GOR

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have a suggestion for a FAQ, please contact the site

Unfortunately, neither of these earlier albums are widely available on CD today, however there was a plan for all the original A&M releases to be remastered and re-released. The rights to these works are now owned by Seagrams in the USA who took control of Polygram in 1998 and thus the A&M Records label under the company name Universal Music Group. In recent years however, they were released in a limited edition card sleeve format in Japan. Whilst they were snapped up fairly quickly, they appear fairly frequently on ebay. We are aware of other recent releases but Rick is not involved with or compensated for any of these. Please keep checking back to the site for further news on the official Universal re-releases.

This site does not contain any lyrics, mainly for copyright reasons, but also because I haven't got transcripts of any. Try a search at Bing or Google for one of the many lyric sites.

If there is nothing on the website on the Live page, then there isn't anything planned. That isn't to say that there won't be, but we only publish and discuss tours that are absolutely definite. We will not enter into discussions about anything else. Rick is always pleased to receive proposals regarding tours, which can be sent to us here at the website. To save unnecessary work on your part, we would stress that the only proposals that are considered, are those which have complete costings, and financial guarantees in place.

We cannot arrange for tickets or backstage passes for shows - travel arrangements permitting, Rick always appears after shows to meet fans and sign autographs. This applies to everyone regardless of who you are!

Photo passes are administered by the venues themselves, who have varying policies on their availability. Please contact the venue directly.

For photos of Rick for press/media use, please visit the site of Lee Wilkinson Multimedia

As many will testify, Rick is always delighted to meet his fans and often spends hours after shows meeting and greeting and signing all manner of things. Having said that, his ability to appear is always governed by two criteria. Firstly if he is immediately travelling to another location, the meet might be short or may not happen at all and secondly believe it or not, Rick actually gets tired and he always gives 100% at every performance so simple fatigue might prevent him appearing. For these reasons, we can never guarantee that he will appear at any venue after shows, nor can we make special arrangements in advance to meet people. Also, if a show has a specific Meet and Greet option, then Rick does not usually appear after shows.

The answer to all these questions is no. Rick's shows generally run to a predetermined running order and schedule which is often dictated by the complexity of sound settings and the need for the sound engineer to know what is happening. Also Rick feels that if he started reading out dedications, then the floodgates would open. The answer therefore is always, with no exception however worthwhile, no.

Please do not request Rick to send birthday cards, Christmas cards, wedding cards or personal messages to folk, however worthy. Also he does not play at family gatherings, weddings or other such events. Finally, he does not provide any kind of financial assistance to individuals, he only works directly with charities. Please respect the fact that Rick is a professional musician.

Rick does not sign items via the post (he is delighted to sign things in person of course!) and cannot provide personal items signed such as photographs - basically if it's in person, then yes - otherwise no. Just to confirm, we do NOT send signed photographs.

Rick works extremely closely with a number of charities covering a range of causes and has been overwhelmed in recent months with requests for items to auction. Reluctantly therefore Rick is no longer able to provide items. Please also see this notice from Rick.

Rick is always flattered to be approached by so many charitable organisations, together with schools and colleges, all of whom have very worthy projects. He is often asked to become president, open events or attend music workshops etc. Rick is already heavily involved with many charities and educational establishments and really cannot undertake anything further without one of his existing commitments suffering.

Rick loves listening to all kinds of music, has wide listening tastes and an open mind. Sadly there have been a number of well publicized cases of people submitting music to famous musicians and subsequently accusing them of plagiarism. We know that isn't the reason why you want to send something to Rick, but Rick's lawyers have now advised him to not accept submissions.

Rick receives many great messages through his website from talented musicians all around the world who want to play in Rick’s band. Rick likes the stability of playing with his regular players and they will always be his first choice when any band opportunity arises, but as you can imagine, Rick has a very long list of players of all instruments to whom he turns if a regular player isn’t available. They are often recommended by the regulars. This means that unfortunately there are no audition opportunities.

There is currently no sheet music in print for any of Rick Wakeman's works, apart from a book of hymns called "HopeSongs". There are no plans to publish any in the near future I'm afraid. Titles that have previously been published do show up from time to time in secondhand shops, and sometimes on the internet in auction sites like ebay.

In a word, no. If Rick does happen to have a personal relationship with someone, it's just that - personal, and it would be an abuse to use it in this way.

Rick is certainly considering updating it, but is at present enjoying writing his series of "Grumpy Old…" books which have proved very popular.

As the question suggests, Rick's faith is just that…personal. In the same way as he respects all religions and faiths plus each individuals' rights to his or her beliefs, he does not believe in sharing his personal feelings with others and therefore his faith remains personal and private. We can clarify one question that comes in quite frequently though, Rick is not a "born again" Christian - his faith has supported him throughout his life.

Steinway for quality, Yamaha for value.

A variety of DAWs are generally used for recording, nothing is used during the composition phase.

A 10th comfortably, an 11th at a push and in no comfort whatsoever!

The mellotron was a great sounding instrument that was a nightmare to play, never stayed in tune, broke down all the time and the notes only played for 8 seconds. The birotron was a great sounding instrument that was a nightmare to play, never stayed in tune, broke down all the time but the notes played for 8 minutes.

Most piano stuff is actually written in flat keys, usually D flat or A flat. Most rock stuff is in keys that are suitable for guitars etc, hence the avoidance of flat keys.

This album is nothing to do with Rick whatsoever. It does however show the power of the internet. It was an album that was wrongly attributed to Rick on a music site's online store - an error. It has since become one of the site's more frequent questions! It's actually an album by Andy Stallman.

As we get so many e-mails asking Rick for advice on tuition for both children and adults, and invariably he is giving the same answers, we thought it would be a good idea to produce this reply that will hopefully cover all queries as regards this. First of all it's never too late in life to learn to play the piano or keyboard but it has to be taken into consideration that the older you are when you start will limit the standard you could eventually attain. This is because whilst the muscles and joints in young hands are still forming, they develop much better to the needs of playing the piano. Regardless of what anybody might tell you, the more you practise, the better you will get. Obviously some people will have more of a natural talent than others. Learning on a piano is more advisable than learning on a keyboard or synthesizer as a piano keyboard will strengthen the finger muscles more. There is no reason why you can't learn the two together. A lot of people ask about motivation, especially with children. The simple answer is that if they need motivating, then the chances are they don't enjoy it and should be doing something else. At the end of the day, music is for pleasure regardless of whatever standard you attain.

A lot of people approach Rick about him being their agent or representative, neither of which he does. His usual advice is to practice, enjoy playing and if it's meant to be, it will happen. We cannot arrange meetings with Rick to discuss their careers, but he's always pleased to meet people after concerts. And no, it's not possible to come to Rick's studio for a jam, mainly because it's just a small space with his keyboards, all the band members record in their own studios.

Unfortunately it was decided to close the club at the end of 2022.

Rick does not own the rights to White Rock, but you can watch it restored and in HD on the Olympic website currently.

Rick is very open and generous on most things, but he closely guards his sound settings as he regards them as his "secret sauce", so unfortunately the answer is no.

Rick uses Electro-Voice monitors, 2 x ETC-12P tops with 2 x ETX-18SP subs, used for personal monitoring of his keyboards only. The band mix comes from PA floor wedges.

For anyone stuck on the message form, it's "moog"