Sunday, March 18, 2007

Keyboards (1)

I am a keyboard nut. Not that I play particularly well, but I do enjoy messing around a lot. The hope is that, after sufficient messing around, I'll sound halfway decent!

Bought another one yesterday, bringing the household complement up to nine. They vary widely in quality, style and musical application -- from an Edirol MIDI controller:



to a Yamaha 9000Pro:



Yesterday's acquisition is another Yamaha -- the CP300.


My first digital piano. It has a full piano keyboard and very realistic piano action. Which makes my hand muscles tire quickly. [Technically, that should be arm muscles, since the major muscles that move the fingers are in the arm.] All my other keyboards are either unweighted or semi-weighted, which make them much easier to play.

The voices are some of the most beautiful I've ever heard and can be extensively modified. Plus a lot of other technical mumbo-jumbo which could only be interesting to a keyboard nut. This is the first keyboard I've really been interested in recording with. The 9000, although more flexible, is designed primarily for performances -- which I don't do a lot of.

At some point, I'd like to use this new board for sound design at the local community theater, where I occasionally run sound. Done a little design, but nowhere near as much as I'd like. If I come up with something easy on the ears, I'll post it here.

The Washington Revels Pub Sing happens today. The Revels Community gets together at an Irish pub every year around St. Patty's Day, eats, drinks, and talks a bit but mostly sings. There's a song book, created especially for the occasion, which contains lyrics to old Irish, English, Scots and American shanties and songs. If you're in the DC area, you really should check it out!

2 comments:

Talentedhands said...

Hello! Nice blog, and welcome to the blogosphere. Could you add a link to mine on yours?

Racine said...

Be happy to! Thanks for stopping by.