Jerry Kovarsky

Article / Updated 11-10-2022

Layering or blending two sounds together creates a wonderful, rich sound on the keyboard. Think of the sound of acoustic piano blended with some warm strings; it’s the perfect sound for playing a sensitive pop ballad. Combining a pipe organ with some vocal choir sounds gives you just the right blend for praise and worship music. Some products call layering Dual Mode or Dual Voice Mode. It simply means you’re playing more than one sound at a time. If your keyboard has dedicated sound name buttons like Grand Piano 1, Electric Piano, Pipe Organ, Strings, and so on, you may be able to easily layer two of them together. Try this method commonly found on digital pianos and stage pianos: Press and hold a piano sound button. Now press another sound button. Release both buttons and play the keyboard. If your keyboard has this feature, you’ll hear both sounds layered together. Another common approach is to have a dedicated Layer button. Look at the front panel of your keyboard; if you have this feature, try these steps: Select a sound you want to use as the foundation. Press the Layer button. Information then comes up on the display to guide you in choosing the second sound you want to layer with the first sound. Use your product’s sound selection/navigation method to find a second desired sound. Select it for the layered element. Play the keyboard and enjoy. Finally, some keyboards have dedicated buttons for Parts, Zones, or Layers. These buttons are usually labeled Zone 1–4, Upper 1⁄2 / Lower 1⁄2, or Part 1–4. By turning on and off different combinations of these buttons, you can add layers to your keyboard setup. This feature is most commonly found in arranger keyboards and more-advanced stage pianos/controllers. Hear examples of single sounds combined to form a layer in Chapter 8, Audio Track 59.

Article / Updated 08-08-2022

A metronome is a device that clicks in steady rhythm to help you practice your rhythm and time-keeping. Older versions were a vertical wooden case with a metal wand that swung back and forth. You had to wind them up to go. How quaint! Nowadays, you can buy electric/electronic metronomes, or even metronome apps, that have lots of advanced features. Actually, you likely have a metronome already built into your keyboard. It may be labeled clearly, or it may simply be a click function that’s part of your onboard MIDI recorder. For many musicians, a metronome is a way of checking what tempo or speed a piece of music is supposed to be played at. The beginning of the music is marked in some fashion. You set that number on the metronome, and then the device clicks away at that speed to give you a reference. It’s recommend that, as a student, you use a metronome to provide you with a steady pulse to play against. The tempo can be very slow; you’re using it to help you practice steady counting. Here’s a sample experiment for practicing with a metronome: Set a slow tempo on the metronome to represent the quarter note anddo a counting exercise. Stop the metronome and try counting for yourself. The idea is to develop a steady internal clock for keeping time so that you don’t use the metronome as a crutch. Set the metronome twice as fast and think of the click as the eighth note rather than the quarter. You’ll play the same, but it takes some getting used to not to be sped up by the extra clicks. Repeat Steps 1 through 3, moving the tempo to various settings and getting a feel for how they sound largely the same, only faster or slower. As you get more confident with the preceding exercise, set the metronome to a slow tempo and let that represent the half note, so it only clicks twice per measure. As it first clicks, say “1, 3, 1, 3 . . . ,” one word with each click. Then fill in between the clicks with the 2 and the 4 until you can comfortably count all four beats against the two clicks. Listen to this metronome counting exercise in Chapter 5, Track 27.

Article / Updated 08-05-2022

You can play a lot of music on the keyboard by using whole, half, and quarter notes. But the rhythm gets even more interesting when you have some notes that play faster than the main beat and when they occur in between the beats. Divide the beat To get the hang of playing in between full-beat notes, you need to be able to count the beat in a divided fashion. Try this: Start counting a 4/4 pulse, saying “1, 2, 3, 4” over and over in time. When you’re comfortable, try saying “and” between each number: “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and . . . .” The 1, 2, 3, 4 are still in the same place, with the and occurring quickly in between. Listen to the Chapter 5, Track 22 to hear this divided counting exercise. In this exercise in Track 22, you divide the beat into two equal parts: the downbeat and the upbeat. The beat on which you say the number is the downbeat, the primary pulse in your counting. You say the and on the in-between beat, called the upbeat. Apply the divided beat to eighth and sixteenth notes When you divide the quarter note into two equal halves, called the eighth note. It’s filled in like the quarter note but has a curly flag design on the stem. When you have more than one eighth note in a row, you connect the stems with a beam. The eighth note gets half of a beat, so when you’re counting music that has eighth notes you should use the and between the numbers. As you get comfortable, you can learn to play two notes per beat without counting each one. You can further divide the eighth note in half; the resulting note is called the sixteenth note. It looks like an eighth note with a double flag or double beam attached. It divides the main pulse or beat into four equal parts. You count that this way: “1-ee-and-ah, 2-ee-and-ah, 3-ee-and-ah, 4-ee-and-ah,” and so on. Try keeping a steady beat (clapping