playing with the one man band

playing the yamaha keyboard with a
"one man band.."

Playing this type of electronic keyboard is one of the simplest ways to make beautiful music with little effort or easy keyboard skills...

But you must have a good sense of timing, a good musical memory ( remembering the tune accurately ) and being able to play it with the right hand either by ear or by reading the music manuscript...

It is best to memorize the melody and play it by ear. But if you are a good music reader you can play the song also with Music Books printed for this purpose..

The left hand must know how to form chords..Chords are combinations of at least 3 notes..

Some Yamaha music books have the melody line written in bold notes while the accompanying chords are written above the right hand staff...

The percussion or rythm is determined by a list of numbers and names written under the heading style..

The Yamaha I own have at least 100 styles ranging from ballad, latin music, rock, samba, etc.. It has also 100 voices. Voices are the different instrument sounds...

You can control the speed or tempo of the accompaniment by some buttons.

The chords you play with the left hand determines the "background music " that will be played by the built-in "one man band.."

Examples of left hand chords are:

CMajor: consisting of C, E and G, played all at the same time by the fingers of the left hand..

Or G7 which is D,F,G and B..

Another useful chord is FMajor which consists of F, A, and C...

Withe these 3 left hand chords you can already play several folk songs..All you have to do is to select the right "style" for it.

If you press the chord of CMajor, the "one man band " plays the C,E, & G notes, plus some drum sounds which would make it sound like your right hand playing is accompanied by an orchestra, including some drums..

But again, you have to accurate with your timing..It is like playing with a a KARAOKE TRACK..The Karaoke does not play with your timing, you have to play with the timing of the KARAOKE..

Which in a certain way, really sucks, especially if your timing becomes off..

Anyway, here is a Filipino love song I recorded ..with the one man band..One wrong note, one wrong timing and you have to re record it again..

Sometimes the recording work could take you a whole night...