Keyboardist

A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, such as synthesizers and digital piano, requiring a more general term for a person who plays them. In the 2010s, professional keyboardists in popular music often play a variety of different keyboard instruments, including piano, tonewheel organ, synthesizer, and clavinet. Some keyboardists may also play related instruments such as piano accordion, melodica, pedal keyboard, or keyboard-layout bass pedals. There are many famous electronic keyboardists in metal, rock, pop and jazz music. A complete list can be found at List of keyboardists. The use of electronic keyboards grew in popularity throughout the 1960s, with many bands using the Hammond organ, Mellotron, and electric pianos such as the Fender Rhodes. The Doors became the first rock group to use the Moog synthesizer on a record on 1967's "Strange Days". Other bands, including the Moody Blues, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, would go on to add it to their records, both to provide sound effects and as a musical instrument in its own right.