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Author Topic: Keytar?  (Read 3476 times)

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Melissa Sinclair

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Keytar?
« on: January 17, 2017, 01:22:35 PM »

Since I've been researching accordions/button boxes, etc for the last month, I've mentioned it to my 11 year old that we need to start doing some homeschooling around music. I could teach him the French Horn or trumpet, but I was hoping he might show some interest in what I was interested in.

His first reaction to hearing "learning music" was met with a grumble. Then yesterday he showed me some pictures of keyboard guitars. THen last night he said, "I found a new rebus". And he showed me a key and a bucket of tar. Then, right before going to bed, he asked me, "Why do you keep listening to that music?" I informed him that I was thinking of learning to play one of these instruments and I was trying to decide which to get. He replied with, "I would like to learn to play the keytar. It's way cooler than what you are looking at."

My son is high functioning autistic. Communication is always a bit difficult and done in some roundabout ways. We started homeschooling him last year after fighting with the school system for years trying to get his needs met. He's a very smart kid, but he doesn't process language in the same way neuro-typical children do and he was beginning to get behind in schooling because of the force-feeding approach of only one way to learn - even when he was with a one on one special teacher - no innovation...

Anyway, in the last year we redid all of 5th grade and are now fully caught up in 6th grade and he's doing marvelously. Only "thing" for education we have yet to pick up is music and him CHOOSING what he wants to do is fabulous!

But keytar - there are toy-like ones and more serious ones. Anyone have any experience with them that might have some suggestions for me for where to look and for what type?
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2017, 11:55:06 PM »

I think an eleven year old needs something better than a toy if he is to take his musical adventure seriously. I had to look up 'keytar' as I didn't know what one was, although I had an idea based on the name and I was correct. A synth that you hang around your shoulders with the keyboard under the left hand and the controls next to pitchbend and glide wheels mounted on a prong in your left hand that looks a bit like a short guitar neck sticking out of the end is hardly a new concept but they have remained rare enough to appeal to a new generation all over again.

Technology has moved on though so here are a couple of points to consider. Not all keytars are standalone instruments, just like modern synths you can buy the keys and noise in two different boxes. I have a midi keyboard, it doesn't have any sounds built in it just sends signals down a cable. I have a 'sound module', it's a box that can generate all of the voices a synth has but you have to plug a midi keyboard or 'contoller' into it to tell it what to do. So far, so good but I can't hear anything? The sound module doesn't have an amplifier or speakers built in,  :o it has a headphone jack which is okay for practise but not for others to hear what you are playing.

So you need a stand alone keytar with it's own synth sounds, amp and speakers built in. I don't know if such a thing exists and it's way too late on a school night for me to start googling this stuff myself but you are five or more hours behind so Melissa, your homework this evening is . . .

Pete.  ;D

p.s this is WAY off topic for a melodeon forum.  >:E
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playandteach

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2017, 12:00:27 AM »

But I got my son a very decent 5 string violin by asking for advice here...
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2017, 12:02:12 AM »

But I got my son a very decent 5 string violin by asking for advice here...

 ;D
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deltasalmon

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2017, 12:17:10 AM »

I think an eleven year old needs something better than a toy if he is to take his musical adventure seriously.

I think at any age one would need something better than a keytar if they are to take their musical adventure seriously....

http://www.reddit.com/r/keytar might be a better place to look for answers though  (:)
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Melissa Sinclair

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2017, 12:31:44 AM »


p.s this is WAY off topic for a melodeon forum.  >:E

Maybe true - the very first keytar I saw was this one, a electronic organ accordion - sort of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmd8KolLTFM

 - which is why I asked here... now I'm realizing most are synthesizers.
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2017, 12:37:27 AM »

I think an eleven year old needs something better than a toy if he is to take his musical adventure seriously.

