The Ewww OMG!! You Play Other Peoples Songs? post got me thinking.

Had my PA 4X 76 for 1 1/2 years & I have NEVER ONCE used the pre-done songlists live. I messed around for fun at home for say 30 minutes with "Let it Be".

But I have only used my PA4X for Worship & I just learn the song and pick a style and play "live" piano with it. I set up my own songlist with styles chosen, but have not once used a pre-done tune so to speak.

I guess I don't play "Arrangeresque". And I ALWAYS play piano as a rhythm rather than ever using a lead instrument. It gives the feeling & sound of me playing keys with a live band.

So I never once have gotten a KARAOKE reference. It's like me sitting at the keys and the boys following me

Maybe I'm using an Arranger wrong, but it is more organic for me I guess...

Hi - I don't use arranger "songs" either. I use Styles (on Tyros) all the time, but I play the song myself, with the Style adding the bass and drums (and a few other sounds; I often mute out some of them if the style is too "Busy" or "Full"). I play rhythmically with my left hand a lot (more than just laying a chord down), and my right hand is either playing rhymically or doing fills (if I am working with a singer), or playing a melody or "solo" if I am playing w/o vocals.

I don't really know what an arranger "song" is, unless maybe it's a MIDI file of a song? Anyway, I've never used any sort of "Song"; I use the Styles, play the chords and song myself. I know there a lot of ways to use an Arranger keyboard; this is the method I've used for many years. I kind of thought that was how most/many people used an Arranger keyboard?

-Jim

As many people have said over and over these arranger KBs have so many features that many don't ever utilize and that's a sin,....keep an open mind to your music, dig deep into your machine, ask questions,watch youtube videos, and you will be amazed at what can be done with it's tools.
There are NO rules just great music....have fun!

Over the years, I created my own song list, one song at a time, entered them into the Music Finder Directory and registrations, which amounted to a little over 700 songs that I performed regularly. The big advantage of this for a live performer is that you can instantly access the song, the correct style, tempo, etc... and pretty much eliminate dead time between songs. That said, there are some really good settings already in most arranger keyboards for specific songs, and as Donny said, they are rarely explored, which I too believe is sinful not to utilize those tools. You don't have to use them religiously, and you can delete the ones you will never use and create your own custom directory. Until he passed away, there was a guy here that did nothing but worship songs in three different churches with his Tyros 2. He went through a hymnal and set up a massive music finder directory of those songs, all ready to play at a single touch of a button. How neat is that?

Good luck,

Gary

Whenever I start to learn a new song, I will first go to the songbook to see if there is a 'song' listed similar to the one I want to play and check out the style used ... Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't ...

Great idea....I've built up about 80 songs from styles. Gonna go this route and see what comes of it. I've got a pretty darn good repertoire already so this can only give me more diversity

Ah, I see, by "songbook' he meant the equivalent of Yamaha's Music Finder Database MFD, and not MIDI songs. I have used the MFD some, but in most cases I've elected to create my own Registrations instead, if only to customize things a bit more to my liking. With my iPad and unrealBook app and the MIDI data that I'd set up to recall Registrations for me, I can get a song's Registration loaded and ready in ~1 second, so it's still fast enough fro my needs.

But as some have said, the MFD (or "songbook") is sometimes a good place to look for ideas on Style that suit a song you're going to do, a possible Tempo value, etc. Somewhere in the past, there was an Excel spreadsheet with all the "stock" Yamaha MFD data in it. (Yamaha's MFD from some Tyros, with corrected song titles etc.)

Jim

The Yamaha MFD and KORG Songbook shouldn't even be in the same sentence,.......
KORGs version is so much more powerful and flexible then Yamahas which needs a major redesign, IMO..
but if it helps the player somewhat so be it.

Donny, now that is nasty, especially coming from a turncoat that never used the MFD - EVER!

Good luck with your almost new PA4X,

Gary

Gary with no Transpose and no way to change fonts size that you need a Hubble telescope to see and no tilt the MFD is a useless feature for MY needs sorry...but other then that and the sub par VH2 the S970 does a great job with workarounds for sure style & sound wise....maybe the next generation MOTL kbs will be better designed we'll see..