greatest prog keyboard player
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Polls
Forum Description: Create polls on topics related to progressive music
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=44135
Printed Date: February 09 2025 at 22:47
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: greatest prog keyboard player
Posted By: The Pessimist
Subject: greatest prog keyboard player
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 17:28
| Greatest prog keyboardist is Rick Wakeman, by far. He is not overated at all, as he is god amongst men :-) |
Replies:
Posted By: fuxi
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 17:31
| I love Rick's best albums, but on what grounds would you call him "the greatest"? |
Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 17:51
| There are a lot of good keyboard players in this genre but it's awful hard for me not to vote for Keith Emerson. His technical skill alone sets him apart from many others. |
Posted By: King Crimson776
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 17:55
| They're both great but Emerson is the ultimate. Wakeman is said to be more tasteful, but this is f**king prog, dude. Tarkus for life. |
Posted By: ProgBagel
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 18:15
| Keith Emerson...there is no competition. |
Posted By: erik neuteboom
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 18:22
|
Emerson never played the Mellotron so Rick Wakeman is my #1
because of his famous 'Tarantula technique' on the Mellotron
 ! |
Posted By: Easy Money
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 18:23
| Welcome to the PA, but your list is missing a few people ie Jon Lord, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Larry Young, Brian Auger etc. |
Posted By: sircosick
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 18:30
|
Wakeman pwns Emerson in every aspect IMO.
------------- The best you can is good enough... |
Posted By: erik neuteboom
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 18:32
| About the missing list Easy Money, I would like to add Kerry Minnear, Toshio Egawa, Peter Bardens, my fellow Dutchmen Rick Van Der Linden and Thijs Van Leer ... |
Posted By: seamus
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 19:59
Rick Wright!   |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:06
 and and Ken Hensley, Hugh Banton, Rod Argent, Dave Greenslade, Bo Hansson, Tony Kaye, Patrick Moraz, Jon Lord, Ray Manzarek, Derek Sherinian... ------------- What? |
erik neuteboom wrote:Posted By: sheeves
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:19
|
Although it SEEMS to me that Keith Emerson is the most skilled keyboardist out there, I did not really enjoy anything he ever really wrote. It was ok, but all of his playing seemed to be very skilled, but it stayed only on one plane. I do not think his music ever developed or went anywhere. One exception for this is Tarkus, but I feel overall his music never went anywhere.
So I vote for Tony Banks, because of his abilities, and the stuff he wrote was so perfect for what he needed to do, and he went where he had to with his music. He also could pull out all the stops with amazing keyboard solos. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:23
^ I don't know much about playing keyboards, but I don't think you want to be pulling out all the stops... that would sound terrible 
 ------------- What? |
Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:28
I voted for Geddy just to troll...sometimes I'm a troublemaker 
|
Posted By: keiser willhelm
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:29
|
im going to give some love to Jordan Rudess. i play the piano and listening to this man do whatever it is the aliens allow him to do is mind blowing. Wakeman is a god i know, and Emerson is, well emerson. but Rudess is severely behind so i thought id vote for him. i particularly liked the evening with petrucci and rudess where he moves away from his piano "shredding" and takes a much more tastefull approach. Rudess is some kind of freak.
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/KeiserWillhelm" rel="nofollow - What im listening to |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:32
|
'greatest'? hmm, I guess Wakeman from the list... I'd add John Novello, Ron Jarzombek and Alain Rochette |
Posted By: electricsilence
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 20:38
| Well, Rick Wright, subtle yet extremely efficient. |
Posted By: Tommydouglas
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 21:07
|
Keith Emerson for technical brilliance, compositional brilliance (especially the Piano Concerto #1) and creativity. ------------- "I'm not really spiritual, just religious." |
Posted By: Dim
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 21:09
|
Someone voted for Geddy Lee? Pot smoking is bad children.
Wakeman ------------- 
|
Posted By: White Shadow
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 21:09
|
I voted for Tony because I feel he's the best writer and sort of in the shadow of Emerson and Wakeman. I love all three though. ------------- [signature] |
Posted By: ClassicRocker
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 21:19
|
Emerson, no contest.