or tapping your foot) and practice counting a few bars of quarter notes (1, 2, 3, 4 . . .). Then move to eighth notes, which are twice as fast (1 and, 2 and, 3 and, 4 and . . .). Move next to sixteenth notes, which are twice as fast as the eighth notes (1-ee-and-ah, 2-ee-and-ah, 3-ee-and-ah, 4-ee-and-ah . . .). Go back to the quarter notes and then try sixteenth notes again; now they’re four times as fast. Be sure your clapping/tapping of the pulse stays the same (on the numbers); only your speaking of the rhythm is changing speed. Check out this counting exercise in Chapter 5, Track 23. Feeling confident? Try it the other way around! Keep counting only 1, 2, 3, 4; try clapping quarter notes (one clap for each number spoken) and then move to clapping eighth notes (two even claps for each number spoken). Don’t change your counting; don’t say “and” in between. Just clap twice for each number spoken. When you can go back and forth between clapping quarter and eighth notes, try going to sixteenth notes (four even claps per number spoken). It will be twice as fast as the eighth notes or four times as fast as your counting. Be sure to keep your counting perfectly steady at all times. Listen to this alternating counting exercise in Chapter 5, Track 24.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-24-2022

Playing keyboards takes you on a journey that goes far beyond just playing the music. You have to keep up on a lot of tech talk and sift through a wide variety of gear and manufacturers.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Many brands offer entertaining ways to allow the novice player to have fun with music. Learning to play doesn’t allow for shortcuts; that’s why a good teacher can make all the difference in whether students (of any age) stick with their lessons. Here are some of the ways that certain models add to the enjoyment of playing a keyboard. Following the Light Method Both Casio and Yamaha offer some keyboards that make learning even simpler. The keys light up to show you what notes to play; what could be easier? During Demo Song play and all the lessons steps, you can just follow the lights on the keyboard instead of looking at the display. This feature is an excellent one to look for if you’re getting a keyboard for a small child because it really makes learning into a fun game. Trying Casio’s Music Challenge game Casio combines ear training and keyboard play into a game that tests both your pitch recognition and your reflexes. When you start the Music Challenge game, the keyboard indicates a note on screen with a blinking indicator (see the following figure); when the indicator goes solid, you have to play the note as quickly as possible on the keyboard. You’re rated according to your response time. The game goes through 20 notes and then gives you a final score. The keyboard indicates which fingering you should use, but the program can’t know whether you used the right one, so you’re on the honor system! Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Casio America, Inc.Music Challenge main screen. This game is great for kids to play against each other or a parent. Although it isn’t really developing any serious musical skill, any time spent enjoying using a musical instrument is time well spent. Using Yamaha’s Performance Assistant Yamaha has an interesting way of helping the beginning keyboardist sound like a real pro called Performance Assistant (P.A.T.). You don’t have to know the right notes to play on the keyboard; anything you play will sound good. The keyboard takes whatever note or chord you play and changes it to something that fits the song that’s playing. It uses your rhythm but not the specific pitches. You have a few options for working with this function: Chord/Free: This approach uses a split keyboard, and the left hand automatically corrects whatever you play to fit the chords in the song. The right hand works as normal, so you have to play the proper notes to fit the music. Here are a few ways to play the left hand to produce nice results: Play single notes, and you get pitches that match the chord. As you move up or down, the pitch rises or falls based on the direction you’re going, but you always get a good note. Playing any notes repeatedly in a fingering pattern like 5-3-1-3 produces nice arpeggio patterns; try different distances between the notes for even more variety. Play multiple notes at the same time, and you get intervals and chords that are always correct. You can just repeat the same groups of notes with various timings to play rhythmic chords, or move the groups of notes up and down to get fancier. Chord: Both hands are now used to play chord voicings, so you should play a single note in your left hand and two to four notes in your right hand. Try different ways of playing the hands: Play both hands at the same time to produce a strong block-style chord. Try alternating left hand single notes and then right hand three-note groupings to get rhythmic. Don’t be afraid to move the right hand groupings around to play fancier chord variations. Play the right hand notes as separate finger patterns, like 1-3-5-3 or 3-5-1-5, and experiment with different distances between the fingers. This approach produces a nice arpeggiated chord style that works well with longer, sustained left hand notes. The following modes are only available on a limited number of models: Melody: Play along with the song, and whatever note you play with your right hand is corrected to match the melody of the tune. You can play one key over and over and hear it change to each needed melody note. Play random keys, and they magically become right. You’re just using the keys on the keyboard to step through the melody notes. Chord/Melody: This mode uses a split keyboard; the left hand automatically corrects whatever you