tips on playing voyager

The Moog Forum Minimoog Forum
1

im looking for a little advice/tips on playing voyager,although im not a professional pianist im not used to playing on monophonic keyboards ,i didnt think it would be a problem since im not a pro but i have a hard time getting a good sequence together cause i normally find a chord i like and work from there but just playing one note at a time kinda hard when im trying to put it together ,so i wanted to know do you still play it as if it was polyphonic just to keep the normal feel of playing keys or learn to play using single notes???

2

For me I learned to play single notes. I’ve always been a “monophone” in the sense I tend to compose monophonic lines first when writing a tune. Usually either the bass line or a main line (you know, the line you sing in the car when you are singing whatever song you are singing - not necc the melody).

Depending on what style of music you play just sorta pick out the melody or whatever and play it. Trying to press more than one key at a time is sure to frustrate you as a slightly late keydown could steal the note from the one you REALYL wanted to play - such is a monophonic keyboard.

3

Try thinking of the sound as being like a wind instrument rather than a keyboard - one note at a time with varied modulation using the control wheels the way a wind player would use their breath, lips etc.

Imagine how oboe or sax lines would be phrased.

4

cool ,thx for the advice,ill have to work on it some more

5

you can base your technique on pretty much anything monophonic coming from the realm of real instruments, such as a flute, the human voice, a clarinet, a horn, a sax etc. listen to lots of music that features such instruments, and see what they do.

  • silly advice: play melodies rather than trying to play chords.
  • use scales
  • listen to singers and learn from them
  • practice childrens’ songs
  • improvise and embellish
  • listen to an opera: how do the voices differ? male, female, alto, bass… lots of ways to change sound, also on a mono moog.
  • breathing technique, chiffs, slow or abrupt release.
  • train yourself in vibrato technique
  • use pitch bending.
  • if you’re into such music, i can recommend to listen to pretty much any recording by the indian flutist hariprasad chaurasia. you’ll be amazed what a musician can get out of a ‘simple’ bamboo flute!