Kerry Minnear

Well, I have this system where if I've heard of a new instrument, I hire it for a session in the studio. Then we make a decision on whether it's worth getting one or not. I hired a Clavinet for something in The Power and The Glory. I liked it because it was so clear. I didn’t know how the pins were then. I mean, the Clavinet works on the principle of hammering the strings down on a pad, and the things between the keys and the strings are made of thin metal. They can bend very easily. This can cause you to get some very dull notes because the string isn’t being struck right. So before each gig I have to do a complete overhaul on the instrument. It's a bit of a nuisance, but it's the clearest of all the keyboards. It can cut through the worst row on stage, which is something I've always wanted as a keyboard player. Early keyboards have suffered from mediocre tone, especially at high volume. You get swallowed up by everybody's overtones. The Clavinet will cut through that, though. I tend to use it as a harpsichord, rather than in the funky fashion. What I'm taking to lately is duplicating what I play on the piano, which is situated just under the Clavinet, to get a combination of the two. There's a tuning discrepancy that thickens things out a bit too, which I like.

I tend to use it more as another instrument than as a Minimoog. I'm not particularly a specialist in freaky sounds. So I try to find a sound that is suitable for the passage that I want to play. That's just a general attitude have towards synthesizers. It's just one more interesting sound that is still very useful in a musical way, as opposed to in a soloing way.