What do Keyboard Accompaniments do?

Question

I am learning Keyboard, and what do Accompaniments do to help you play the music?

Answer 1

Think of the relationship between vocal or instrumental solos and keyboard accompaniments as a partnership. Accompaniment parts can be simple or very complex depending upon the genre, idiom and level of difficulty of the music. Most pop and rock accompaniments are comparatively simple while accompaniments to sonatas, concertos and 19th century art songs and choral pieces are more complex.

Some accompaniments stay in the background throughout, lending harmonic and rhythmic support and doubling the solo part on occasion. Others can assume a more balanced role, sometimes rising to prominence and overtaking the soloist only to recede to the background afterwords.

An accomplished keyboard accompanist can make a good living. I would encourage you to seek out opportunities to accompany your peers who sing or play. The experience will help make you a better musician and improve your range as a performer as well.

Answer 2

An "accompaniment" is simply the chords and bass line and other stuff you play to back up or play along with or accompany a singer.

IOW, when someone is singing a song, a good keyboard player doesn't play the melody along with them.  You usually want to play a steady rhythm using the chords of the song, usually with a bass line in the left hand and chords in the right hand, in a way that fits the style of the song and makes the singer sound good.

Being able to read a "lead sheet" to find out the chords for the song, or being able to figure out the correct chords by ear, and make up a good accompaniment part using those chords in a stylistically appropriate way, is a major part of being a good keyboard player.