About
Scott Hannay

Hailing from Upstate NY, Scott Hannay has made a name for himself in the Northeast music scene over the last decade. He has played stages ranging from local dives to amphitheaters and arenas, and has even performed at Carnegie Hall. Being an integral member of bands such as Mister F and Capital Zen, as well as often lending his talents to Marcus Rezak‘s Shred Is Dead, Ike Willis and the Brothers of Invention, Wild Adriatic, Eastbound Jesus, and more, Hannay has built a vast network of musical friendships throughout the years.


Multi-Instrumentalist

For years, Scott has been performing on either keyboards/piano, bass, and guitar. Based in Upstate NY, he has played both regionally with Capital Zen, and nationally, having toured with Mister F and Wild Adriatic over the years.

His knack for playing well with others has led to a laundry list of bands he has gotten to perform onstage with, including Umphrey’s McGee, Twiddle, Turkuaz, Dopapod, Particle, Aqueous, Andy Frasco and the U.N., Kung Fu, Ike Willis and the Brothers of Invention, Red Wanting Blue, Lespecial, Pink Talking Fish, Sophistafunk, and many more.

Currently, during COVID-19 times, he has been utilizing his multi-instrumental skills in a continuous set live-looping environment that he built in Reaper, and performing every Sunday afternoon. An archive of those performances may be found here on this website.


Mixing & Recording

Scott has acted as archivist for all the bands he has performed with over the years, and has recorded many of these shows himself, including many tracks off Mister F’s live album, FLIVE. He also recorded, mixed, and produced Mister F’s upcoming full-length release, titled Futureless.

Hannay has also captured and mixed other live acts for either archival or official releases, including Lucid, Blind Owl Band, Earphorik, and more.


Musical Transcription

One of Scott’s more specialist-type skills is musical transcription. Having transcribed music for over 2 decades in many different formats and varying levels of complexity, he is equipped to take on nearly any transcription project thrown his way.

In 2004, he began a project transcribing Umphrey’s McGee songs with the intent to make them sound like 8-bit NES music. This project was (very obviously) called Umphrey’s McNES, and 17 songs of theirs were completed over the years. Scott later extended this project to include bands from the Northeast jamband scene, including Twiddle, Dopapod, Kung Fu, lespecial, Consider the Source, and more.

He most recently completed a full-score rock opera transcription, titled Spit’n Lyon, written by John Daly, and has also transcribed various other songs for people, including a couple of solo bass pieces for John Ferrara of Consider the Source.


…Plays Video Games

…Literally, but for these purposes, plays the music from classic video games, mostly from the 8, 16, and 64-bit eras with the occasional leak from newer material. Scott has learned well over 100 classic video game songs on piano, and is available for booking performances as such.

It was this genre in which Hannay cut his teeth in music, pausing games as a child to run to the family piano to try to plunk out the familiar melodies. During his teen years, he became obsessed with correcting poorly-transcribed MIDI files he could find over dial-up internet, and soon began transcribing entire video game soundtracks, all while still in high school.

Scott has also built a small catalogue of material for a rotating-lineup video game cover band, known as Scott Hannay’s Multiplayer. He has had members of bands throughout the Northeast join him for these sets, including members of Mister F, Lucid, Formula 5, Brickdrop, Cosmic Dust Bunnies, Chromatropic, Capital Zen, Let’s Be Leonard, and more.