My Christmas gift to myself finally arrived yesterday after several days of neurotic polling of the FedEx package tracking site. In a box as tall as myself came the shiny new object: a Yamaha digital piano. The action on the keyboard is very nice; it is in my untrained opinion very close to that of a real piano. Like an acoustic piano, the weightedness of the keys varies — you have to push harder on the lower keys than the higher ones. The piano sounds are also very realistic. I don’t see myself using any of the other non-acoustic-piano voices (the electric piano sound particularly could be a lot more Rhodes-like) but anyway an external MIDI tone generator could always be used if I were into that kind of thing.
Now, I don’t (yet) know how to play one of these things, apart from being able to read music and knowing which keys match up with which notes. But I am planning on working up that little skill as I also use the MIDI features of the piano for composition. If any players out there can recommend aids for self-study, let me know.
Ah yes, Bembo, the most beautiful of all the fonts!
I don’t understand font fanatics. Of Electra he says, “A beautiful design by a master artist, imprisoned in a pale digital version.” But clearly it’s black; how can it also be pale?
I think it’s poetry. Like “so bad it’s good.”
You still didn’t answer my question. I want to see some Jimmy Smith up in here!
Nah, the organ sounds are pretty churchy, so useless. The keyboard is definitely in the category of “do one thing really well.”
But my parents have a Hammond! They could be the next Jimmy Smith….