I'd like to learn how to play an electronic keyboard. Please.

[Amii_Leigh]

Back in the early nineties, I belonged to a church-type group that met informally, and we would sing hymns. The organist played a Yamaha PortaSound PS-200, still in it's original box. As the years passed on, the box got more and more worn. She and her husband would buy a hard case for it, but the cost of one of those seemed kind of steep at the time, so I offered to make a case for it.
You might doubt my carpentry skills, but I succeeded in making a very nice case.
The case and organ actually outlasted the organist. This is the case I made: https://imgur.com/3YdcVQs
As I was saying, the organist passed on a few years ago. Her husband remarried, and his new wife didn't know how to play the organ either, so our little church-like group did without organ music.
Recently however, the husband gave me the organ and it's case. I guess he felt that I'd done such a good job making the case, I might actually be able to learn how to play it.
This is a link to another PS-200 for sale at Amazon.http://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-PortaSou ... 0011.m1850 The one that I have is identical.
So the question I have to ask now is, does anyone know where the book is that showed you how to play the PS-200? Does anyone have any clues as to how to play a PS-200? Does anyone have an instruction book that tells you how to play it? I've searched all over, and not found any book so far.

[jimallyn]

You would play that keyboard the same as you would play a piano, an organ, or any other keyboard. If you have a music store locally, they should have books to teach you to play, or they could probably recommend an instructor who could teach you to play.

[hrmcrm]

The manual is available at https://www.manualslib.com/download/340 ... s-200.html
It tells how to connect the device. Is that what you are asking?

[Amii_Leigh]

The manual is available at https://www.manualslib.com/download/340 ... s-200.html
It tells how to connect the device. Is that what you are asking?

I already have this book. It's only the instruction manual that originally came with the keyboard.
There used to be another book that would show how to learn to play the keyboard. This book I haven't been able to find anywhere.

You would play that keyboard the same as you would play a piano, an organ, or any other keyboard. If you have a music store locally, they should have books to teach you to play, or they could probably recommend an instructor who could teach you to play.

There are three problems that come with finding someone able to teach me how to play that keyboard. First, this town is so small we don't have a music store. There 'might' be a couple of music teachers, but they probably work at the college, Second, they would want to teach me how to play a piano, not that keyboard, largely because they probably wouldn't be familiar with that keyboard. Third, anyone capable of teaching me how to play that keyboard would probably want to be paid.

[Schultz]

Search Youtube, I'm sure there are keyboard tutorials. I've been watching some guitar tutorials on it lately.

[Hoser Rob]

As mentioned you don't need keyboard instruction for a specific model ... there are some differences in organ v. piano but basically a keyboard is a keyboard. Try youtube videos for a start.

A couple of things I'd suggest:

Learn what I-IV-V-Vim progressions are ... they're amazingly common. You can play a frakking TON of songs with 4 chords.

For every chord there's a scale that fits it.

Above all, keep time well. If you cannot keep a steady beat going it just doesn't matter what else you can do. Use a metronome, though you'll hate it at first. You can get them pretty cheap, and there are Linux metronome apps. One called GTick is in the repos, at least the 17.3 one I just checked.

[stormryder]

Second, they would want to teach me how to play a piano, not that keyboard, largely because they probably wouldn't be familiar with that keyboard.

That keyboard might make some different sounds than a piano, but the key layout is the same, anyone who can teach you to play a piano can teach you to play that keyboard.
I'd recommend this book, I've got a mel bay guitar method book and it really helped me to learn some basics:
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Piano-Met ... 0786695196

Search Youtube, I'm sure there are keyboard tutorials. I've been watching some guitar tutorials on it lately.

+1 yes I've found a lot of good information online too, and not just on youtube.
I think learning your scales is a good place to start:
https://www.pianoscales.org/

[BenTrabetere]

To echo what others have posted - any* piano lessons can be applied to this instrument. All keyboard instrument are, at their heart, a piano (or harpsichord, if you want to get all historical). Piano lessons will apply to your PS-200.

