Keyboarding, Metronomes, Floppy Disks Drives, and Applications for Using Fill Parts for Group Settings

If you are trying to do string parts for a cantada or church group, I highly recommend practicing on a keyboard with a built in metronome and recording capability. I practiced 3 1/2 hours on a peice yesterday--did not make nearly the progress I seemed to make today in a few minutes fine tuning using these tools. Day 2 on a peice you're a bit more familiar anyway, even still, the tools helped a great deal in identifying areas of needed concentration.

TIMING:
1. Timing is everything. in this song, there are two, two octave runs in 16ths. Yesterday, I just could not get the two beat rhythm they were supposed to fit into. (Fortunately they roll into a hole note I can "rob" time from if it is slightly off! Shhh. Don't tell!), but just hearing the pace of the metronome really helped me with the timing. Also, the metronome made it nice to know the target tempo we should be close to so that I'm not practicing at 90BMPs (beats per minute), only to get to practice only to find it flying by at 135 (which this song just happens to be. Sounds to me like a Darlene Zchech, but the title is: For All You've Done. In going to check the title, I realized it said "reprise"...which means, we play it twice. Looks like I better get it right.)

USEFULNESS OF THE RECORD FEATURE
2. Internal floppy and live recording: I love this feature! Not many keyboards in this price range have it. Not many keyboards have it at all. In addition to the great Grand Piano default sound this keyboard has (here, at the touch of one especially reserved easy touch button--yellowin the image bellow), the disc feature sold me.

I use a relatively inexpensive keyboard. I've been a Yamaha fan -- they provide a lot of high end features for the money: straightforward, well categorized breaks between sound patches (to quickly reference the sound you want, even in the middle of a song; I've not even found this to be the case with upper end models.)

I upgraded several years ago from my first base level Yamaha to a Yamaha PSR340 Portable Keyboard shown above. This one has internal speakers which aren't enough to practice with a band...you need an amp. (It only one OUT), so if you need to have an amp to hear yourself over the band mix AND you need to get an OUT for the mix into your box for the house mix...you'll be short an external OUT port. I found this to be a limitation to this keyboard. If they make a splitter with two different volume controls, I'm just not aware of it. If you are playing SOLO, this is not an issue...sound guys can get creative.

I've blown one in transporting and get a constant hum on the bass end, but love the keyboard so well I won't upgrade or risk servicing it so far. It's mainly for practice these days for me.

So, back to floppy drives, it has a built in an internal floppy drive I can record live what I am playing onto. Now, it's not handling the 16s or 8th runs well (seems to be a RAM lag in processing), but it still gives me a general overview of how I'm doing. The record feature can also come in handy for other applications I'll discuss.

Obviously floppy discs seem a bit antiquated when we consider the move toward CDs and other types of media storage these days. But it's a great feature on a keyboard!

OTHER USES FOR RECORDING FEATURE ON A KEYBOARD:
Other than practice applications, recording can be used it to play back the drum/bass loop. I've used it to create "tracks for live solo performances. You can layer keyboard live over a drum-bass loop. Takes some patience to create, but fun if you enjoy that sort of thing. Not something I'd want to take the time to create every week, and I usually don't like canned stuff in general...but fun to play with on occassion for a solo--especially if you can't find a sound track-- and you really want to sing a particular song. I find it more useful for older songs...there are drum patches to match or tweak to fit.

On this keyboard, you can set the keyboard to add bass lines to go along with the respective drum pattern. If you like a broad variety and styles of music, it's fun to play with. (I wish there were more "rock/soft rock" styles to choose fro, but that's what I use most. Most of the yamaha loops on mine I feel sound too 80s-90s rock. They do sell extra drum sets, but you have to have the floppy in hand each time to load them, which I think it annoying and too much to re-load every time you transport or play...they should have left open memory slots to add more.)

I love that Yamaha gives TWO interpretations or styles for every drum selection, giving you many times, a great "verse AND chorus" variability on the same overall rhythm. Say I'm playing a song. I might start in Rock "A", but when I get to the chorus, I can transition to a different rhythm of the same overall flavor by pressing the last bass note needed on the keys, pressing the DRUM FILL button, which gives me a measure or two to keep pressing buttons will the drums and bass go at it, then press ROCK B . This change to "B" usually gives me a bit of a build, and a "harder" or "pushed" sound for the chorus.

At the end of the chorus, I hit Fill again, and reverse the process to get me back to ROCK A. This gives more variety in a song, more emotion, more build than the same drum line all the way through. Tese buttons on the Yamaha PSR340 Keyboard are located convenient proximity to the keys, and often you need them very handy. Some keyboards seem to ignore basic layout issues and requirements. The Yamaha mentioned here has an excellent layout.
---
So...back on topic. Today, the new use for the keyboard recording feature was to help me listen back and identify my weaker or problem areas. You may have also found that in the busyness of playing, it's hard to notate that problematic errors we all tend to make over and over...actually, repeat practicing CAN just reinforce errors if they are NOT IDENTIFIED AND CORRECTED.

I hope to record a good enough loop that it can be used for some practices if others need to practice their timing when we all get together. Playing a lot of complex music when you don't need to practice your own part can get tiring. As I said, I'm not that pleased with it's ability to handle 16s and repeat 8ths, so it may have limited use.

I don't know if my floppy will play in the church keyboard yet or not, but I believe the file format is standard.

WEIGHT:
Also consider weight. If it will sit in your living room or a bedroom, not a problem. If you think God is leading you into group projects, consider it now. You want to know your instrument, and when you take it, you don't want to kill your back getting it in and out of the trunk. My Yamaha 340 is LIGHTWEIGHT. (A rather huge consideration if you are a 5'3" female musician toting your own gear to "gigs".)

Sound too complicated to enjoy "just playing"? I used to think so. But, really, just a matter of learning a new style--playing electronically. Quite fun to mess with in the comfort of your own home at first...a great crowd pleaser at a party when friends are in the mood to sing. We do Christmas carols to a funky beat, or sing choruses...people like wondering what's going to come out of the thing, including me! I have a book marked up so that I can quickly find the drum patterns, needed tempo, and identify songs that the bass pattern works well enough and is easy enough to key. You have to learn shortcut codes to made an F#m7 work, for example. You'll not get the 7th, but you can get the F#m. Just requires pressing it WITH a key a half step lower at the same time. Too much of that stuff in a song and it just can't be done. Basic songs, you can fly it out. Fun to make old favorites you may have banged out a thousand times on keys sound totally different.

Take note: the drum/bass loop doesn't seem to work well in a live band application. It is more for solo or practice (personal) applications. The lack of tempo variability even makes using it while singing with a live audience VERY DIFFICULT. All I can figure is, there seems to be a tempo lag/ temp change that goes on between audience and band that a live drummer can adjust for...you can't on a keyboard while playing...you just can't. So, hear me here...don't use it to lead worship with unless you have a very small group and not a huge sound system thing going on.

~~~~
Well, that's all for today, I'll update as we learn more about filling strings for group productions. I hope this has been useful to you. If so, or if you have keyboard questions, I'm happy to guess at an answer at funnybandaids@email.com
or leave a comment on this post. I receive the comments by email.