Keyboard Lessons: An Essential Guide for Beginners to Learn the Realms of Keyboard Lessons from A-Z

By Daniel Turner

Having a keyboard is great, but learning to play would be even better, right? Well, that's what this section is about. We intend to give you resources and tools so you can learn to play for free or at the best price. Self-taught or combining that training with private lessons to move much faster and save enough money that way. 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Turner
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868922268

Book preview

Introduction

Having a keyboard is great, but learning to play would be even better, right? Well, that's what this section is about. We intend to give you resources and tools so you can learn to play for free or at the best price. Self-taught or combining that training with private lessons to move much faster and save enough money that way.

This book contains all the basic, intermediate as well as advanced theory and strategies on how to learn piano as a beginner. Here you'll find 8 chapters that cover notes, music sheet, scores, scales, chords, advanced theories, and so on, which will guild you to learn Keyboard lessons from A to Z.

This book especially is written for beginners and designed to learn to play for yourself step by step. It is not necessary to have any previous musical knowledge. It is also an interesting course for musicians of other instruments that want to start on the keyboard or piano. This would be a complement to their musical knowledge or to teach beginner students.

In these clear and progressive lessons, you will play your first scales and chords (major, minor, and diminished). And you will discover English, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon musical notation. In a couple of weeks, you will be able to play your first pieces with both hands!

Discover this book and its lessons as a beginner and start playing Keyboard! And finally thanks a lot for purchasing the book.

Chapter One

Introduction to Keyboards

Welcome to Chapter One. At the very beginning, you need to learn the basic idea of keyboards and how it actually works. What's the difference between a keyboard and a piano? Let's start, and your basics will be clear after completing this Chapter!

About Keyboards

Musical keyboards are considered as a more affordable version of classical pianos, but they are definitely not limited to that. For a keyboard can make super elaborate arrangements, including guitar sounds, drums, keyboard types, and more!

A musician next to a quality keyboard and equipped with the right features can sound like a full band, or even play in the best DJ style. A musical keyboard is the happy embodiment of technology for the betterment of musical instruments.

There are different types of keyboards, sound effects, violins and strings, drums, choirs, trumpets, saxophones, etc. The keyboards vary in size; the largest include 88 keys, 36 black and 52 white. Some include pedals that modify the sound. They can also simulate drum trimming sounds and musical rhythms. The sizes of the keys also vary.

Piano vs. Keyboard

Do you want to learn to play the keyboard and piano, but you don't know how they differ? The difference in learning the keyboard (electronic organ with built-in rhythm) and the piano are very important. They call the electronic instrument Keyboard with a built-in rhythm, also called the electronic organ.

It is true that we cannot compare an acoustic piano with an electronic keyboard or a digital piano. Anyone looking for a 100% piano knows that they have to go to an acoustic piano. A grand piano or vertical, despite its price or maintenance, is a unique instrument, it has no competition because it is the instrument from which the digital pianos or electronic keyboards were later derived, which reproduce the sounds that the acoustic piano produces itself.

Now we can compare electronic keyboards with digital pianos since, apparently, they offer similar functionality. A digital piano, as its name suggests, is oriented to the study and interpretation of the piano. So normally, we will find 88 weighted keys such as those offered by an acoustic piano. However, the electronic functionality offered by a digital piano is limited, since the strength of a digital piano is the similarity of an acoustic piano (in appearance) so that models usually reverse their development in the keys, the appearance of the piano and the piano sound. So we will not wait to find many functions in a digital piano, at least in the most economical models. In fact, there are models of digital pianos that have the sound quality to an electronic keyboard and are more expensive than these. As we said before,

So a digital piano will guide us to the piano style, a style that does not have to be oriented only to play classical themes, but that will lead to playing as played on an acoustic piano. Its counterbalanced keys simulate a touch very similar to that of an acoustic piano. So we will not find much functionality to interpret themes as if we were an orchestra or make modifications to some features to customize our themes. Apart from the fact that some counterbalanced keys force us to use a piano technique, that is, they force us to play as if we were playing piano, the redundancy is worth it. So these keys are not the best to play any other type of instrument on the keyboard such as the guitar, saxophone, or ŕogano, among others. The poised keys will hinder the agility in our hands to play this type of instrument.

Unlike the digital piano that leads us to an acoustic piano, the electronic keyboard does not guide us towards any instrument or style. Rather, it lets us choose the instrument or style we want to play. It is a visually less attractive instrument than the digital piano, since being a portable instrument, the quality of its materials are lighter to facilitate it. The most critical difference may be the keys, and it does not mean that it has fewer keys than a digital piano, as some models have 76 or 88 keys. The keys of an electronic keyboard are not usually counterbalanced, and they are usually made of a lighter material than digital pianos. And this apart from saving on manufacturing costs, is a great advantage for electronic keyboards, because of this type of keys without counterweight, lighter and sometimes somewhat narrower, allow us to use a different technique than the one that would be used on the piano. As it does not exert the same pressure and depth that a piano keyboard requires, the keys of an electronic keyboard allow it to adapt to the interpretation of any instrument.

If we are good keyboard players, we will notice that our technique is different when we play guitar, a saxophone, or a piano on an electronic keyboard. Well, when we play the piano, we try to simulate on the keyboard the gesture of tearing the strings of the guitar. While in the saxophone, we will simulate blowing through our hands, avoiding a sharp transition between two notes, something that a piano could do.

Types of Keyboards

The variety of electronic keyboards on the market is immense. Electronic keyboards are differentiated by the functions or capabilities they possess, size, and price.

Despite its great variety, it is possible to classify electronic keyboards into a few categories such as:

Keyboard for students

Keyboard designs for students are often inspired by thinking of the beginner who is just beginning in the keyboard world. All these instruments for beginners usually have between two and four octaves, which means that they may only be able to offer a broadly limited selection of digitized sounds.

These beginner keyboards do not have weighted keys like most real acoustic keyboards; this is because most of the instrument's keys are made of plastic, not ivory.

Sequencers

A sequencer keyboard is a keyboard that has the ability to record what the performer plays on the keyboard. A musical piece could be conceived as a temporary sequence of notes, hence the name sequencer (music sequence recorder). The sequencers allow recording and playback on several tracks. Thus, for example, a flute can be recorded on a track. On another track, you can record a keyboard that accompanies the flute. The interesting thing is that the keyboard accessory can be performed and recorded while the flute is heard. This way, you can add instruments to new tracks.

As the recording is digital, it is possible to perform editing operations of the recorded material. Among the editing, facilities are the variation of the tempo, the transposition to other shades, the deletion, modification, or addition of notes and others.

Sequencers usually incorporate these editing facilities from the instrument itself. However, it is also possible to connect the keyboard to a computer and use one of the many powerful programs that exist to edit music sequences.

Synthesizers

A synthesizer keyboard is an electronic device whose purpose is to create musical sounds. The synthesizer keyboard only comes equipped with a repertoire of sounds of known musical instruments (winds, strings, percussions) but allows us to invent new sounds.

Organ Keyboards

Organ keyboards (or simply digital organs) do not use metal tubes since their structure is small in size; however, they try to mimic the most real tones of traditional organs.

Although some models of organ keyboards that are manufactured today have tried to preserve some of the most notorious features that can be found in traditional organs, such as pedals, pull bars, and multi-key covers, which generally receive the name of manuals.

Samplers

The word sampler comes from the English term sampler, which means sample taker or sampler. As far as we know – we appreciate if someone takes us out of error – the word used in the electronic-musical world is this Anglicism. A sampler has the function of taking samples of ambient sounds (a slamming door, a scream, a thief dog, whatever