Topic: Beginner question, how to get started

[scannie]

I’m a beginner with no music expierence.
I started lessons with simply piano.
Yes, Imake progression, but it seems it is related to piano’s.

But I want to learn playing arranger keyboard.
After searching I found the lessons from Jeremy See.
I don’t know the right way to play my first songs with styles / arrangement.

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi Scannie,

The great thing about the Genos is, it is suitable for a beginner or a seasoned professional. There are so many possibilities. Having said that, I suggest your first move is to learn the basics on how an arranger keyboard works. Start with the Owners manual and go through each section with your Genos in front of you. Learn the steps in discovering a suitable style background, and then begin playing along with simple songs - nothing too fancy or fast. Learn the melodies and chords separately, and then apply to them to a suitable Genos style.

Here's the Golden Rule
Don't spend anymore than 10-15 minutes trying to figure out something you don't understand. Post your question here. Make sure you include exactly what you want to achieve and what you've tried. I assure you, there is nowhere any better on the planet than the folks here, for solving problems. If we don't know the answer, the question doesn't exist!

Good luck and have fun. This beast will keep you young!

- Lee

[Ed B]

Hi
I would suggest you start by looking at the lessons on our main section:

https://psrtutorial.com/lessons/index.html

Also learn chords

https://psrtutorial.com/music/chords.html


Regards
Ed B

[mikf]

As a complete beginner you have two areas in which you need to learn, music and the keyboard operation. You need some knowledge of both.  Something like simply piano is introducing you to music basics, the keyboard operation basics can be viewed in our lessons section.
You first step on keyboard operation is to find out how to select a voice and a style, and how to set the keyboard for the correct mode. I can’t cover all that in a post on the forum. Like was suggested above, start by looking at our lessons, and maybe your manual. If you hit road blocks post a specific question and someone will help here.
Arrangers make it easier to learn to produce music, but it’s not instant. It will take time and effort.
Mike

[pjd]

If you want to try on-line learning, maybe "Melodics" or Yamaha "Flowkey"?

There are free trial offers. Yamaha offers a 3-month free trial to Flowkey with some pianos/keyboards. You'll need to check the Yamaha web site in your region for offers.

All the best -- pj

[scannie]

I understand the functions of the keyboard.
But how do I go about learning to play a song?

Beforehand, I need to know that it is relatively easy to play, including the chords.

Then find sheets or download them?

Learn melody and chords?

Find an appropriate style?

How do you tackle this, where do you start and what order?

[Lee Batchelor]

Hi again, Scannie.

Are you a reading musician or do you play by ear? Sounds like you prefer sheet music. Before answering, we need to know what level you're at. I don't mean conservatory level but what type of music do you play and how complex are the songs you wish to learn? It would be best to give us the titles of some songs.

Keep in mind that the Genos will take a lot of time to learn. The good news is, it's not overly complex but you can leverage your imagination to have it do almost anything you want. And that's the beauty of such a keyboard. If you were able to master its functions and musical offerings inside of 12 hours or so, you'd be board out of your mind.

Many people on this forum have found things they can do on the Genos that are not listed in any manuals and that the Yamaha engineers likely didn't know were possible either. So give us more information and the answers will flood in.

Also as Mike stated, be specific on your post title. Some times we see ambiguous titles like, "Funny noise." That tells us nothing. Where is the noise coming from? A better title is, "Noise from left Genos speaker." Now, we know what it's not: broken key, broken button, keyboard stand noise, squeaky sustain pedal, etc...