play to fit the chords in the song. The right hand plays the notes of the melody. For any of the P.A.T. types that use chords, the song you choose must have chord information stored in it. Likewise, the melody types require melody information. The Voice/Data/Song List will indicate which type of information (chord or melody) is included for each song. You can find this list in the documentation that comes with the keyboard. Some may consider this feature a gimmick, but as a way to interact with music, it can be both entertaining and instructional. You learn about rhythm without having to worry about notes and chord types. You can develop your hand coordination and finger facility as well. Getting a child to spend some time doing this work (alone or with you) is a wonderfully creative and fun activity. Yamaha has many additional songs available for download that work with the P.A.T. system. If your keyboard has USB, you can download these additional titles to play around/play along with.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Keyboard manuals use all sorts of abbreviations and terms you may not be familiar with. Understanding this common keyboard terminology can help you make the most of your electronic keyboard. Here are some common abbreviations/terms you may encounter: Action: The mechanical design of the keys themselves. Used when describing the feel or touch of a keyboard. ADSR: An abbreviation for a four-stage enveloped generator. It stands for attack, decay, sustain, and release. Aftertouch: A control signal produced by pushing a key down farther than the point where the note sounds and into a rubber strip that reads the extra pressure. Arpeggiator: A function that generates repeated note patterns from held notes/chords. Assignable controller: A device (wheel, knob, slider, and so on) that allows you to specify the parameter it controls; for example, a mod wheel can control pitch, tremolo, filter cutoff, and so on depending on its assignment. Attack: The beginning of a sound or signal, which is determined by an envelope generator's first stage in electronic instruments. Auto-accompaniment: A feature that plays backing performances, often made up of a number of instruments, from simple note or chord input. Bit depth: Part of the spec for digital audio (the other is sampling rate). Bit depth is the resolution of the digital data that was encoded from the analog source. It relates mostly to sampling or digital audio recording in a keyboard. Usually 16-bits, but sometimes 24-bits. More bits produce a cleaner sound, especially during quieter passages. Controller: 1. A part of an electronic instrument or device (wheel, knob, slider) that can be used to send MIDI messages to vary the sound. 2. A type of MIDI product that makes no sound and only sends messages to play other devices. Commonly keyboards but can be drum pads or groups of knobs and sliders. CC (Control Change): A type of variable MIDI message that can be sent from a controller to alter a parameter. Seen as a control number (0–127) with a value range of 0-127. (CC #11, value 90, for example). C/V: 1. Control Voltage, an electrical source used in analog synthesis to vary a parameter. 2. Abbreviation for the Chorus/Vibrato circuit in a Hammond or tonewheel organ. Cutoff: The frequency point at which a synthesizer's filter begins to either pass or block an audio signal. Damper pedal: A pedal that, when pressed, keeps a note sustaining until it's released. Also called a sustain pedal. Decay: The second stage of an ADSR envelope, which determines the rate of change from the attack to the sustain level. Drawbar: A specialized organ slider that controls the level of specific overtones within the sound being produced. There are traditionally nine of these frequency controls on a tonewheel organ. DSP: Digital signal processing. The sound-producing or modifying method that modern digital keyboards often use. Effects: Signal processing that modifies a sound, such as reverb, chorus, delay, distortion, and so on. * Envelope: The shape or contour of how a sound changes dynamically, usually via modulation from an envelope generator. Envelope generator: A control source that changes a selected parameter by varying amounts over time. Commonly used to control pitch, timbre, and volume over time. Filter: A function that alters the tone or timbre of a sound by removing or emphasizing specific frequencies. Fine Tuning: The parameter that changes the pitch of a sound by small amounts (less than a half step). Usually represented in cents or hertz. Used when a sound is only slightly out of tune, not for transposing to another key. General MIDI (GM): A music industry standard that standardized a set of sounds, locations, effects use and control change messages so music playback could be made consistent among different devices. Glide: The smooth sliding of pitch between notes. Also called Portamento. Graded action: A keyboard mechanism where the lower notes feel heavier or are more weighted and progressively get lighter as you go higher. Designed to mimic the action of a real grand piano. Half pedaling: The ability to press a damper/sustain pedal with graduated or varying depth and response. Produces more-expressive pedaling versus the on/off behavior of basic electronic pedals and switches. Hammer action: A keyboard mechanism that uses small hammers/objects to be pivoted forward when the key is pressed in an effort to re-create the feel of an acoustic piano. In electronic instruments, these hammers/objects don't actually strike anything that produces sound; they're just there for feel. Jack: Another word for female connector or input receptacle. It comes in various sizes and standards. Keybed: 1. Inaccurately used to describe the keys of a keyboard and their underlying mechanisms. 