Topic: Do new yamaha keyboards have grand staff that displays the note you are playing?

[snow]

I have this old Yamaha PSR-GX76 keyboard. One amazing feature is it can display which note you are playing on the grand staff.  It also display the position of the key on the keyboard.  I have attached an image which you can see below.

Do new keyboards from Yamaha (or other brands) still have this feature?  If yes, which model numbers?
Thanks.

[RONBO]

Hello,

I think not.

I have had 6 models since 2003 and none of them had /have that feature.

Sorry. regards. Ron

[mikf]

I think it may have been discontinued because although you think it looks visually a neat feature, its really not all that useful
Mike

[Amwilburn]

None of the Pro PSRs ever had this feature, but almost all the PSRE series used to; the current EZ series might still (oops, nope, I just checked the screen, it's not on there anymore either)

However, the pro PSRs now have the 'score' feature, which is better (because it shows timing as well, not just the staff position of the note).

Mark

[SciNote]

I have it on my PSR-E433.  Not sure if it's on the newer E473 or not.  But honestly, it's not a feature I use.  It's funny this subject comes up because I'm working on recording a multi-track song, and I just happened to notice the note/staff display changing the displayed notes as I was playing the other night.

But like I said, while it's a cool feature, I never use it.  It might be beneficial for someone just learning how to play, to see how the keys relate to the notes, but even then, the player would likely be concentrating on the actual physical keys, and whatever music he or she is playing.  It's best to just learn the notes of the keyboard directly.  C is the white key right before the set of two black keys, and F is the white key right before the set of 3 black keys, and just go from there.

[dsvroland]

I have this old Yamaha PSR-GX76 keyboard. One amazing feature is it can display which note you are playing on the grand staff.  It also display the position of the key on the keyboard.  I have attached an image which you can see below.

Do new keyboards from Yamaha (or other brands) still have this feature?  If yes, which model numbers?
Thanks.

There are old models like the PSR-450 or you can check also keyboards for beginners with YES (Yamaha Education Suite) technology or the evolution, the DGX series and PSR-E are for beginners/learners.

For example I remember the lesson mode on DGX-505 showing the Score and Keyboard in screen.

[mikf]

It’s not very complicated to learn which note is what on a staff. The white notes go in the sequence of the first seven letters of the alphabet, repeating for each octave ... and  middle C is the ledger line right above the bass staff and right below the treble staff. Everything else goes in sequence up or down from there. The feature you describe is really only useful for about the 5 minutes it takes until you get this. After that it's just repetition until it becomes second nature.
Mike

[andyg]

It is not surprising that these displays were discontinued.

Whilst there is a slight argument that the staff notation display is useful - an argument that doesn't wash with me as a music teacher - the keyboard display must surely be one of the most useless things ever found on a keyboard. Why on earth would you look at a tiny keyboard on a screen to see what note you were playing, when you could look two inches closer and see your finger on the real note? What's more, if you split the keyboard and play with a style, if you played a C chord in the usual inversion of G C E, the display would tell you that you were playing a root inversion of C E G at the bottom of the keyboard!

From Day One, my students are taught not to look at the screen unless they are selecting a sound, style or making some changes etc. In normal play it's a no-no. I've covered that little keyboard with black tape before now, and if I find people are looking at the beat indicator instead of listening to the beat, or if they're watching a chord display, I'll change the screen to something else and hold it on that screen!

[SciNote]

Yeah, I agree that the keyboard indicator on the display, showing what notes of the actual keyboard you are playing, is pointless for live playing.  But it might have some limited use if the keyboard is being used as a sound source and controlled through MIDI, to see exactly what notes are being played through the MIDI device and connection.  Then again, I've never done this -- It may be the case that this keyboard display only reacts to the notes being played on the physical keyboard, and not to what an external MIDI device might be telling it to play.

And, I must confess to occasionally using the beat indicator if the music I'm playing gets loud and starts to drown out the drums.  I've already got the style/drums turned up to about 115-120 in volume -- maybe I should go through my registrations and turn all of the instruments down a little bit to prevent that from happening.  I also find that using the style/drum filter to give the drums some resonance can accentuate the beat of the drums and allow them to pierce through loud orchestral parts I might be playing.

[johan]

It is one of the features I missed when moving from E series keyboards to S670 and SX700. I think Yamaha clearly considers this as something oriented towards beginners so maybe I made the switch to a “pro” keyboard a bit too early  . What is still possible however, is to record a midi file and then watch the notes you have played with the score function.

[BogdanH]

I'm an amateur keyboard player and I never missed this functionality. Which key plays certain note is a first step into learning how to play a song and there are zillion articles about musical notation on internet. I mean, there are only 12 notes repeating in octaves 

Bogdan