[mikf]

I’m guessing here, but from your statement about chords etc it sounds like you need lead sheets. They are simplified versions of sheet music. You need to be able to read chord symbols and a simple melody line to use them.
Go to a music store or look on line. They are usually listed under fake books. You should start by buying a collective album, that will give you a good choice of well known songs, often 500 or so in a single album. The Ultimate Fake Book has 1200 songs and is a very good one for first time buy.
If you are a complete beginner there are even simpler versions called easy play music. They have large notes with names rather than having to read a standard staff.
Once you have a song in mind,  find it in the album. For style recommendations you can try the Musicfinder on the keyboard, or just look through styles yourself. You will get better at this as you gather experience. Set the tempo - not too fast to start with - then start the style and start playing.
Learning to play the song…..that’s a whole different ball game. Everyone wants short cuts, but there really aren’t any. You have to work through understanding the basics of chords, scales , keys and then practice.
On this forum you can come with functional questions - like I am trying to load a style, but when I press this button and this button the style doesn’t start - and you will get help. But if you are asking how do I learn to play, all we can do is suggest you get a teacher, or buy a book, or sign up for an on line course. We can’t teach you to play here. You have already started with a on line course. The playing music basics don’t change between piano and arranger, so maybe stick with that.

Mike

[andyg]

If you've invested in a Genos, then the best thing to do is to invest in some lessons with a good keyboard teacher. I stress 'keyboard teacher'. Some piano teachers can teach keyboard very well. However, from personal experience, I've found many do it poorly. They mean well but often don't understand the instrument well enough, - it needs to be taught differently to piano. I've had to 'rescue' students and take them back to square one on many occasions over the years. Ideally that teacher will either have a Genos, or know how it works and be able to teach you the operation of the instrument as well as getting you playing music.

On line courses and apps are OK in their own way, but they cannot give you that all important feedback that a real teacher can. An app cannot see how you place your fingers on the keys or your posture, both of which are very important!

There may be a teacher near to you, but don't be afraid to do one to one lessons on Zoom. I, and several of my friends and colleagues here in the  UK, have been doing this since the start of the pandemic and we now have students all around the world! All of my students have decided to stick with Zoom lessons and don't want to go back to face to face!

A few lessons may be all you need, but don't be surprised if you get 'hooked'. You'll be amazed at what a good teacher can do for you!

[mikf]

Andy, Good advice. People spend thousands on a keyboard but get reluctant to invest any money in learning to play it. I have a feeling that they think they can just switch it on, and be playing in a few days. Or they can download an app that will do that 
Mike

[rattley]

Greetings!!

AndyG,  Could you elaborate more on the differences when teaching keyboard versus piano?  Thanks.  -charley

[scannie]

Thank you all for the many responses.
Your advice is to ask the question/problem as specifically as possible.

I had no knowledge of notes and playing. I did learn how to operate the Genos in the meantime, I have no questions about that.

I started with Simply Piano, an app that has good reviews. This one surprised me positively, after some time I could already partly read notes but also partly find them on the keyboard without thinking. The left hand was added and now you play two notes with that. There is a large selection of music, from Beatles, Elvis Presley to the most current hits. But you only play a piece of this music. I focused on this and selected only the piano. However, I am now wondering if I am on the right track for an arranger keyboard. The app is meant for learning to play the piano.

So I am looking for a method to play my first songs with styles.

I was looking for songs without many complicated chords and found these:
Spanish Eyes (Engelbert Humperdinck) and no more la Paloma (Elvis Presley).

I suppose this is a good step to develop further.
But am getting stuck now.
- How do I find the melody, by ear or a notation?
Should this be a notation written for an arranger keyboard?
- How do I find the corresponding chords? I see that there is software that shows the chords from a song (Chordify and Ultimate Guitar).
- And how do I find the corresponding style?

With this info I should be able to play a song.
So I am wondering how you do this, what method do you apply?

By the way, I know that playing requires a lot of time, energy and perseverance. Therefore, I don't expect to be able to play reasonably within a year. I don't mind that either. I have also looked for a teacher in the area, but they say they only give piano lessons.

I hope my question is clear and thank you in advance for your reactions.

[Divemaster]

Scannie
What country and area are you in?

Obviously don't give out your specific location, or address online, but I wonder if there might be any members not too distant from you who may be willing to help you?

I completely agree with Andy and Mike. Nothing will ever replace one to one tuition. Being taught the most basic musical notes and chords, and applying that to melodies and playing styles is key.

Having somebody with you who understands arranger keyboards is also essential.  Piano music, or horn music, or organ music is all different. Yes of course, you can buy music for all three instruments. The notation will still be standard musical notation...... But..

