(April, 2008) Hi everyone! I'm Dave Bate, 78 years old.
Musical Background. I first got involved in home organ playing back in 1982. In my youth, aged around 13, and living in Bristol, UK, during WW2, my parents made me take piano lessons with a local tutor. These lessons lasted four years or so until more interesting pursuits, like girls, got in the way. This early music training resulted in my becoming a reasonably fluent sight reader of, mostly, light classical music, which pleased my mother who also played our home Steinbeck upright.
My early musical interests were greatly influenced during the war by the New Wave music brought over by the American Forces -- Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller and the like. My piano teacher had no interest in or, I suspect, knowledge of teaching this type of syncopated rhythmic stuff. Another reason to abandon further lessons, as far as I was concerned.
Later, in 1948, at 18, I did the regulation two years National Service in the Royal Air Force and absorbed the music of Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and British bands like Ted Heath and Eric Delaney.
In 1982, mainly due to friendship with an innately gifted Hammond organ player, I bought my first small organ -- a Yamaha C35 and, after over 35 years not even sitting at a keyboard instrument, I started to learn something quite new to me -- chord construction and reading from Busker-style notation i.e., top line and chord symbols. The logic of this appealed to my mind and I would regularly spend an hour or so practice before going to work in the morning.
I also had to re-learn reading the treble stave, which was less trouble than I feared, no doubt due to the piano lessons back in the 1940s embedded in my subconscious. Eventually, after a year or so, I was playing a vast number of chord symbols without conscious thought -- something that earlier on seemed an impossibility!
Organs gave way to keyboards and over the years I have gone through a Roland E15, Technics KN650, Solton MS 60, Technics KN1000 and three Yamaha PSRs to my present 3000. Although tempted by the T2, of course, I have no desire to upgrade. I regularly play at local clubs for dancing, and the small size of the 3000 with an amplifier system and two big speakers is easier to transport than a T2..
During the past three years, I have downloaded hundreds of re-worked styles from other keyboards on this web site and tweaked the best of these to suit my style of playing. Dozens of these extra styles, together with full registration set-ups are stored on the smartcard, which is permanently plugged in. All this is duplicated on a USB memory stick "just in case!"
My main musical interests are Big Bands, Latin, Ballads and composer icons such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach, Michele LeGrand, Antonio Jobim and many more!
Hope these notes are of interest to you folk. Any similar musical histories out there? And how about UK-based players too?
-- Dave Bate
Songs are listed alphabetically in the table below. Click on any song to hear the song (right-click to download). You can click on the column titles to resort the table on that column in ascending (or descending) order. Column abbreviations: V (volume number), T (tempo), TS (time signature), L (includes lyrics), C (includes chords), K (keyboard). Click on this link to download David's complete MIDI library: DBate-68.zip.
| V | Title | T | TS | L | C | Style | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| {V} | {Title} | {T} | {TS} | {L} | {C} | {Style} | {K} |
| Title | T | TS | L | C | Style | Artist | V | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cavatina | 98 | 3/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| I Could Have Danced All Night | 120 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| I Who Have Nothing | 90 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| I Won't Send Roses | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| In The Still Of The Night | 85 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| Money, Dancing Queen | 124 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| One | 120 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| One Day I'll Fly Away | 95 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| Superstar | 86 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| Witchcraft | 116 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 01 | 3k | |
| By The Time I Get To Phoenix | 84 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Holiday For Strings | 133 | 4/4 | N | Y | Showtune | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k |
| Maybe This Time | 80 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Moonlight In Vermont | 96 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Morgens Um Zieben | 188 | 3/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Never On Sunday | 118 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Real Live Girl | 160 | 3/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Recuerdos | 100 | 3/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Sentimental Journey | 112 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k | |
| Tijuana Taxi | 186 | 4/4 | N | Y | Tijuana | Dave Bate | 02 | 3k |
| Adios | 124 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Alone Again | 84 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Blue Suede Shoes | 164 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Days Of Wine And Roses | 116 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Detroit City | 128 | 4/4 | N | Y | CountryRock | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k |
| El Condor Pasa | 112 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Nikita | 84 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Only Yesterday | 116 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 03 | 3k | |
| Besame Mucho | 92 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| How Deep Is Your Love | 120 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| I've Got You Under My Skin | 116 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| If | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| If I Were A Rich Man | 128 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| On The Ground | 90 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone | 190 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| Pretty Woman | 124 | 4/4 | N | Y | HeartBeat | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k |
| This Can't Be Love | 145 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| Way It Used To Be | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 04 | 3k | |
| Apache | 140 | 4/4 | N | Y | 60sGuitarPop | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k |
| Delilah | 180 | 3/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| Killing Me Softly | 100 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| Little Boat | 108 | 4/4 | N | Y | Rumba | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k |
| Love Letters In The Sand | 65 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| More I See You, The | 124 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| Shadow Of Your Smile, The | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| Tango Medley | 118 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| Tenderly | 124 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| When You're Smiling | 205 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 05 | 3k | |
| April In Paris | 95 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| Fever | 116 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| I Could Have Told You | 90 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| Light Up My Life | 108 | 4/4 | N | Y | Rumba | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k |
| Power Of Love | 84 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| Something In The Way She Goes | 84 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| Spanish Eyes | 106 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| Summer Wind | 110 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| When I Need You | 110 | 3/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| You Are The Sunshine Of My Life | 120 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 06 | 3k | |
| Bye Bye Blackbird | 145 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| I Can't Get Started With You | 75 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| Country Medley | 126 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| Durham Town | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| From Russia With Love | 110 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| Just For You | 112 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| Let's Cha Cha | 124 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| I'm Getting Sentimental Over You | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| Rose, The | 82 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k | |
| Winner Takes All | 105 | 4/4 | N | Y | Dave Bate | 07 | 3k |
