I have been playing a lot of keyboards, especially in the last five or six years. I suppose it gives you more scope than the guitar, although it does tend to make you write a different way.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar.
Guitar is great for a certain thing, but a piano is so much more expansive.
My daughter plays keyboard very well, and my son plays guitar, and they're totally into music.
I do love using keyboards and I love writing keyboard parts, but I am not a player in the true sense of the word.
For me, the keyboard is always an additional sound to the piano. Piano is the main instrument; I can't go anywhere without acoustic piano. It's been my best friend since I was 6 years old.
Andy Chase and I were keyboard players originally, and we became guitarists later. But it's fun for us to focus more on the keyboard stuff sometimes.
I'm quite glad I never learned to play the guitar, because I think I'd write songs that were more classically structured. As it is, I've had to create my own way of writing, which isn't typical. Everything's a big crescendo.
I've always been into guitars... we want to put keyboards on, but keyboard players don't look cool onstage, they just keep their heads down. There has never been a cool keyboard player, apart from Elton John.
It's been very hard for the guitar as a serious synthesizer to compete with keyboards.
For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.