It's HOW it's written in a book or on a page that is different, and it can be confusing. That's why I think time spent one to one with a keyboard tutor or a keyboard player would probably enable you to come up with a system that YOU will feel comfortable understanding.

We're all different, there's no One size fits all, but I believe that once you have established some kind of basic foundations that work FOR YOU, you'll start to feel it coming together.

I know you've posted before, and it's encouraging that you're still trying to learn

Keith

[scannie]

I added this information in the profile now.
I’m living in the Netherlands, Maria Hoop.

[Divemaster]

Ok.... So is there perhaps, a keyboard group that you could join or contact, or a music shop that teaches keyboard or could recommend a tutor?

[stevem]

Hi Scannie,

I too am a total beginner, so understand some of your difficulties. I can neither read music or play by ear. Yet.

You have (my opinion) done the right thing by joining this superb forum - so many helpful folks willing to freely share their knowledge. I bow to them all.

What I suggest is (if you haven't done so already) is making a donation which will give access to the Charter members area. Here you will find a whole section devoted to 'Easy-Play' books. These contain very simplified scores. All have easy chords for left hand,  and single notes for the right. Some even have the melody notes identified with letters. These are great for just starting out.

Just had a quick look at your previous posts - you have either an sx700 or an sx900 I think. I had an sx900. It came with a bunch of registrations loaded (or available online to load up). I found some that matched the songs available in Easy Play books,  and away I went. Already I'm finding I can move on to some lead sheets, and occasionally adding notes in to melodies and experimenting with four finger left hand chords. I also purchased a couple of styles from Pedro_Pedroc (Styles4k.com) which came with simple sheet music, and you can see him playing them on his YouTube site. Highly recommended.

Another YouTube source of knowledge which fires my enthusiasm too is Leigh Wilbraham; he is heavily weighted to Genos, but has some sx900 interest too. What he does show is the whole keyboard, and his fingers actually playing - you can see what notes and chords he uses which I find very helpful.

Hope some of this helps you on your (our!) journey into the pleasures of keyboard music.

Best regards, steve

[Divemaster]

Quote from Steve's post
What I suggest is (if you haven't done so already) is making a donation which will give access to the Charter members area. Here you will find a whole section devoted to 'Easy-Play' books. These contain very simplified scores. All have easy chords for left hand,  and single notes for the right. Some even have the melody notes identified with letters. These are great for just starting out.

VERY GOOD Advice from Steve.

[scannie]

I followed your advice and made the registration now. 

[BogdanH]

hello scannie,

...
I was looking for songs without many complicated chords and found these:
Spanish Eyes (Engelbert Humperdinck) and no more la Paloma (Elvis Presley).

Good choice -especially No More (La Paloma), which really goes into ear, can be payed in many ways and can be basically played by using only two chords.

- How do I find the melody, by ear or a notation?

You simply need to know the melody of the song (at least the main melody) -that's why you decided for it in first place. Can you sing, whistle or hum the melody? If yes, then that's enough. If you can't, then pick another song.
An educated/professional musician can probably guess the melody just by looking at music notations, but that's usually not how we amateurs do -instead, we have certain melody in our head and we try to replicate that. When we're stuck at certain part of melody, we listen the song again (many times) and try to remember problematic part of the song... and we try to play it again and again.
So far, only our hearing and sense for music is enough. But sooner or later, it will happen that certain parts of the song are not that clear to us and we're not sure which keys to press. At this point ability to read musical notes is essential and is something that we just need to learn -at least at basic level.

Should this be a notation written for an arranger keyboard?

Notation is never written especially for arranger keyboard. Notation (for main melody) can be for any instrument (piano, trumpet, violin, etc.) -it's up to you to decide which voice you will use for main melody.

- How do I find the corresponding chords? I see that there is software that shows the chords from a song (Chordify and Ultimate Guitar).

