Motif-Disklavier Combo is Mike Garson's Road "Reality"

The New York City native studied classical piano with Leonard Eisner of the Juilliard School of Music and graduated from Brooklyn College. After serving in the military and as a member of the rock band Brethren, he honed his playing skills as a sideman for a variety of performers, including Mel Tormé and Thad Jones, while studying with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans and Lennie Tristano. Garson, whose music has been featured on television and in feature films, approaches improvisation as a unique composition method, which he developed in 1995 under his NOW! MUSIC brand.

Garson recently completed a 15-month world tour to promote Bowie's latest release, Reality, sharing the stage with guitarists Earl Slick and Gerry Leonard, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, drummer Sterling Campbell and Catherine Russell, who handled backing vocals, percussion, keys and guitars. More than 100 shows in Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. garnered favorable reviews and sales before health issues cancelled the tour's eleven remaining dates.

No stranger to road life, Garson has recorded and toured with Bowie since the early 1970s. On this outing, his rig included a Yamaha Motif ES8 synthesizer and DGT2A Disklavier GranTouch combination. Both units were connected via MIDI to a Yamaha P90 which provided additional sounds, and a vintage 01V digital mixer housed in an offstage rack, plus a variety of outboard effects.

"Most of the keyboard and orchestral parts were covered with the Motif," he explains. "It has amazing sounds, and for being such an intricate piece of musical machinery, it held up extremely well on the road. As anyone who has toured knows very well, gear gets knocked around quite a bit in trucks, cargo planes and during load-ins and load-outs. Actually, everything in my rig has been dropped multiple times, and it still worked great. The original Motif was an amazing product, but the ES series has really gone above and beyond, in terms of sounds."

The GranTouch handled piano duties. "I've been a Disklavier fan for years," he notes, "and as a songwriter, it literally changed ways of working and writing. I use a 9-foot DCFIIISPRO at home, which is great for recording and playing back real-time performances, but it's not practical for touring! The GranTouch adapts very easily to the road. The Graded Hammer action feels and responds like an acoustic piano, and the sounds are quite realistic. At the same time, it was a good and practical alternative to carrying a large grand piano from venue to venue, which I'm sure the crews appreciated!"

In addition to contributions on Bowie albums Reality, Heathen, Earthling, Outside, The Buddha of Suburbia, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, David Live, Pin-Ups, Young Americans and Ziggy Stardust the Motion Picture, Garson has also been featured on the Smashing Pumpkins' Ex Machina, Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, Seal's Human Being and No Doubt's Return of Saturn.

His solo albums include The Oxnard Sessions, Vol.1, Serendipity, A Gershwin Fantasia and The Mystery Man. For more information, visit www.mikegarson.com.

For more information about Yamaha pianos and synthesizers, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Piano Division and Pro Audio & Combo Division, Digital Musical Instruments, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622-6600; telephone (714) 522-9011; or e-mail infostation@yamaha.com.