2. In a real piano, the base or frame that the key mechanism sits on. Low-frequency oscillator (LFO): An inaudible oscillator that is used to vary or modulate a parameter in a periodic, or repeating fashion. Commonly used to produce vibrato (pitch) or tremolo (amp). Layer: The ability to play different sounds at the same time from the same key(s). Local Control: A MIDI message that determines whether an instrument's keyboard and controls affect its internal tone-generating electronics. When Local Control is set to On, you can play the instrument normally. When Local Control is set to Off, the keyboard sends messages out the MIDI port only. Off is generally used when recording data into an external MIDI sequencer, where you have both the In and Out connected to the sequencer. If you don't turn it off, you'll hear a doubling of each note, which will sound strange. MIDI: An acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. This protocol allows musical instruments, computer software, and other digital devices to communicate. Modulation: The ability to modify a parameter via a control source (LFO, envelope, and so on). Modulation wheel (mod wheel): A keyboard controller used to alter various elements of a tone, most commonly to produce vibrato. The wheel can be left in any position or setting. Some keyboards use a joystick rather than a wheel; moving it forward (away from you) produces the same result, but it always returns to center when you let go of it. Multitimbral: A term describing an instrument that can play multiple sounds at the same time, usually controlled on different MIDI channels. Oscillator: A synthesizer's sound source, which produces or plays back waveforms. Pan: A sound's position from left or right in the stereo field. In consumer electronics, often called the balance control. Parameter: A specific feature or function in a keyboard that can be varied to produce different results. Each characteristic that's presented to the user to change is a parameter, so, for example, a reverb effect may have multiple parameters such as size, decay, mix, and so on. Pitch bend wheel: A keyboard controller used to alter the pitch of the note being played up or down. It's usually center detented (has an area in the center of its travel that it rests naturally in with no resistance) and is spring-loaded, so it returns to the center when you let go. Some keyboards use a joystick rather than a wheel for this function; moving it left and right produces the same result. Plug: The male connector, which gets inserted into a jack to make a connection. It comes in various sizes and designs. Polyphony: The number of notes a keyboard can produce at once. Note that this number can be affected by stereo sounds that are stereo, layered sounds, or other complex combinations. A higher number is always better. Portamento: The smooth sliding of pitch between notes. Also called Glide. Preset: A keyboard sound stored in a specific memory location. A preset is sometimes called patch, program, voice, or sound. In some instruments, preset means a location that cannot be overwritten (ROM), so the sound is permanent. It can only be edited by saving it to a user location (RAM), if that exists. Quantize: A process used in sequencing to fix rhythmic inaccuracies in your performance. It moves notes to the nearest note value location you select (eighth, sixteenth, and so on). Random-access memory (RAM): A memory location that can be written and replaced over and over. Sound locations that can be overwritten are considered RAM, as is the memory used for sequencing and sampling. Data in RAM usually needs to be backed up and will be lost when the power is turned off. Sound locations are usually backed up by an internal battery to avoid this issue. Rhythms: Drumbeats and grooves that are built into a keyboard in various musical styles. Yamaha calls the whole backing band pattern, not just the drum parts, a Rhythm. Release: An envelope generator's final stage, which starts after the key is released. Notes with longer release values continue sounding after you let go of the key. Resonance: A parameter that boosts the frequencies around the filter cutoff value, sometimes producing a slightly nasal or emphasized tonal quality. ROM: Read-only memory, a memory location that can't be changed or erased. Used for the waveform memory in a keyboard, and perhaps some sound locations that are permanent (often called presets). Sample rate: The number of times an audio signal is measured (sampled) per second as it's converted from analog to digital. Measured in kilohertz (kHz) and represented as 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88 kHz, 96 kHz, and so on. This term relates to the audio recording and sampling features of a keyboard and may be mentioned when talking about the fidelity of the waveforms sampled to produce the sounds. Sampler: A device or function that records digital audio and allows it to be edited, altered, and played back in various ways. Usually used to re-create the sound of other instruments or to record audio loops of real musician performances, like drum or percussion grooves. Semi-weighted action: Attributes of a key mechanism where a slight weight is added to a synth-style key to produce a more solid or slightly stiff feel. Sometimes used to describe a light-feeling piano action in lower-priced digital and stage pianos. Sequencer: Hardware or software used to record, edit, and play back MIDI performance data. Sostenuto pedal: A keyboard pedal function found on acoustic pianos (the middle pedal of three), and mimicked on some keyboards. It sustains only the notes your fingers are holding down when the pedal is pressed. Notes played after you push down the pedal won't sustain, so you can grab some notes to sustain and then play cleanly on top of them. Split: A function that allows