If we learn to play the song "by ear", then it's up to us to decide in what key we will play the song. We usually decide for C-maj key, simply because it's the easiest to play. In this case it's enough to know C-maj (obviously), F-maj and G-maj chord -and by knowing only these three chords we can play almost any pop song we wish.
If we decide to use music sheets, then we're practically forced to use the chords that are specified in notation. As we become more experienced with musical notation, we will be able to transpose notation to our wish, but that can be confusing and is usually avoided.
Chordify can be very helpful... but only if we have at least basic skills, which includes the ability to play a song by ear.

- And how do I find the corresponding style?

By ear! Style is just a rhythm and what you're looking for, is a rhythm that suit your song. Many times we can find more than only one style for the song that we wish to play and in this case we simply decide for the style which sounds the best in our personal opinion -it's as simple as that.
For example, for No more/La Paloma song you can use Rumba or Beguine style (both in Ballroom section in SX700).

I don't want to sound rude or discourage you.. but there's one thing that you should think about: playing music is not for everyone -no matter what instrument we use.
Why am I saying that? Because I have an impression that you didn't make much progress in last several months. There are thousands of videos showing keyboard playing and lessons explaining chords, etc., which seems to be of no help for you.

Some have suggested a professional teacher... But what I think would be better is, that you just find someone who can play keyboard good enough and that he shows you the basics. He probably won't teach you how to play music, but he for sure can show you "where to start and how to do it" -and a cup of coffee or a beer will suffice 

Bogdan

[mikf]

I don’t like to put people off learning music, but I’m afraid Bogdan has a point.
If someone comes to me and says how do I play football, I might say get out and kick a ball about with your friends, see what they do, copy them to get started. And they then say what do you mean by kick a ball, and anyway what is a ball. And by the way I dont have any friends that play football……..
You see Bogdan is right, by now if you have some musical aptitude you should have figured out a few things yourself. That doesn’t seem to be happening.
My best advice at this moment is to find somebody that plays a keyboard, failing that, any instrument. Then sit with them and see if they can help. Honestly, it’s never going to happen by posting here no matter how well intentioned the replies.
Mike

[robinez]

Ok.... So is there perhaps, a keyboard group that you could join or contact, or a music shop that teaches keyboard or could recommend a tutor?

For dutch people there is a lot to be found, the keyboard community is huge over here in holland.

Scannie, for instance you could join the dutch community keyboard.eu on facebook, it's a dutch community with lots of keyboard players ranging from beginner till experts. Most of them are using yamaha keyboards. They also have an online meeting every tuesday evening on discord where you can ask any question you like and it's filled with workshop tutorials in dutch. They also have a live gathering twice a year in holland.

Another good online teacher where you can start for free is: https://pianolesvanrene.nl/
Although I don't know the lessons from him, I've heared from several beginners in the group that they learned a lot from that platform and you don't have to read notes to start playing with his method.

On the facebook page keyboard.eu I also wrote a very detailed and large review in dutch about the online platforms I bought subscriptions to, platforms like pianomarvel.com, yousician.com, flowkey or for the more advanced sites like playgroundsessions.com or the amazing (but also very hard to learn) neojazzacademy.com

So don't get discouraged, nowadays it's never been easier to learn how to play, with all the information available online and all the help from people online. For starters you only need to learn 4 chords to play hundreds of songs (really, 4 chords is all you need).

[Divemaster]

There you are Scannie.
So join the Dutch group, learn from others, begin your musical journey.
I think it's now very much up to you to make that move.
We can only go so far.

Keith

[scannie]

Thanks for all the tips. I am certainly not discouraged, but I have been focusing on Simply Piano for the last 2 months. And that means just playing those pieces of music, with no style or other options and only piano as the instrument. That really did help me along. I was surprised how quickly you could play nice pieces anyway and even read notes (basic). Fine in itself. But I opted for an arranger keyboard. And miss that part. Hence the question of how you approach something like that. And then I read a lot by ear anyway.
Thank you all very much.
I can go on again. 