I think at any age one would need something better than a keytar if they are to take their musical adventure seriously....

http://www.reddit.com/r/keytar might be a better place to look for answers though  (:)

We're talking about a young man on the autistic spectrum with special educational needs, he may well outgrow this quite quickly and need more of a challenge but for now he wants a keytar, that's what motivates him. Introduce him to music, then see where it leads.
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2017, 12:40:31 AM »


p.s this is WAY off topic for a melodeon forum.  >:E

Maybe true - the very first keytar I saw was this one, a electronic organ accordion - sort of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmd8KolLTFM

 - which is why I asked here... now I'm realizing most are synthesizers.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be flip!
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Isis D/G
Hohner B/E, G/C, C/F, Bb/Eb G/C/F
Liliputs D/G (G scale), C/F, Bb/Eb, Albrecht Custom D/G (G scale)

TomBom

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2017, 12:49:07 AM »

Good luck with uncool and old-fashioned melodeons  8) !

Tom - who tried to motivate his son with an uncool melodica. Unfortunately electric guitar didn't help, either. :'(
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Melissa Sinclair

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2017, 12:50:05 AM »


p.s this is WAY off topic for a melodeon forum.  >:E

Maybe true - the very first keytar I saw was this one, a electronic organ accordion - sort of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmd8KolLTFM

 - which is why I asked here... now I'm realizing most are synthesizers.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be flip!
Save

Oh you weren't! I thought they were counted as accordion type based on that first listing I saw. (And a totally silly instrument)
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Melissa Sinclair

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2017, 12:56:42 AM »

Good luck with uncool and old-fashioned melodeons  8) !

Tom - who tried to motivate his son with an uncool melodica. Unfortunately electric guitar didn't help, either. :'(

My 20 year old, however thinks the accordion is way cool - all of them that I was looking at... He said, "I think I want to learn to play that!" But then he's also studying math and philosophy at university and works part-time working for a company out of Germany as a software engineer (as a professional - not as a student/kid)
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Huw Adamson

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2017, 11:16:19 PM »

The good thing about keytar (note, singular 'good thing') is that a keyboard is going to come in handy whatever you learn.
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deltasalmon

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2017, 03:30:03 AM »

My 20 year old, however thinks the accordion is way cool - all of them that I was looking at... He said, "I think I want to learn to play that!" But then he's also studying math and philosophy at university and works part-time working for a company out of Germany as a software engineer (as a professional - not as a student/kid)
I'm not surprised by this. I'm an engineer and I think that's part of why I settled on melodeon. I know for sure I'm not the only maths/engineering/logic melodeon player on the forum and I don't think it's coincidence!

I hope my kids will also be interested when they become of age
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Melissa Sinclair

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2017, 01:11:57 PM »

I'm not surprised by this. I'm an engineer and I think that's part of why I settled on melodeon. I know for sure I'm not the only maths/engineering/logic melodeon player on the forum and I don't think it's coincidence!

I used to work in university administration - including the Admissions office when I started out. Many, many, many mathematically talented people are also quite musically talented. The number of students who came through who wanted to double major in some science/math and music was staggering.

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Roger Hare

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2017, 04:25:11 PM »

...Many, many, many mathematically talented people are also quite musically talented...

It's a weel-kent phenomenon apparently, it also works the other way - musically talented
folks are often mathematically talented too. 40+ years ago, my final year maths lecturer
was working with Julian Bream on the mathematical analysis of guitar string vibrations, and
they both understood each other - which is more than I did!

R.
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Kimric Smythe

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2017, 05:45:38 AM »

Well not completely off topic the accordion company Weltmeister made some sort of mechanical keytar back in the day. It sounds like it uses tines like a Fender Rhodes to generate the tones https://youtu.be/7X9KsfsKb-w I think the amp being used in the video has the distortion turned way up so it is a bit hard to tell what it actually sounds like.
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Psuggmog Volbenz

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Re: Keytar?
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2017, 09:05:31 PM »

Continuining the math/music thread drift: for a long time now, I have thought of Math as a " ritualized system of pattern recognition" it seems that music could partially be described this way as well.
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