Eric Composing: Guitar or Piano

[seattlesteve]

It's well documented how most of Eric's songs he wrote on the piano, even if the final recording was heavy on guitar.. ala Go All The Way"

Eric.. Did you write any recordings on guitar or were they all written on piano?

EG: Hard to believe If You Change Your Mind was written on the piano, but I bet it was.

[Eric Carmen]

I write at the piano mostly because I'm a much better pianist than guitarist. However, there are certain parts of certain songs that HAD to be written on the guitar, like the breakdown in "Ecstacy", for instance. I also wrote the intro for "I Wanna Be With You" on the guitar. I'm sure there must be others, as well. When Scott McCarl and I wrote "Play On" and "Cry" I'm sure we played acoustic guitars. ec

[DeanTylerVO]

Eric.....just wanted to say it's good to see you active on this site again, hopefully it's a bit of something that's as good for you as it is for all of us out here who look forward to hearing from you.

Dean

[Bessieboo]

Let's see if I can articulate this correctly,

Do you hear the piano parts as piano alone and the guitar as guitar?

Or do you hear the finished product and then take it apart to get it written down?

[Eric Carmen]

I think the reason most composers create on the piano is that the piano is much more like having a "full orchestra". So much of writing is the melody juxtaposed against a chord and a bass note. You can accomplish all three at once with a piano, but it's much more difficult with a guitar or any other instrument. A piano has 88 notes and (presumably) you've got 10 fingers with which to play. A guitar has only six strings and a total of six notes possible at any giiiven time (usually only five) so it's just much more limiting. Additionally, the guitar is not really set up to play the bass notes, so, unless you're a jazz or classical guitar virtuoso, you need a bass player to finish off your chord. That's the reason that George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Henry Mancini, Leonard Bernstein and virtually all of the classical composers wrote at the piano. But they all had the additional knowledge of the range of each orchestral instrument and many played other intruments as well. ec

[Paulie Mississippi]

I think I learn more about the "guts" of music than I ever did when taking lessons or a "music appreciation" type course... great stuff!

[seattlesteve]

I get it now.. cool and educational insight.

I also appreciate that there is more to it than just the fact that the piano is more functional, the real talent is though the artist may be composing at the keyboard, the fact that someone has the ability in their mind to not just hear the melody, but to visualize the recorded song performed with different instruments in their head.

There are artists that were born with a gift they can't explain, and there are artists that worked very hard (at their craft and the business side) to be where they are, either may do well. But there are also artists that are both... in sports we call that person Michael Jordan, here we call him EC.

S