did you start playing keyboards and why?

A: I actually started to play piano when I was about three years old, just picking tunes off the radio in my Grand-dad’s shed where he had a pianola. I don’t remember much about it, but I know I continued playing in primary school and even had a few lessons. I was given an organ for my seventh birthday which blew me away, and then when I was eight I went to boarding school for a while and they had just purchased a mini Moog, which was quite radical at the time, so I was completely blown away by that. I soon forgot the piano, I think!

SL: Who were you keyboard heroes when you were growing up?

A: I’m not sure that I really had  keyboard heroes as a kid, but later in my teens, I was really into prince and I started exploring jazz fusion on the radio and I guess I started hearing some monster players like Herbie Hancock and the like. I think the catalyst for me was hearing Keith Jarrett’s Kohln Concert just before buying the CP70. There was a rumour that he had played some or all of that concert on a CP, which at the time I chose to believe (laughs) but know I think it’s clear that he didn’t. But that album changed everything for me, and certainly made me fall back in love with the sound of the piano.

SL: When did you get your first synth and what was it?

A: Well other than being allowed to play with that Moog when I was a little tacker, I got my first synth at 21, I think I got a loan or something and I bought a four track and a few other things. It was a Korg M1 and had just come out. Michael Jackson I think had used it on his last album. To be honest, I just bought what the guy told me to! It wasn’t until much later that I realised how music retail really works! But I got a lot of work done on that synth and it was a good beginning for teaching me my way around programmable synths and the like. I used to sequence up all my demos on that keyboard! I don’t know how I did it, really!

SL: Do you still have it?

A: No! (laughs) I managed to off load it, but ironically, a friend of mine went overseas and gave me her rack version to look after indefinitely, so it seems I can’t get a way from the old M1! In it’s defence, I’ll say it still has a lot of usable sounds on it.

SL: Are you much into programming and the like?

A: Not really. When I’m writing, I just like to get an approximate texture and run with it. I find that if I get too into the nuts and bolts of a sound whilst writing, I lose the moment of the music and get too lost and frustrated. Sometimes later I’ll take the sound and tweak it a bit, but that’s about it. I have some extremely nerdy friends who are totally into it and \can do amazing things with even a kids musical toy and a piece of foil! It’s very McGyver! I love what they can do, but I’m pretty pressed for time with all the different roles that play in the studio, so I don’t worry about programming much. I think these days as well, most of the sounds sound fine out of the box. Maybe 15 years ago, the sounds were pretty lame and you had to trick them up for them to be acceptable, but now.

SL: To what extent do you use MIDI, both in the studio and live arenas?

A: Ah, as far as the studio’s concerned, when I’m blocking out a new piece, I’ll use MIDI for any of the floating parts, like chords and melodies, so that I can retain flexibility later with the sounds, but for the most part, I’ll lay up drum tracks out of samples – not using MIDI – and bass and guitar of course I put down as real parts. I don’t tend to use controllers or anything fancy when I’m writing, I want to be able to work quickly to get the basic shape of the piece. I tend to use bits of audio in the edit window, rather than having MIDI messages triggering samples.

I guess I use a bit of MIDI in my guitar rig, with the foot controller, but I’m not much into MDI guitars per se!  I do trigger a few samples though in some of the songs.

SL: Are there any keyboards that you would like to own?

A: Sure, (laughs) plenty! I’m probably talking about classic keyboards rather than synths. For instance, I’d love to have proper Rhodes, and if I had the space, I’d go a Fairlight or a Synclavier, but synth-wise, um, probably more interested in some of the older synths like ARP’s and Prophets and stuff.

SL: How do you see the current crop of pianist/vocalists in the mainstream music industry?

A: Not sure, really (laughs)… I don’t really have an opinion about it, I’m not really up with the current stream of artists or anything, I live pretty much in my own world. I haven’t seen anyone exciting behind a piano in the mainstream pop arena since Tori Amos and that was ages ago! So, no clue, really…sorry! (laughs)

SL: Who are your favourites from the past then?

A: My favourites would be Nina Simone – she’s such an underrated pianist – and Diamanda Galas – what power and grace! I think Tori’s energy and writing is beautiful too… I’d have to say Prince as well, because he can really take hold of you when he’s singing at the piano like no one else…and I can’t really think of anyone else, I’ve never really thought about it (laughs).

Summary

Amarevois may live in her own world as she says, but we are all the better for having her venture into ours. ‘Unravel’ is a delicious mix of jazz/rock/pop with contemporary classical undercurrents and throughout, the lush and ethereal quality of her piano playing lays a dreamy bed of dramatic shimmers for the rest of the instruments to float upon.