Tyros2
Kees Schouten died of lung cancer on December 4, 2011 in his house in Den Helder, Netherlands at the age of 67.

Kees was born on October 8, 1944 in Schagen during World War 2. After the war, his family moved back to Den Helder to his dad's grocery shop. At the age of 4, Kees started playing the piano. By the time he was a teenager, he already played in all kind of bands.

Kees started working for the Dutch Royal Navy as an electrical engineer, always working very close to the ships hull plating where asbestos was used as isolation.

He never stopped playing music in his spare time. He turned to an organ first and then, later, moved on to the keyboard. For years he happily played his GEM WK8, charming everyone with his music, together with a lot of his musical friends among which was Coen, who played Bass and did the vocals. On stage, Kees always stayed in the background even though he was often the band member who was most appreciated for his musical knowledge and contributions in the various bands he played in.

I met him when he was 34, following the organ lessons he was giving at that time. He kept on playing on weddings and parties, but also on dance evenings for seniors (50+) and in the old peoples homes, where he set to music all the songs of the musical comedies performed by the elderly. He could play by ear and simply transposed any song if a singer had trouble singing certain parts.

Kees and Y8122 smallKees also had a second “love,” the steam tug boat Y8122. This ship was restored from a rusty vessel to a great sailing steamship, with the help of lots of volunteers of which Kees was chairman for many years.

Around June 2010, his beloved GEM broke down and that meant he could not go out gigging anymore. Searching the internet, we found a second-hand Tyros 2 for a reasonable price. Looking at all features of that Tyros, it seemed like an excellent replacement. So out we went and brought it home.

Kees studied hard to master its capabilities as fast as possible and it sounded great. He was very enthousiastic about it and so were his musical friends, coming to his home to practice together. They could hardly wait to gig with that new Tyros 2. Kees was so extremely happy with it, that every visitor he got had to listen to the latest things he discovered.

In November, 2010, we got the bad news that Kees had lung cancer and it could not be cured. The chemical treatmens he received were only to make the quality of life a bit better. But he fought strongly and, together with his musical friend Coen, he decided to record some songs for us all as a musical inheritance. Those are the songs you will find on this page. All are done on the Tyros 2 by Kees Schouten, some with vocals and bass by Coen Looy. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

-- Tineke Kosmis


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