Hoser Bob mentioned the I-IV-V-vi chord progression. You can accompany a lot of church music just by learning to play those chords in the keys of C, F and G. A lot of popular music, too. If you play guitar, or know someone who does, you can translate the guitar chords to piano chords.

I have several friends, some with no prior musical training, who learned to play piano with Robin Hall's Pianoforall lessons. Most of them never progressed past the advanced chords.

The key to success is practice. You really need to dedicate at least 30-minutes each day to practice. One hour would be more better and 10-minutes would be better than nothing. But you need to practice EVERY DAY.

Good Luck.


*The biggest limitation to keyboards like the PS-200 is the 3-octave range. It is more than adequate for chords and basic accompaniment, but a lot of piano music does not fit well inside 37-keys. You would not get far into Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody, No. 2" before you were pounding air on non-existant keys (and the instrument would start to fall apart by 5:15).

[Amii_Leigh]

There's a book that I thought would help me out in learning how to play this keyboard. It's called "PortaSound Playtime Teach Yourself Book".I've searched for this book numerous times, only to find nothing. The only reference I've found to this book is in the operating manual of the PS-200. I'm also thinking that it would be nice if I could find something to allow me to figure out what the relevant keys are, as I'm not at all familiar with the keyboard layout, nor do I know how to read music. I've seen pictures of the PS-200 with letters attached to the keys. I also need some way of recognising what keys these are. I don't even know how to find any C key. I'm pitiful. As a potential musician, I make a better carpenter, lol.

Thanks for all your input. I'll muddle through somehow.

[Schultz]

The white keys contain no sharps or flats; the black keys are the sharps/flats. There is no sharp or flat note between B-C and E-F. So when you see two white keys together, you know that they are either B-C or E-F notes. If you look carefully, you'll see that after (I don't mean immediately after) the B-C keys are two black keys and after the E-F keys are three black keys; that's how you recognize "where" you are regarding notes. Hope this helps a little bit.

images.duckduckgo.com.jpeg

[Amii_Leigh]

Thank You, Shultz!!!

[jimallyn]

Step away from the computer. Sit down at your keyboard. Pick out the melody of some simple song: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or something. Or your favorite Beatles tune. Or whatever. See how easy that is?

[Amii_Leigh]

Step away from the computer. Sit down at your keyboard. Pick out the melody of some simple song: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or something. Or your favorite Beatles tune. Or whatever. See how easy that is?

You mean I have to leave my computer all alone? By itself? LOL

[samriggs]

here be one online to play with

https://www.onlinepianist.com/virtual-piano

[Portreve]

I'm not a musician. I don't even pretend to be one. However, one thing I wanted to throw out there, because Schultz was so kind in putting up that layout, is this:

In music, note designations are relative. What I mean by that is every note, or every chord, is the sharp of the one below, and the flat of the one above, in addition to being its own thing.

So, you have, let's say, B Flat. B Flat is also A Sharp. Then there's B Natural. Then, there's B Sharp, which is also C Flat.

The point here is you have to be focused on what you are doing, and don't get distracted because while notes and the frequencies they are comprised of are technical and precise, musical notation is not. And, coming from the computer world where we're used to technical precision and something like exactitude (try typing in a command in the Terminal and not bother being too precise about it and see what happens) and yet music is a lot of approximations.

This video on YouTube of the late Leonard Bernstein may interest you, not so much for all the technical aspects which he largely glosses through (it is an overview, after all) but just to give you a general context for how modern era music comes to exist as we know it.

[jimallyn]

Then there's B Natural. Then, there's B Sharp, which is also C Flat.

Actually, no. There is nothing between B and C, nor between E and F. But other than that, yep, that's how it works.

[Hoser Rob]

Step away from the computer. Sit down at your keyboard. Pick out the melody of some simple song: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or something. Or your favorite Beatles tune. Or whatever. See how easy that is?

Actually that's the best advice I see here. Stop thinking and use your ears.