Opinions on the Keytar

You know, lold eighties instrument, weird guitar piano synth thing. What's your opinion on the laughingstock of the rock music world?

I for one think their cool, but I'm considering now that they may have inscredible flaws, for the only company to make them as of 2006 is Roland (though they call it a "Stage-oriented shoulder keyboard"

You guys know the band Spock's Beard? I know the drummer...nice guy. Anyway, seems to me I saw one of those guys using a keytar at a concert at House of Blues just last year.

I don't think too much of them myself. My partner (a professional guitarist) for sure doesn't...but then, it's not really a guitar.

My partner was at the NAMM show a while back, where they showcase new musical equipment and products. He brought home a DVD demonstrating a new kind of keytar. This one had a small one-octave piano-style keyboard attached to the fingerboard of what looked like a regular guitar; when you played the keyboard (usually piano chords), it stopped the fretboard in the corresponding place. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen, but this dude who invented it was really proud of it.

Now the banjitar ”“ that’s something pretty cool. A banjo tuned like a guitar, so guitarists can play banjo licks without completely learning a new instrument. The guitarp (you guessed it - a guitar that sounds like a harp) is pretty neat too.

Haha! Spock's Beard! You know such weird prog / metal bands for being a classical traditionalist.

I personally don't think theres much use in a keytar.
You can get a pedal for just about anything, so there's not much need.

Haha! Spock's Beard! You know such weird prog / metal bands for being a classical traditionalist.

Since my partner makes his living at prog rock, yeah, I'm into it. But I was into rock/pop before that. In the 80s I was a live music club kid when I wasn't in gay clubs. Los Angeles had a million great live music clubs in those days, and my friends and I practically lived in them.

Um...most banjos can be tuned like a guitar. They typically have four to six strings. six being the most common. Hense, they can be tuned EBGDE or whatever, depending on what you want. DADGAD for example.

If you use them right, they can sound cool. I know a guy who actually uses one in a song of his. First he sustains a note on his hammond organ by putting a weight on the key, then he does it with his other keyboard, then picks up with synth guitar and plays a wicked solo, and then he picks up his Les Paul and plays another wicked solo, so if you use it for something like that, I see no problem, but if you use it exclusively, I think that it's stupid.