61 vs 76 keys keyboard
joe
I am a piano beginner, I need a keyboard for practice.
I found a 61 keys for $190 (yamaha PSR-290) and a 76 keys for $285
(yamaha DGX-200) at BESTBUY.
How often the extra keys is being used? in what kind of songs? Would
61 keys be enough for most of songs? I would like to play Pop, Rock,
and alittle bit of classical music.
thx
-16
"joe" <m_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f458cdd0.02092...@posting.google.com...
Clive Raymond
I usually play a 76 note board (Roland A33)
The nice thing about this particular model is if you need a low D for an
ending or such you can shift an octave with one button press.
I also have a A37 (the updated model) which has omitted this, and a few
other useful things that were on the old model. It can still do them, but
the functions are buried a few button presses away.
That teamed up with either a Roland JV1010 or, preferably, a Korg SGRack
works great for me.
JBSeattle
generally works within perfect intervals.
If you wish to play piano, then at least a 76 key weighted action keyboard
but an 88 is best.
The keyboard uses touch sensitive keys and has mod wheels to slide between
intervals so you can mimic other instruments like guitars, strings, horns,
that slide between music intervals.
Best buy and low end Yammie touch sensitive keyboards are not a very good
choice for classical piano at all.
You get what you pay for.
American Musical Supply has nice 88 key digital pianos with midi out if that
is what you need.
JB
"-16" <robot...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Jeffery S. Jones
In piano, they are used very often. Finding arrangements you can
easily play within five octaves isn't easy, especially for classical.
Neither of those keyboards is going to feel like a real piano. If
you've played any real pianos, you'll notice the difference right
away. The soft touch keyboards are great for synth music, organs,
lots of things, but aren't truly ideal for pure piano style playing.
You can't bang on them hard enough, they don't respond like a real
piano physically. Plus of course you may not have the pedals (Yamaha
does support sustain, soft, and sostenuto pedal controllers on many of
its synths; the keyboards don't often have connectors for all of those
though).
61 is enough to do pop chords for rhythm, and any lead parts solo.
It is enough to practice the basic scales, and just hits the common
range for simple arrangements (two octaves below and above middle C).
But as I mention, *many* piano arrangements go beyond that. While you
can use an octave-shift button to get more range, you can't go both up
and down -- and some songs have a wide range. The last octave, 88
keys, isn't used nearly as often, but I think you'll find it hard to
easily do piano style playing with only 61 keys.
--
*-__Jeffery Jones__________| *Starfire* |____________________-*
** Muskego WI Access Channel 14/25 <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/mach7/>
*Starfire Design Studio* <http://www.starfiredesign.com/>
*Graphic Reflections and Websites* <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/>
joe
(exclude classical)
thx again
"-16" <robot...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<ySUk9.8797$YI.26...@twister.nyc.rr.com>...
Gerry
The smaller synths, 61 key and most 76 key use organ type keys, not
piano type keys.
Gerry
Robert S.
> Hi,
>
> I am a piano beginner, I need a keyboard for practice.
No you don't. You need a piano.
A "keyboard" may suffice for an introduction to music--learning to
read notes, learning where the notes are on the keyboard, etc. But
anyone trying to improve his skills on the piano, whether a beginner
or a very advanced pianist, needs a piano.
ragzbol
has a transpose feature so if you want to you can play in the really high or
low registers.
Ragz Tuttle,
Creator of "THE RAGZPOL"; a musical keyboard that wraps around a pole.
rag...@ragzpol.com
http://www.ragzpol.com
in article f458cdd0.02092...@posting.google.com, joe at
m_...@yahoo.com wrote on 9/27/02 12:08 AM:
Alan Young
<m_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
These are both way too cheap to bring long-term satisfaction.
Okay, you get a keyboard for practice, so you can learn finger patterns
and so on. But when you get good enough to play real music and want it
to sound like something, you will need something better.
So the question is not how many keys do you need to get started; either
one will do for a short time. The question is, how soon will you get to
the point where you'll want to upgrade to a $1500 or $2000 keyboard.
Good luck...
--
alan
+++++++++
"I wish I could play like Tatum's right hand!"
-- Charlie Parker
Tony Evans
m_...@yahoo.com (joe) wrote:
I used 61-key keyboards for a few years for live pop/rock performance
and found them too limited in extent, especially when trying to play
piano or organ parts. I broke down and bought a Kurzweil PC88MX a few
years back - partly for the quality of the piano sounds, but mostly to
be a weighted 88-key master controller keyboard for my synths. I have no
intention of going back to the 61-key instruments, and the ones that I
have are now pretty much relegated to being fancy sound modules MIDI'ed
up to the Kurzweil.
