Reviving the Keyboard Section!

[pianomankris]

The acoustics/dimensions of a room influence pedalling as much as the music. Liszt is well known for his comments regarding this - pupils would hear him at a concert, and copy his pedalling when performing for him in a masterclass. And he would go mad, as the masterclass room would be of different size etc.

If a hall has people in it, the sound becomes more 'muffled', so more pedal can be fine.

Regardless of the above: in the most basic sense, the pedal is usually changed when the bass harmony changes.

however, there are always the exceptions YouTube - John Cage "In a Landscape"

 

[Cheez]

Liszt is right. While we apply this similar principle for electro-mechanical keyboards (we use brighter keyboard sounds for echoic rooms for the sound to cut through, and darker sounds for anechoic rooms where sounds are more muffled). There are other factors other than people that affects the room - eg size of room, presence (or absence) of furniture (and type of furniture), type of floor/wall/ceilng, even the seats (wooden pews vs chairs) etc.

However for the nuances of the number of people in the room, it may not always be practical. Unless the number of people differ greatly, slight differences in number of people may not make much difference. There's also the player's perspective and the audience perspective, which is drastically different. What the player hears is not what the audience will hear. So the player will have to judge from his/her perspective and try to percieve how he/she would sound to the others. This is easier in using an electro-mechanical keyboard. Almost always, I would press the demo button to get the keyboard to play by itself (yes, that demo button is of some use), then walk all around the hall/room and judge how it would sound from various places. Then I would make adjustment to both EQ/reverb etc and decide on the choice of patches to be used.

 

[pf]

Aha!!! I understand that the keyboardist's perspective might be different from the audience. But I didn't know it can be tested out this way. But then....the touch, the pedaling, etc of the keyboardist wouldn't be the same as the demo, right. So, how "accurate" would listening to the demo from the audience's perspective be?

 

[Cheez]

Yes, the way the demo plays will be different from how the player plays. One way is to actually playback your own recording (if the keyboard has a recording function). If not, then it's an estimate.

 

[pf]

A little suggestion by ChannelNewsAsia, Prime Time Morning. =)

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