you to divide the keyboard range into different sections (zones) and assign a different sound to each one. Basic splits are only two parts, but more advanced keyboards can have many more ranges or zones created. Standard MIDI File: A MIDI song file that can be shared/used by any General MIDI-compatible keyboard. Identified by its extension (.mid or .smf). Style: A backing band pattern used by arranger and auto-accompaniment keyboards. Synchro Start: A parameter that sets a drum pattern or full backing band pattern to wait until a key is played on the keyboard before starting to play. Sustain: An envelope generator's second-to-last stage; the level at which the value remains until you let go of the key. Temperament: The tuning of the notes within a scale. Most keyboards use equal or well temperament, but some other systems are used for early period music (Werckmeister, Kirnberger, Pythagorean) and more-modern experimental pieces. Tempo: The speed or timing of the pulse/beat of a performance, represented as beats per minute (BPM). Timbre: A sound's tonal quality that differentiates it from those with similar pitch and volume. This difference has to do with what is called the harmonic content of the sound. Transpose: The ability to shift the keyboard's tuning upward or downward in half step intervals, allowing you to change what you're playing into any of the twelve possible key centers (what root tone is used to build the associated scale). Can also be used to change the octave range of the whole keyboard or within a zone of a split or layer. Tuning: The function that changes the pitch of the keyboard. May include both transpose (half step) and fine tuning (less than half step) values. Universal Serial Bus (USB): A common connection protocol for computers and keyboards; used to transfer data, MIDI, and possibly audio. Velocity: The force with which you play notes on the keyboard. Playing harder means the key moves to the bottom of the key mechanism faster. Velocity sensitivity: The ability of a key mechanism to respond to the speed or strength with which the keys are pressed to produce differences in volume and other parameter changes. Also called touch sensitivity by some companies. Vibrato: A wavering up (sharp) and down (flat) in pitch. Usually produced by an LFO modulating pitch in keyboard instruments. Waveform: The building block used to make the sound a keyboard produces. In analog and virtual analog synthesis, waveforms have different shapes that give them unique tonal properties. In sample-based systems, the recordings of sounds are often called waves, waveforms, or multisamples. Weighted action: Attributes of a key mechanism designed with some mass or heavier resistance to the touch to mimic the touch of an acoustic piano. The key shape looks like a full piano key. Zone: An adjacent set of keys on a keyboard when it's divided up into multiple regions for split and layered setups.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Knowing a bit about the keyboard manufacturing landscape while keyboard shopping gives you an idea of all the instruments available. The following list of keyboard companies is a helpful introduction to major manufacturers; use the key to determine which type(s) of instrument each company produces. Key: A = arranger, C = controller, DP = digital piano, O = organ, P = portable, S = synth, SP = stage piano, W = workstation Access Music: (S) Akai Professional: (C) Alesis: (C) Arturia: (C, S) Casio: (A, DP, P, S, SP) Dave Smith Instruments (DSI): (S) Hammond USA: (O) Kawai: (DP, SP) Korg: (A, DP, S, SP, W) Kurzweil: (DP, S, SP, W) M-Audio: (C, S) Moog Music: (S) Nord (Clavia): (O, SP, S) Novation: (C, S) Roland Corporation: (A, C, DP, SP, S, W) Studiologic: (C, O, S) Yamaha: (A, DP, SP, S, W)

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

When you unpack your new keyboard, you'll have the basic accessories you need to operate and play it. But adding other cool accessories can improve and enhance your keyboard playing experience; some accessories are more essential than others. Here are the must-haves: Keyboard stand: Only home digital pianos come with stands or legs built-in. For all the others, you'll need to put it on something. The cheapest and most common stand is called an X-stand; it's a simple X-cross brace made from metal tubing. X-stands aren't very sturdy and can wobble, bounce, and even fail. Better choices include anything with four legs or a more-robust frame design. Damper/sustain pedal: This pedal keeps notes sounding when you let go of a key. It looks like the pedals found on an acoustic piano and is highly recommended. Momentary switch: You can use this flat pedal as a sustain pedal, though this option isn't as desirable. It is cheaper than a damper pedal, so it can be a first step until you save up for the better pedal. Many keyboards can use this type of pedal as a switch to turn on/off effects or parameters, move up or down to the next program, change the speed of a rotary speaker effect for organ, and other useful functions. Not all keyboards have a second pedal input. The following options are great to add to your arsenal as you improve your play: Sweep/CV/expression pedal: This foot-controlled pedal pivots forward and back; you can use it to control volume and to sweep through the range of a parameter (like filter cutoff), among other things. It's a great addition if your keyboard supports it. Dust (soft) cover: A soft cover keeps dust and dirt from getting in between the keys and into knobs and sliders. It's good for home use. Soft case: These padded bags/cases are good for lighter keyboards that you have to be careful when moving around. Be sure it has strong/comfortable handles and straps to carry and has some reinforcement in the padding. Hard (road) case: This case is for larger