Casio CTK 700 Keyboard: Ideal For Beginners

Are you interested in music and musical instruments? Want to learn how to play the keyboard? If you are a beginner in the field of playing keyboards then the best choice for you will be a Casio keyboard. They are ideal for children and even adults; actually, they are a great keyboard for everyone.

The Casio CTK 700 keyboard is also a great choice for beginners. It is very user friendly and it is easy to learn to play. It also has a bunch of features that makes it all the more wanted. It has 61 keys, which are of full size, and it also comes with a sing along function.

The keyboard has on screen icons and a feature, which displays the musical information on screen. It has an inbuilt volume controller as well as microphone input jack. This keyboard comes with a step lesson feature, which will help you to learn how to play the correct notes on the keyboard. There are two speakers built into the keyboard and both are almost 10 centimeters in size.

There is a volume control for the microphone. There is a song bank controller, which can perform various functions like play or pause, stop, forward and reverse when playing songs.

The Casio CTK 700 has as many as 100 songs, which are built in, and there are 100 different kinds of rhythms like jazz, rock and dance. It also has different sounding tones such as guitar, piano, percussion and brass.

If you get an adapter with the keyboard then you will not require batteries, the adapter costs only $14.99. You can also add a sustain pedal which will allow you to sustain notes while you play.

Piano lesson: Learn To Play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Without Reading Sheet Music

In this piano lesson you will learn to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star without the use of sheet music. After this learn to play piano tutorial you will be able to play the melody with both hands!

As you know Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is a popular nursery rhyme. The melody is from France and the lyrics from an English poem by Jane Taylor.

The English lyrics are as follows:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are

In this piano lesson we will use a form of tablature instead of sheet music notation.

Tablature is a type of musical notation which will tell you where to place your fingers to play a melody on your piano. The first thing we will do is to locate the note C.

The middle C on a piano is the first white key that is to the left of two black keys. It is called middle C because on the piano keyboard it is right in the middle, near the keyhole.

In our piano tab notation the keys are numbered instead. This middle C in our type of piano tab is called 1.

This means that when you see the number 1 you are to play the middle C once. The white key to the right of C we call 2, the next 3 and so on.

Let's play some piano tab notes:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Now you have played a scale with the actual notes C D E F G A B.

Now we will start to play the melody Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

1 1 5 5 6 6 5

Now you have played the notes C C G G A A G.

How can you use your left hand? Let's make this piece a little bit more difficult and also more rewarding to play by using your left hand for bass notes.

The notes from C to the next C is called an octave. The keys are grouped this way on the whole keyboard.

You also have these notes to the left of the middle C. We can call these notes the left octave.

If you use the notes 1-7 in the left octave to play bass notes with your left hand we can notate the melody in the following way:

1/1 1 5/3 5 6/4 6 5/3

The note to the right of the slash is the bass note. 1/1 means that as you play the first 1 with your right hand you simultaneously play number 1 in the left octave with your left hand.

I guess you have noticed that you only play bass notes together with some of the melody notes.

Let's continue this piano lesson with the next line:

How I wonder what you are

4/2 4 3/1 3 2/5 2 1/1

What fingers should you use as you play? You can and maybe you use your index fingers on both hands to play but it will be easier to find your notes if you cultivate the habit to use all your fingers.

On your right hand you can use your thumb to play number 1 and your index finger to play number 2 and so on.

The next piano tab looks like this:

Up above the world so high

5/3 5 4/2 4 3/1 3 2/5

If you want to use fingerings on your left hand you place your little finger above key number 1 and your thumb on number 5 and the other fingers accordingly.

On the next piano tab the melody is identical:

Like a diamond in the sky

5/3 5 4/2 4 3/1 3 2/5

Now you only have to play the beginning of the song again:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

1/1 1 5/3 5 6/4 6 5/3

How I wonder what you are

4/2 4 3/1 3 2/5 2 1/1

Congratulations! Now you can play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as a piano solo with two hands!

This type of piano notation is probably best used as a help to find the notes until you know the melody by heart. I suggest that you memorize one line at a time until you know the whole song as this will enable you to play the song anywhere and anytime!

Adult Piano Lessons!

Adult piano lessons! Not sure if you should be going ahead with or not? I think it is perfectly alright if you have doubts in your mind. As adults, we become so engrossed in our day to day life that it hardly leaves us with any time to learn something new. That is the reason we have to think so hard to take that decision, since it means committing your precious time. To accommodate time for your new hobby and that too for a few months would definitely make you sit up and think about it.  

At the same time you also need to realize that if you cannot get time for it now, you will never get time for it, and you will miss out an opportunity to play the piano. So definitely give it a thought, and after giving it a lot of thought, if you still are not able to completely remove this idea from your mind, then may be you should just give it a try… and not worry too much about the results. After all, learning the piano is something you always wanted to do. The good thing now is that you don’t even have to ask for money from your parents -:)    

Knowing Yourself

As an adult, you need to know yourself so that you can choose the correct approach to learning the piano. Adults learn differently from kids so plan accordingly. Adults also need lot more flexibility, just because they have so many other commitments. If you are talking lessons from a personal teacher, you may need lessons late in the evening or over the weekends so make it clear to your teacher. 

Method Books

If you are one of those who do not want to learn from the teacher, you can try one of the several method books that are available. Almost all these books have accompanying CDs that can be used as part of the lessons. Some of the popular publishers of adult piano courses include the Alfred's Method and Piano Adventures Method by Fabers. Piano for Dummies is another good book which can also be used to learn the piano. 

Piano Software

Another good way is to buy Piano software, which will help you to learn the piano on your computer. If you have a digital piano, it can be connected to your computer. If not, look for packages that come with a midi-keyboard (3-5 octaves). Connecting these keyboards to the computer can be of great help since the software can then actually tell you what notes you have played wrongly.  

So as you can see, there are plenty of opportunities for you to learn the piano. Just pick up whatever you are comfortable with!

Yamaha Keyboards: The Right Choice For You

Are you in search of Yamaha keyboards to meet your purpose? Are you thinking whether the Yamaha keyboards will be good for you or not? If you really go for Yamaha keyboards you will save both your time as well as your money. You will save time because you do not have to search very far for a Yamaha keyboard because they are available in almost every musical instrument store as well as widely over the internet.

On the other hand, you will save money because these keyboards are priced quite reasonably and you will find them very reasonably priced. Before you decide on a particular model of keyboard, you can just visit a review website and read the review of the various models of the Yamaha keyboards.

Either you can be a beginner in the field of playing the keyboard, or you can be one of those professionals in the music industry that play the keyboard regularly. For both of you the ideal choice of keyboard will be the Yamaha keyboard. On internet forums, you can also discuss which keyboard you should buy.

There are lots of experts who can give you good advice about which keyboard you should go with. The features of the Yamaha keyboard are unique and you will get everything you require to play good music. Yamaha keyboards are designed for all ages of piano and keyboard players. The basic features of keyboards are almost the same and hence you will get what is required for you.

Yamaha keyboards also have the feature of composing and storing music and you can listen to it whenever required. There are many models of Yamaha keyboards that will give you a number of music lessons. You will get manuals as well as guides with these keyboards, which you can use to the fullest and learn some of the greatest music pieces ever written. Yamaha keyboards are very much user friendly and they do not have to many complicated buttons and systems, which can confuse a beginner.