[mikf]

Scannie, get a fake book as advised above. Then you can read the melody line and the chords. Pick a song, pick a style start it and play chords. Try to play the melody.. You can pick a style by looking at style names and just try it. Tap in tempo and play chords.
I think what some of us are struggling with is what exactly it is that you cannot do. You say you read a lot by ear,,, but that is actually a contradiction in terms. You either read music to play or play by ear ( without reading music). 
Once you decide on a song you either find a lead sheet for it, or you play it by ear, melody and chords. If your problem is what style to pick either go by trial and error, or name the song here and someone will give suggested styles.  Then it’s practice.
Mike

[robinez]

Scannie, get a fake book as advised above. Then you can read the melody line and the chords. Pick a song, pick a style start it and play chords. Try to play the melody.. You can pick a style by looking at style names and just try it. Tap in tempo and play chords.

In my opinion I doubt that this will solve his problem, a fakebook assumes quite some knowledge about chords, for instance in the mentioned 1200 songs ultimate fakebook a lot of songs are using the more advanced chords and beginners don't know all these chords. This mentioned fakebook is filled with chords like: Gmaj7, Bm7b5, E7/B, Edim7,D7b9 etc.. Of course many of the players here instantly know what chords to play when they read this, but beginners really don't know this.

If you want to have a good starting book, then go for the: Four Chord Songs - Super Easy Songbook
I know that you are dutch, so you can buy it it on bol.com through the following link: https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/four-chord-songs-super-easy-songbook/9200000101337407/ )
It's a good point to start, these type of books are more suitable for beginners (see the example on that page (inkijk exemplaar))

If you want to start without books then my advice would be to start with the 4 chords method for a lot of songs, they are : C - G - Aminor - F
if you know how to play these 4 chords there are so many songs that you can play.

A good tutorial for this approach can be found over here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvAVM0FPfF4

In this tutorial he plays the chord with the left hand (just like on a keyboard) and the melody with the right hand.

When you practiced this and can do this without thinking, then it's time to take the following step and learn how to read notes if you want (not needed but really convenient if you want to learn new things), or play the melody by ear and learn lots of new Chords, so the next step is then starting with all the major and minor chords. When you know how to play those, then learn how to play the 7ths and sus2 and sus4 chords.

[Lefty]

I’m a beginner with no music expierence.
I started lessons with simply piano.
Yes, Imake progression, but it seems it is related to piano’s.

But I want to learn playing arranger keyboard.
After searching I found the lessons from Jeremy See.
I don’t know the right way to play my first songs with styles / arrangement.

Hi Scannie.  I think I understand what you are asking.  I have a few questions though, that folks will need to know before they can help.

• What keyboard are you playing?
• What music do you want to play?  pop, blues, Classical, etc.  Do you have a specific song in mind?
• Can you play the chords from the C major scale?  [C, Am, Em, F, G, Dm] and can switch between them quickly?
• Or are you using 1 finger chords on your arranger?

-------------------------------------------------------------
A way to approach this follows.

Song selection is important for your first song on the arranger.  I'd choose a song that is:

• You are very familiar with, and can hum the melody.
• Transposed to the key of C so you are only playing on the white keys. 
• in 4/4, with a tempo under 100 BPM.
• The melody should stay within an octave.
• Harmony can be played with triads. (3 note chords)

Forum members should be able to help you choose an appropriate song in your preferred genre.

Once you have chosen a song begin with the verse:

• Obtain a simplified lead sheet for your song in the key of C.  Folks here can probably help with that.
• Practice the chords in the verse with your left hand, until you can follow the lead sheet at the songs tempo.
• Practice the melody with your right hand, until you can follow the lead sheet at the songs tempo.
• Practice the verse slowly with both hands until you can follow the lead sheet at the songs tempo.

Now that you can follow the lead sheet at tempo with both hands, you can begin using the arranger features.  Ask forum members for some help choosing a style that works well for your song.

If necessary, ask forum members for help on your keyboard if you are having trouble getting the style to start playing when you start.  I generally start by setting the tempo at 70% of the songs' full tempo, then slowly speed it up as I get better.

Once you have the verse in muscle memory, add in the other sections (chorus, etc) until you know the whole song.

This will get you to playing a song with the most basic accompaniment.

-------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see, it takes some time and practice before you get to using the arranger features using my method.  Perhaps others have a better way for novice players to approach this.

Best Regards, and Good Luck!
    Craig