keyboards or any gear that you're going to move around a lot and may tack other things onto while in transit. Look for strong locks and handles; if your instrument is heavy, try to get a case with wheels on one end for easier moving. Bench/stool: You have to sit on something! Good benches are height adjustable, padded, and sturdy. They're better than sitting on a regular chair or folding chair, which can suffice in a pinch. Music stand: Some keyboards come with a music rest, which is a holder that slips into the back of the keyboard to hold music, songbooks, and so on. Not all offer this option, so you can buy a metal music stand to place on the floor behind the keyboard. Don't get the cheap, flimsy folding stand type; they're not worth the savings. iPad holder: Many musicians are using their Apple iPads to read music scores from; if you don't have a music rest on your keyboard, you'll want a way to hold the tablet up. You can place it on a music stand, but dedicated tablet holders are available, many of which clip onto a mic stand. USB MIDI control surfaces: If you wish your keyboard had more knobs, sliders, or drum pads, you may be able to add them by using a compact USB control surface. Check to be sure whether one can be connected directly to your keyboard or needs to be used within a computer setup. Headphones: For private practice and close concentration, headphones are essential. Be sure to get good-quality over-the-ear or on-the-ear designs. Cheap earbuds aren't recommended. Keyboard amplifier/speakers: You can always listen to your keyboard through headphones, but when you want to rock out in the open air, you'll need speakers of some sort. If your keyboard doesn't come with onboard speakers you have a few choices: Plug into your home stereo or computer speakers, or purchase a keyboard amplifier or powered speakers of some sort. Keyboard sound better in stereo, so be sure to get a stereo amp or two powered speakers. iPad connections: If you want the option of connecting to your iPad, you need either Apple's iPad Camera Connection Kit or Lightning to USB Camera Adapter cable (better than the plug version).

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

MIDI is a digital language developed in 1983 that allows instruments and devices to talk to each other by sending various messages back and forth. These messages include performance gestures, such as what notes you play, how you play them, whether you move any sort of controller, and so on. In 1996, the music products industry agreed on a set of standardized sounds, effects, and controller message response called General MIDI (GM) so that MIDI songs could be shared between devices and always play back sounding more or less the same. If a product has a GM logo on the front, it includes the sounds in the order shown at the MIDI Manufacturer Association (MMA) website. Using the same type of sound in each program location and following this organization allows companies to create products and share musical performances that always play back the song files with guaranteed results. GM Level 1 sounds The original GM Level 1 specification defined a set of 128 sounds, covering the most common instruments needed to play most styles of music. When you load or play a standard MIDI file song file in your keyboard, it automatically uses this bank of sounds, and the song plays back correctly. If you're just looking for sounds to play, this GM bank may sound a bit plainer than your other choices, but it's perfectly fine to use. And it may be the only place you find some more exotic sounds because it does include ethnic instruments such as the banjo, bagpipe, sitar, and shamisen, along with sound effects such as a car horn and audience applause. You can find the complete list at MMA's GM1 Sound Set. GM Level 2 sound set The Level 2 version of the sound set, also known as GM2 (ratified in 1999), adds another 128 variations, offering more choices for the main categories of sounds. You get more varied pianos, guitars, basses, and such, expanding your sonic choices. The program numbers remain the same (0 always calls up a piano, 26 an acoustic guitar, and so on). To access the additional sounds, you use a second type of command, a Bank Change message. In the MIDI standard, you can select a sound from within a group of 128 programs by sending a Program Change message. In GM2, multiple banks of 128 sounds are possible; to change to a different group of 128 sounds, you send a Bank Change message followed by the Program Change you want. Check it out this Wikipedia list of GM2 sounds.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Put a few keyboard notes together and you have a chord. Basic chords (called triads) are built on three notes: the root (the name of the chord), the third, and the fifth. These names refer to the note's step location in the scale of the same name (the third note of the scale, the fifth note of the scale, and so on). But basic chords are just the beginning; the following sections introduce you to seventh chords and sixth chords and then show you how to figure out which you're actually playing. Adding a fourth note: The seventh chord To play most styles of music, you need to know about the four-note chords called seventh chords. They add richness to your playing and take you from basic to pro. Whereas basic triads stack intervals of thirds on top each other (root, third, and fifth), seventh chords continue the next logical step and stack another third on top of the triad, which forms the seventh. Playing and hearing the six basic seventh chords There are a few different types of seventh chords, each having a sound quality of its own. Some are more peaceful sounding; others produce tension that adds to the drama and energy of the music. The major seventh chord If you take a major triad