------------- 
|
Posted By: agProgger
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 21:47
|
Not to be a DT fanboi, but Rudess gets my vote. The other guys are a bit before my time, so I'm not terribly familiar with them, but Rudess can do some amazing stuff. The other guys are really good, but Rudess gets it for his ability to produce a turntable sound with a keyboard =P
------------- Friend of the honest; enemy of the arrogant and closed-minded. |
Posted By: ClassicRocker
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 22:35
"a turntable sound"? -------------
|
Posted By: Yorkie X
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 22:35
| a few I would have liked to have been there but its a fine list ... Emerson I think |
Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 22:36
|
Whoever it was that voted for Geddy Lee....leave. Just...leave. Now. -------------   |
Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 22:42
| It's amazing what you can learn when you read some of the posts. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 22:43
|
what about greatest prog banjo player, hm?... the keyboardists get all the glory while the five-string gods of prog are ignored |
Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 22:44
Easy, Bela Fleck!  |
Posted By: agProgger
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 23:25
He manually produces the turntable-like noise in "Glass Prison" using some weird technique that manipulates the pitch ribbon (whatever that may be -- I'm not terribly familiar with keyboards, unless that's just another name for the pitch wheel). Seeing as how all of those guys are amazing keyboard players, that one unique though largely unimportant tidbit gave him the edge in my book hehe. ------------- Friend of the honest; enemy of the arrogant and closed-minded. |
Posted By: Easy Money
Date Posted: December 06 2007 at 23:34
The late 80s Ensoniq EPS had a unique feature which would allow you to manipulate a sample's start time in real time and really "play it" like a DJ would. Maybe his kybd has a similar feature. I haven't seen anything as creative as the EPS in a long time. |
Posted By: ClassicRocker
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 00:00
Hm, that sounds kinda cool. The difference for me though is that it isn't necessarily Rudess's "skill" that would make effects like that sound good, but merely the technology within the keyboards themselves... Just food for thought. -------------
|
Posted By: Harry Hood
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 00:10
|
Your poll fails for not including Steve Walsh, Tomas Bodin, or Kerry Minear.
Gotta give some love to Ryo though. He IS rock and roll, after all. ------------- 
|
Posted By: agProgger
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 00:24
It's hard to argue with him going to the Juliard School of Music at age 9. ------------- Friend of the honest; enemy of the arrogant and closed-minded. |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 02:58
|
Kerry Minnear, Peter Bardens, Mark Kelly, This van Leer and Martin Orford should be there. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: zbida
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 02:58
|
According to the list:
K. Emerson is one of the most skilled and technical keyboardists, but T. Banks puts into his music something more: feelings.
Besides, I couldn't answer the question who's the best at all.
|
Posted By: Yorkie X
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 03:46
|
Posted By: Okocha
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 04:46
| Great Rick |
Posted By: Tangram
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 04:54
| Saw Joe Vannelli didn't get any vote yet!!!. Listen to the old Gino Vannelli stuff, till 1980. Very nice. |
Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 08:48
Not to complain about your list (lists like this can never be complete) but I've noticed on Prog Archives that when keyboards list are created they always seem to omit David Sancious who is probably one of the finest prog keyboardist going.
 |
Posted By: The Pessimist
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 11:18
|
1. Rick Wakeman 2. Tony Banks 3. Keith Emerson 4. Joe Vannelli 5. Neal Morse For those of you who don't know of Joe Vannelli or under-appreciate his work, check out the Gino Vannelli albums "Storm at Sunup" and "Powerful People". I think you will be pleasantly surprised |
Posted By: cynthiasmallet
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 11:28
|
My favourite is Banks, in terms of musical sympathy the mans a genius. However the best player is Wakeman at the end of the day, so he got the vote. ------------- Would you like to watch TV, or get between the sheets, or contemplate the silent freeway, would you like something to eat? |
Posted By: b_olariu
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 13:40
|
Tony Banks is one of my favorites musicians ever. I think his skills and way of playing at keys are unique in every way. But i also like Emerson and Wakeman but there is many more great key players that you forget to list here.
Where is Kerry Minnear from Gentle Giant, one of the most inteligent and skillfull musician ever
where is Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep, very important key player in prog music in my opinion
where is John Lord from Deep Purple
where is John Tout from Renaissance, one of the most inventive key player from his decade
where is Peter Bardens from Camel
where is Hugh Banton from Van der Graaf Generator, and many many stunning musicians that you forget to mention here. They are among my favourites key players from entire prog music, and they are from old school, not to mention others from '80 and '90 and from today.