Wou might be suprised just how often those extra keys are used when you
know that they are available. The bottom octave is very useful for
providing real bass depth to the left-hand part, like playing lines in
octave rather than single-note, or giving a very deep counterpoint to
whatever you are playing with the right hand. The top octave I use
fairly often too, mainly while playing leads or soloes. While the extra
octaves might not be absolutely necessary, they can add a lot of color
to your playing.
If you really want to learn to *play* the keyboard rather than just make
cute sounds, I strongly recommend 88 weighted keys. If money is an
issue, then look around for used gear. Better to spend money on a good
used pro-grade or high-end "pro-sumer" instrument that can satisfy you
for a long time than on some new toylike thing that will be frustrating
to play when the initial novelty wears off.
Tony Evans
Gary Rimar
classically trained (if two years of lessons count), but I use the whole
keyboard.
Gary (and I mean all 88 keys - I paid for them, I use them) Rimar
Robert Lashley
learn some classical.
But I wrote a lot of synthesizer music on half as many keys
over a decade ago.... I wonder where that keyboard went....
Cheers!
-bob
Mentore Siesto
j >Hi,
j >
j >I am a piano beginner, I need a keyboard for practice.
Better not. It's really better to buy a digital piano.
j >I found a 61 keys for $190 (yamaha PSR-290) and a 76 keys for $285
j >(yamaha DGX-200) at BESTBUY.
I think you can find some good used digital pianos, like Yamaha P-80 or
P-200 (much used, many musician appreciate them), or some beast like the
GEM PRO-1 or PRO-2. Also many portable digital pianos are available, at no
high cost.
j >How often the extra keys is being used? in what kind of songs? Would
j >61 keys be enough for most of songs? I would like to play Pop, Rock,
j >and alittle bit of classical music.
If you intend to play only Rock, a keyboard would suffice. I find myself
very comfortable with my GEM S3 (76 keys), I often use the lower part of
the keyboard. With complex performances, all keys become really useful.
Suppose you need to play with 3 or 4 instruments on the same keyboard,
with some overlap between sounds. You can assign a key range to a sound,
another to another and so on, maybe overlapping some of them, saying you
want to play a sound only if velocity is more (or less) than a certain
value... With 76 keys this is really easier.
--
Mentore Siesto
Team OS/2 Italy
JBSeattle
keyboards are not worth much for piano playing and I agree as said before.
I am a guitarist turned keyboardist, for looks more than anything else in
our duo.
For riffs and signature keyboard type rhythms the keyboard is boss but for
piano to sound like a piano you need an 88 key weighted keyboard.
When I play piano parts on the keyboard, it sounds like a keyboardist
playing piano--it is not genuine sounding even with my good Roland keyboard.
We have a Korg in the studio for laying in those parts with 88 weighted
keys.
They ain't cheap.
JB
"Mentore Siesto" <s13...@studenti.ing.unipi.it> wrote in message
news:0102092811291...@studenti.ing.unipi.it...
Gear
minutes before you yearn for a full size.
"joe" <m_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f458cdd0.02092...@posting.google.com...
Jeffery S. Jones
>For rock / Pop would 61 keys enough? any used more than 61 keys?
>(exclude classical)
Hmm, it is easy to go past that if you're playing piano. If you are
doing keyboard sounds, then two 61 key boards will work ok (one small
one above the other). Of course, two 61 = 122, so if you just want
the range you may as well get one with 76 or 88 keys :-)
If you play with two hands, 61 is confining. One hand play can work
fine in that range, but I doubt you want to try to learn piano playing
that way.
>"-16" <robot...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<ySUk9.8797$YI.26...@twister.nyc.rr.com>...
>> For piano 88 or 76 is good, 61 is too limited.
>> "joe" <m_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:f458cdd0.02092...@posting.google.com...
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I am a piano beginner, I need a keyboard for practice.
>> >
>> > I found a 61 keys for $190 (yamaha PSR-290) and a 76 keys for $285
>> > (yamaha DGX-200) at BESTBUY.
>> >
>> > How often the extra keys is being used? in what kind of songs? Would
>> > 61 keys be enough for most of songs? I would like to play Pop, Rock,
>> > and alittle bit of classical music.
>> >
>> > thx
--
JBSeattle
the keys and the left to work the mod/pitch and the envelope sliders is
often still one hand short LOL.
I have a piano teacher in the next studio over, so get her to come over and
lay down any fine piano work and we do keyboard and guitar synth stuff for
her.
JB
"Jeffery S. Jones" <jef...@execpc.com> wrote in message
news:3d96187d$0$1422$272e...@news.execpc.com...
Jv1080seq
You'll use that low E lots and in any rock music where guitars are prominent as
they favor E and A.
Good luck!