and stack another note a major third higher from the fifth (four half steps), you get the major seventh chord (shown in Figure 1, Example 1). Figure 1: The major seventh chord. Play the chord and listen to how it sounds. It sounds even more peaceful than the major triad, right? Example 2 in Figure 1 shows the four inversions of the major seventh chord. Inversions are the same notes of a given chord, rearranged so different notes are on the bottom and top. The major seventh chord is commonly written as a letter with a capital M plus 7 after it (CM7), but may also be written as CMaj7 and sometimes C∆7, mostly in jazz charts and fake books (jazz songbooks that only have the melody and chord symbols). The minor seventh chord If you take a minor triad and add a note a minor third (three half steps) above the fifth, you get the minor seventh chord (see Figure 2). It sounds similar to the minor triad, with just a little extra "color" added. Figure 2: The minor seventh chord. The minor seventh chord is commonly written as a letter with a small m7 after it (Cm7), but may also be written as C-7, mostly in jazz charts and fake books. The dominant seventh chord If you take the major seventh chord and lower the seventh by a half step, you get the dominant seventh chord (shown in Figure 3). Figure 3: The dominant seventh chord. Play this chord over and over, and it sounds like rock and roll piano. This chord is important for its function in harmony and chords progressions. The dominant seventh chord is commonly written as a letter with a 7 after it (C7). The diminished seventh chord A diminished chord with another note a minor third higher (three half steps) is the diminished seventh chord (refer to Figure 4). Although the seventh should be written with a flat, doing so would make it a B-double-flat; for easier reading, you can use the enharmonic name of A. Enharmonic means the same note/pitch can have more than one name, usually the choice of a sharp or flat name (F-sharp and G-flat, for example). Sometimes it can be between a natural note and a note with sharps or flats, or even double sharps/flats, as in this example. Figure 4: The diminished seventh chord. Play the chord; it is even more suspenseful and tense than the triad version. It has a strong function in harmony. The diminished seventh chord is commonly written as a letter with a small circle and a 7 after it (Co7) but may also be written as Cdim7. The augmented seventh chord Think of the augmented seventh chord as a dominant seventh chord with the fifth raised a half step (see Figure 5). Figure 5: The augmented seventh chord. The augmented seventh chord is also called a dominant seventh/sharp five chord, commonly written as C7+ and sometimes shown as Caug7, C7#5, or C7+5. It serves the same harmonic function as a dominant seventh chord but is a little more exotic and not for just pounding out rock and roll. It's an even more colorful way to play an intro for a singer. The sus2 and sus4 seventh chords The sus4 chord usually acts as a variation of the dominant seventh, so it has the lowered seventh chord tone (three half steps above the fifth). Figure 6 shows the chord and its inversions. The sus chord is sometimes used as an open, floating sound that can imply major or minor tonalities. Figure 6: The seventh sus4 chord. The sus4 chord is commonly written as a letter plus a 7, followed by sus4 or sus, with or without parentheses: C7sus4, C7(sus4), or C7sus. The sus2 chord rarely gets a seventh added to it, and there are no common chord symbols to indicate it. The sound of a sus2 chord with an added major seventh can be interesting, but only in the root and first inversion chord shapes. See Figure 7 for this extra cool chord. Figure 7: The uncommon but cool sus2 major seventh chord. Recognizing the major scale seventh chord tones If you take the major scale and build up seventh chords for each scale tone you get the chord qualities shown in Figure 8. Figure 8: The major scale seventh chords. You can see major seventh chords for the I (1) and IV (4) chords; the ii (2), iii (3), and vi (6) chords are minor sevenths, and the V (5) chord is a dominant seventh. In a major scale, the vii chord is a variation called a half-diminished chord, where the seventh is a major third, or four half steps, above the fifth. The fully diminished seventh chord comes from the minor scale. You can play plenty of songs using only these scale tone chords. Figure 9 uses a set of chords that are very common in doo-wop songs from the '50s and early '60s. The figure presents them with close inversions for smooth movement between chords and offers two variations of the chord progression: Ex. 1 uses the ii chord (Dm7), and Ex. 2 uses the IV chord (F major 7). Figure 9: The doo-wop chords with added sevenths. Not all songs in a given key choose to follow these scale tone chord rules, especially in rock-and-roll and in the blues. The common chord progression for playing the blues uses the I, IV, and V chords. If you want to add sevenths to the chords, you should make them all dominant sevenths. Using major sevenths for the C (I) and F (IV) chords would sound completely wrong! See Figure 10 for both the wrong and right versions. Figure 10: The blues progression with sevenths added. Playing two-handed seventh chords in a pianistic approach Spreading out your chords across both hands sounds great when you're using an acoustic or electric piano sound. Not every chord needs to be a seventh; sometimes it's nice to mix them up with some triads for variety. Play through Figures 11 and 12 to see how this can sound. Work out your own fingerings for these examples. Figure 11: Three rock seventh chords. Figure 12: The doo-wop seventh chords. Playing four note seventh chords in your left hand If you're playing an arranger keyboard or digital piano with