This poll in my opinion is so so, not good not better then others, anyway is forgetable, sorry to be so rude.
|
Posted By: R o V e R
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 13:45
| 'Kieth Emerson' |
Posted By: TGM: Orb
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 15:07
| I'm a Wright-fan, but he's not there *glares* |
Posted By: Evandro Martini
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 23:24
What's this 'Tarantula technique'? ------------- "You’ll never make any money playing music that people can’t sing.” Keith Emerson's father |
Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 23:26
|
On the 'tron, you can only hold a note for 8 seconds before the tape runs out. The "tarantula" or "spider" technique involves slowly crawling from one inversion of a chord to another in order to hold a mellotron chord for more than 8 seconds.
------------- |
Posted By: Evandro Martini
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 23:34
|
Keith Emerson - 10 Rick Wakeman - 9.999 Tony Banks - 9.9 But I will always remind you that Banks is a complete jerk. Nowadays he tells everyone about how he hated playing long songs with ridiculous lyrics and complex solos, and says he only did it because he had a weak personality and Peter Gabriel and the others drove him to do it. ------------- "You’ll never make any money playing music that people can’t sing.” Keith Emerson's father |
Posted By: Empathy
Date Posted: December 07 2007 at 23:39
|
Have you ever tried to create a decent-sounding synthesizer sound from scratch? It ain't easy, even using the most modern technology. It's truly an art form, in fact. Not that Rudess is particularly adept at that, IMO. In fact, that's my main beef with him: he uses the same 5 patches or so over and over and over again. He's a ridiculously skilled player, however. I went with Tony, who will sometimes understate his playing in order to fit the song. ------------- Pure Brilliance: 
|
Posted By: agProgger
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 05:23
|
^ Are you talking about getting the sound samples, looping them, adding decay times, etc., or are you talking about physically building a synthesizer? If it's the latter, I wouldn't include that in my calculations, unless it was for who was a better electrical/sound engineer.
------------- Friend of the honest; enemy of the arrogant and closed-minded. |
Posted By: Norbert
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 07:37
|
The Noccenzi brothers deserve a mention when keyboard players are discussed. |
Posted By: cynthiasmallet
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 07:41
Well said, Lord and Bardens beat all (other than Banks) on this list. ------------- Would you like to watch TV, or get between the sheets, or contemplate the silent freeway, would you like something to eat? |
Posted By: Zargus
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 08:02
|
Hugh Banton, Mike Ratledge, David Sinclair & Dave Stewart are some that comes to mind, but ofc theres loades of more that constantly gets ignored.. ------------- 
|
Posted By: Abstrakt
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 08:13
|
Off that list, Keith Emerson.
But i LOVE Kerry Minear, Peter Bardens, Mike Ratledge, David Sinclair...
|
Posted By: Bj-1
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 10:31
So I have heard as well. ------------- RIO/AVANT/ZEUHL - The best thing you can get with yer pants on! |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 10:37
12 votes for Banks... damn...some of you need a Genesis enima.. another vote for Emo... and his work...and his legacy speaks volumes as for why... or this shall suffice... Could there be such a thing as a keyboardist not familiar with the works of Keith Emerson? Not in awe of his historic place in the annals of electronic musical evolution? As the first musician ever to use a modular Moog synthesizer on stage, Emerson accomplished the Herculean task of pulling the spotlight over to the keyboard section, incorporating outrageous theatrics and amazing chops to create an unmistakable presence. From their inception in 1970, Emerson, Lake and Palmer achieved instant fame with their unique blend of modern technology and classical orchestration. Their first single, entitled "Lucky Man," ended with a startling new sound, the first featured lead synthesizer solo. This sound took the music world by storm, and their first five albums went platinum. Keith Emerson himself has consistently won the Overall Best Keyboardist award in the annual Keyboard Magazine readers’ poll since the magazine debuted in 1975. ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: YesGoblin
Date Posted: December 08 2007 at 10:47
|
Keith Emerson is probably the best from a technically point of view but there are many others that are arguably more interesting. Rick Wakeman is a close second and although hes not as great from a Prog perspective, John Lord is also amazing. For instance the solo from "Burn".
