Peggy Duquesnel at the Keys for the Anaheim Angels. As we pulled into the parking lot of Edison Field, the home of major league baseball's Anaheim Angels, the parking attendant wandered over to chat with the two guys unloading bags of cameras and equipment prior to the game. We explained that we were here to talk to Peggy Duquesnel, the organist for the ball game. After hearing this, the attendant's eyes lit up and he explained how happy everyone was at Edison Field that Peggy and her great organ music were back. "What's baseball without organ music?" this obviously diehard ball fan concluded. Little did this gentleman know that those classic organ tones he was hearing several times a week were actually coming from Roland's brand new VK-77 Combo Organ, and that Peggy had enough other cutting-edge Roland instruments to fill a small studio.

"When I first got here last season," explains Peggy, "we had an old traditional organ, but it was definitely outdated. We got the VK-77 at the beginning of this season and I'm really excited about it. I'm not traditional organist," she continues, "but I've played organ sounds for years on gigs. For me, to have something like [the VK-77] makes me feel like I'm a 'real' organist, especially with the flexibility of having the PK-7 pedals. You know, there have been good synth organ sounds before, but there's never been anything like this. I'm getting spoiled."

Spoiled may be a bit of an understatement. Peggy's Roland collection also consists of an XP-80 Music Workstation, EM-2000 Creative Keyboard, SP-808 Groove Sampler and a KC-100 amplifier for monitoring. And while her VK-77's classic organ sounds have been around baseball as long as the seventh-inning stretch, this wide range of other Roland gear gives her many more options.
 

"I personally like the feeling of playing with a band," she notes. "With the XP-80, I have a bunch of sequences I've worked up for sports. I use it as my main sequencer, but I'll also call up brass and even percussion sounds like hand claps... I'll pick songs depending on the mood of the game. For example, the other night the Angels were up 17 to 1, so it was pretty up-tempo rockin' and jazzy stuff." Peggy first started using the XP-80 at another world-class venue-The Pond of Anaheim-where she plays music for NHL favorites the Mighty Ducks. She quickly learned that the music needs for a hockey game are quite different from a baseball game.

"At The Pond," she explains, "I do more motivational and fanfare-type things, [because] there's less time at a hockey game to play songs." For Ducks games, Peggy's scaled-down setup includes XP-80 and JV-90 workstations along with an S-760 Digital Sampler. "At a baseball game," observes Peggy, "let's say the opposing manager comes out to the mound. That'll give me a little time to play an actual song. I may do a little quote to play off the manager, but then I can go into a jazz tune or something like that to give the audience something to listen to." Peggy has found that Roland's EM-2000 Creative Keyboard is perfect for such occasions. 

"The EM-2000 is really working out well for me," effuses Peggy. "First of all, it has great patterns in it, which is important [because] at this gig, there are many last minute songs I have to come up with." (As testimony to this fact, Peggy was asked during the course of the interview if she had any barnyard songs to accompany a cow-milking contest that was going to happen at home plate in "about 20 minutes.") "I don't have time to work out my own sequences for every possible tune. [But] with the EM-2000, I don't have to," she confirms. "On top of having many good arrangements, it also has the Zip' disk which has several hundred pre-programmed songs that are done really well... And even with that many songs, I can get to them quickly, which is very important at a gig like this. In fact, I can play an entire arrangement on the EM-2000 with my left hand and play the melody on the organ with my right. It's perfect." Of course, every game is different, so Peggy tries to makes the music different every night. "What I try and do is keep two or three songs in mind and have them ready for the situation," she explains. "And I spread them across all the instruments."

Peggy's clever placement and organization of gear at the Edison Field location allows her to use everything with ease. Her DR-660 Dr. Rhythm sits on the VK-77, allowing her to easily trigger drum grooves while playing an organ tune. She stores her sequences in the XP-80 and her arrangements in the EM-2000. And she's just added the SP-808 Groove Sampler for triggering a variety of samples.

"Over at The Pond, I use an S-760 sampler," she explains. "But here, we'll be using the SP-808. In fact, tonight will be the first night that we use it. We have great jet sounds and crashing glass for fly balls-it's going to be really fun, and I'm sure I'll be using it more in the future."

In a room with a spectacular view, organist  Peggy Duquesnel plays "Take, Me Out to  the Ball Game" during rehearsal for opening-day festivities at the newly refurbished and renamed Edison Field In Anaheim.

THE KEY PLAYER When the Anaheim Angels take to the field tonight for the season opener, organist Peggy Duquesnel of Costa Mesa will be playing their song and more.  By Tim Grenda, Daily Pilot Local musician Peggy Duquesnel is ready to make the jump from "Take the 'A' Train" to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". For years, the Costa Mesa piano teacher has made a living playing jazz standards from Duke Ellington and other composers in smoky clubs and concert halls. But tonight, when the Anaheim Angels take the home field against the New York Yankees for the opening of the American League baseball season, Duquesnel will be seated in a booth behind home plate as the team's new stadium organist. "It's a bit of change from what I normally do, but it's fun," she said. Duquesnel got the gig over the winter after auditioning to replace the recorded rock songs and rap music that were played during breaks at Angels games last year.