auto-accompaniment features, you can play four-note seventh chords in your left hand. For other keyboards, you need to be careful not to play them too low, or they'll sound muddy and unclear. It also depends on what sound you're using. Figure 13 shows a few of the progressions from the preceding sections voiced for the left hand. Figure 13: Some left hand seventh chord progressions. Understanding a few basic rules of harmony Rules? Rock-and-roll doesn't play by the rules! However, knowing a few about harmony can really help you. The most common and important rule is that the V chord wants to resolve back to the I chord. This tenet is especially true when the V is voiced as a dominant seventh. A tension in the dominant seventh chord wants to move to more peaceful tones in the I chord. And that I chord can be major or minor. See Figure 14 for examples. Some intervals, such as the octave, sound fine by themselves; they are open and peaceful sounding, which is called consonance. Other intervals sound more unsettled; the best example would be the flatted fifth (six half steps). They are said to be dissonant. In a given key, you can move those dissonant notes to adjacent notes to remove the tension and return to a peaceful sound. When these intervals occur within a chord, the same thing happens; the more tones you add that produce this tension, the more the chord pulls your ear to want to return to scale-tone sounds that sound consonant. That movement is called resolution. Figure 14: A dominant seventh wants to resolve (V7 to I). The 3rd and the 7th of the dominant chord (in this case, the B and F of the G7 chord) resolve nicely into the root and third of the I chord (the E and C of the C chord). Or the E-flat and C in the case of a C minor chord. Play them and hear how natural and familiar that movement is. With this knowledge, you can observe and understand times when a song in a given key has some chords (and notes) that are outside the key signature. A great way of setting up the next chord or making a transition between two chords is to use this guideline. Find the dominant seventh chord that would resolve into the next chord and use it between the two chords. See Figure 15 for a few examples. Figure 15: Using extra dominant 7th chords as passing chords. In Example 1, the C goes to an Am. The V chord in the key of A is an E, so you can use an E7 to set up the Am nicely. In Example 2, a C7 acts as the V to lead into the F chord, so changing the Cmaj7 to C7 does the trick. Another important idea is that the diminished chord also wants to resolve. Because it acts as a vii chord, it wants to resolve up a half step. In Figure 16, Example 1, you have a Bdim7 resolving to a C. It has the same B and F notes as the G7, and they want to resolve to C and E. Plus it has a D and A-flat, which want to resolve to an E and G, respectively. So it has a sort of double tension that makes it even more dramatic than the dominant seventh. Figure 16: Using diminished 7th chords as passing chords. In Example 2, you have a C triad going to a Dm triad. You can use an A7 to set it up, but compare that to using a C♯dim7. It has a different sound, which may be just what you need. Sixths: Using another type of four-note chord If you add a note that's a whole step (two half steps) above the fifth in your triad, you get what's called a sixth chord. Root-third-fifth-sixth. The following sections describe the only two versions you need to know. The major sixth chord If you take a major triad and add the whole step above the fifth (two half steps), you get the major sixth chord (shown in Figure 17). Figure 17: The major sixth chord. The major sixth chord is commonly written as a letter plus a 6 after it (C6). Play the chord and listen to how it sounds. It sounds very much like the major triad in that it's happy and peaceful, but it also has a little more color. The major sixth chords function well as a I and a IV chord in a major key (for example, C6 and F6 in C major). The minor sixth chord If you take a minor triad and add the whole step above the fifth (two half steps) you get the minor sixth chord (see Figure 18). Figure 18: The minor sixth chord. It sounds similar to the minor triad, with just a little extra "color" added. The minor sixth chord is commonly written as a letter with a small m6 after it (Cm6). The minor sixth chord functions well as a i and a iv chord in a minor key (for example, Cm6 and Fm6 in C minor). Which chord is right? The major sixth chord has the exact same four notes as a minor seventh chord formed on the sixth note. So C6 (C, E, G, and A) uses the same notes as Am7 (A, C, E and G); check out Figure 19 for an example. This similarity can cause confusion when you start using inversions: What's the right bass note? Your chords will always sound fine, but what is the root? The answer tends to come from the key signature or key center. When you want to resolve to the I chord, you may add the sixth, but you want that C root to say, "This is the end." Using the A sounds like you're still moving the harmony around and haven't finished yet. Figure 19: Is it a major sixth or a minor seventh? The problem comes up when you play either of these two chord types on an arranger or other auto-accompaniment keyboard. The system doesn't always know which way to interpret what you're giving it to give the right bass note. To solve this issue, arrangers don't usually allow sixth chords until you choose a specific setting for your Fingered/Multi/Standard mode of chord recognition. And playing sixth chords is never supported in the easy fingering option. Look in your owner's manual for information about the fingered chord choices. Each brand usually has a setting that allows you to use sixth chords and others that always treat sixth chords as their related minor seventh chords.