another interesting player is Claudio Simonetti from the Band Goblin who have done countless scores for Dario Argento movies as well as the score for the US Movie DAWN OF THE DEAD
|
Posted By: Empathy
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 00:55
Well, you're talking about sampling, which is also an art form in itself. I'm referring to the process of designing a sound from the ground up using the existing architecture of a given synthesizer, vs. simply using the "presets". Actually designing and building a synthesizer would be an entirely different category, I agree... which is why I'm in awe of people like the late Bob Moog. ------------- Pure Brilliance:
|
Posted By: agProgger
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 03:54
That's what I thought. I'm actually doing something like that tomorrow for a final in a Music and Technology course I'm taking, except that it's with weird, cavernous noises instead of set notes. We use a program called Kontakte... it's pretty cool. ------------- Friend of the honest; enemy of the arrogant and closed-minded. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 05:45
|
Creating sounds in hardware, either using basic electronics to build sound generators and modifiers or by building modules ( http://www.synthtech.com/ - http://www.synthtech.com/ ), is enormous fun but costly. From a technical point of view there is nothing difficult in doing this - the principles are easy enough to grasp even with a rudimentary understanding of electronics - even if you forsake the Analogue world (::shudder::) and go Digital, small PIC processors are ideal for sound synthesis. Sadly, many of my home-based projects stalled from lack of funds rather than lack of knowledge.
There is another (cheaper) route to hardware sound synthesis where you use circuit-bending (modifying) to get new sounds cheap electronic toys and other gadgets http://www.oddmusic.com/illogic/index.html - http://www.oddmusic.com/illogic/index.html
On the software front there is a program called Csound that uses a C like language to create sounds and then allows you to form those sounds into compositions. http://www.csounds.com/ - http://www.csounds.com/ ------------- What? |
Posted By: jimmy_row
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 12:17
Voted for Tony B...cuz he can never have "too many" votes. He did more tricky, subtle things than Wakeman and Emo, and he was a far better songwriter. ------------- Signature Writers Guild on strike |
Posted By: Negru Voda
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 13:14
| Kerry Minnear |
Posted By: oracus
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 14:25
|
There is no Kerry Minnear? The man is the ultimate keyboard virtuoso and is he is not in the list? Anyways,in that particular list, i have to go with Keith Emerson. His compositions are more interesting that Wakemans, IMO. ------------- 
|
Posted By: Teh_Slippermenz
Date Posted: December 09 2007 at 19:56
|
Gonna have to go with Keith Emerson on this one, although my man is usually Tony Banks. Picking up "Brain Salad Surgery" from my library today, I was blown away by Emer's keys on "Toccata" and "Karn Evil 9". |
Posted By: Tylosand Ektorp
Date Posted: December 21 2007 at 18:27
|
I agree that Tony Banks is the best writer. Technically speaking he's not as good as Wakeman or Emerson, but he's a great composer. ------------- Those who know history are doomed to talk about it. |
Posted By: reality
Date Posted: December 22 2007 at 00:43
I was waiting to see someone say the great John Tout, the most communicative, emotive and least self indulgent (which prog needs more of) of them all. truly brilliant! By the way if we are including jazz musicians (from jazz rock/fusion) to the list Emerson is no longer the most technical on the list. Although many here will argue (and I feel for you) he is not in the same league as Chick Corea and the like. Great player though. And by the way, "Piano concerto #1" just proves Emerson did not know how to write a good piano concerto and is a detractor and not a triumph. Not to pick on him, as he is a good player but with virtues and limitations of a rock star. |
Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: December 22 2007 at 00:47
|
Emerson by far!
------------- |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: December 22 2007 at 00:49
|
Tecnically Vittorio Nocenzi and Patrick Moraz are way ahead all the mentioned, not to forget Flavio Premoli neither Jurgen Fritz.
Iván ------------- 
|
Posted By: reality
Date Posted: December 22 2007 at 00:57
Patrick Moraz never gets the credit? |
Posted By: markosherrera
Date Posted: December 22 2007 at 02:07
| Tony Banks |