[The Flying Fish]

I need help learning some good rock organ techniques, things like glissandos, slides, etc. I was looking for a sort of 'free lesson' site like Cyberfret that has 10 or 15 second video clips showing examples of certain techniques, but I couldn't find any.

One specific question I had is, when you're playing a glissando, do you play the white keys or black keys? Or does it depend on what key the song is in?

In general, the main thing I need to know is just how to spice up organ playing, instead of just playing the chord progression in varying inversions. I'm playing on a Kurzweil stage piano using the rock organ patch, so I'm not sure if I could necasserily pull off everything that you could on a B3. Any suggestions on stuff I could do would be appreciated, though.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by The Flying Fish

One specific question I had is, when you're playing a glissando, do you play the white keys or black keys? Or does it depend on what key the song is in?

Generally the white keys. Glissing on the black keys sounds very strange, is harder to do, and doesn't fit well in most songs. Regardless of key, a gliss on the white keys has a pleasing sound. Occasionally, an organ player will actually use two hands (or his entire arm) and play a gliss that uses ALL the keys. This creates a very thick and meaty sound and should be used sparingly.

In His love,
Nate

[The Flying Fish]

Great, thanks. Do you know any other sort of organ techniques I could play to add some variety to songs?

[snizzle]

Just have fun with it dude! This is more of a musicianship answer than an answer to how to play rock organ but:

PICK YOUR SPOTS!!

This is such a valuable tool that hardly any musicians (well, people that call themselves musicians do). You don't have to play all the time! Especially if it's something like rock organ. You've got the right idea with just playing different chord voicings during the song, but just let it rip every now and then. Slide up there and play a simple one note melody/solo over the song. Good stuff. But as i said, know when to lay out. It's amazing how great you can make stuff sound after you've laid out for a while. Ex: Stop playing for a few bars and just get into the music and then slide up and wail on the higher octaves. If the people you're playing with are decent musicians they'll also be able to work around this and with this. Dig.
-shane

[LWatford]

Learn to work the drawbars/stops and the leslie/chorus/vibrato. Basically just know your instrument inside out.

Since you're playing on a keyboard, you really don't get the full range of sounds and such, but still try listening to good players and playing along.

[perotis]

We just added an keyboardist to our worship team, she's a bsginner, but knows the basics of piano/keyboard. I try to explain what I think needs to be done for that rock organ type sound, but I'm no keyboard/piano player. The one thing i notice listening to music is that (in my best guess) they mainly play on the upprer half of the keyboard/organ. And I find that if the lower half gets used it is ususally fighting/drowning out the bass guitar. And I can't really tell if there playing full chords or just one or two notes.

Am I just making things up in my mind, or is this kind of the right track for a good rock/worship keyboard techneque?

[Juiysiey kyot]

actually i am a keyboardist in our church here in the Philippines. I suggest that you just play with the flow... if you feel to do what you think then that's it... it is so fun playing keyboard from the word itself "play".. you can do the slide, the doubles, the per octave and so much more", God Bless