i mean, i’d be happy hearing the scales! i love your enthusiasm for excellence. you have a seemingly boundless appetite for excellence and comprehensive knowledge, and i find that admirable.
i don’t take lessons anymore, tho i did take some piano lessons when i was young and was in band in middle school and concert band/marching band/jazz band/choir in high school. my playing is i guess “jazzy” - spiffl straight up said it was jazz at the meetup (and i didn’t argue), but that’s not a claim i make about it myself.
barry harris is cool. i find that dude funny as fuck. i watched a barry harris video where he tries to explain a concept and get everyone to sing along and is getting very annoyed with them for not following, but what he’s saying he’s doing is not at all what he’s doing and it’s just. god. i find it so funny. my description is horrible but i can dig it up if you want and i think you’ll get what i mean. his talk is about feeling the “ands” and he’s like, now accent the ands with me, but he’s doing quarter note triplets instead of quarter notes while castigating the students for not following. one of those things i find infinitely funny that probably no one else does
thank you!! this is very kind. i guess music is my special interest of sorts, i find it really fascinating. i’m always impressed when you post stuff too, i figured you had been classically trained or something.
thingsivelearnedfrombarryh2616 is very curt but i think his assertiveness is because, watching his videos, he has a better grasp on harris’ concepts than most. marbin is trying to extract voice movements and techniques from a complete methodology, and TILFBH2616 is trying to teach the entire harris sixth diminished ideas top to bottom
Any recommendations for a small, portable keyboard? I saw the internet recommend at least 3 octaves (37 keys). I’ve seen people recommend the Yamaha Reface (of which there’s a few versions with different features apparently), but I’m not sure what else I could be looking at. I was looking for something that I can play in my lap that can make it’s own sounds, and it would be great if it was usable portable too (i.e. doesn’t need to be plugged into an outlet).
I travel to a family’s house fairly often, and it would be convenient to be able to have something I can practice piano basics on while I’m there. There’s actually a mostly functional 88-key keyboard there (the LCD screen doesn’t work so I’m afraid of messing with any of the knobs and buttons and changing the sound in a way that I can’t undo), but it’s as large as a full 88-key keyboard so I can’t exactly pull it out when I’m in the living room watching over family. So I hoped there was something I could put in my lap to practice stuff on.
I also have an 88-key digital piano at home, but I’ve found recently whiling practicing songs that are simple but challenging for me at the moment that my mind tends to wander and I get distracted when I feel like I’m hitting a roadblock quickly. I’m practicing the piano parts of Coltrane’s Equinox. It’s just chords, but it requires big jumps that I’m having trouble getting down. So when I’m practicing those for a while, and I’m not improving, I find myself getting distracted and doing something else. So I thought it would also be nice to have a small keyboard I can put in front of my computer so I can practice things with my hands while I’m watching TV or doing other things (my digital piano is too big and cumbersome to place my computer in any convenient manner).
i bought a ct-s1 for $200, it’s got okay sounds, onboard speaker, batteries or plug in, springy synth keys, a little skinnier than fullsize keys, 10lbs with a sort of handle grip on the back. i got this model bc i know someone that has busked with it. they have a variety of other models that might suit you better, this one is a little too big for lap.
it’s light enough that i put it under my computer desk on a little end table, it’s my “watching youtube while practicing voicings” keyboard. but yea i watch youtube because my mind also wanders when doing “simple” things i can’t do yet, it keeps me from trying to “effort” my way through, rather i want to be just getting reps and finding small improvements on technique and fingering.
Thanks for the recommendation. I had been looking at some of those Casios too, but somehow they all have too many or too few keys. I checked out the Yamaha Refaces and they’re way more expensive than I expected ($500, though they were $250 last year apparently?) And they’re like 10 years old too, so I don’t know if a new version of those would be on the horizon; I don’t know how keyboard releases work and are paced.
I also saw the Roland Go:keys but they’re also pretty big. There’s lots of like small midi keyboards out there but they don’t have speakers typically, which is unfortunate. So I might have to compromise on either size or cost!
no one does to be quite frank. release cycles are unpredictable, models inscrutable, price/feature segmentation infuriating. i wouldn’t even worry about “horizons” unless you are spending upwards of 800-1000 - modern stuff is very good, you’re unlikely to outgrow even an entry-level keyboard. you mostly want the right size, portability features and keybed imo
i have a yamaha ck61 (which i adore) and it runs on batteries and has internal speakers… but it’s even more expensive than the refaces so i don’t think i can offer much direct advice
Akai’s newer MPK Play wedged speakers and Casio-y keyboard sounds into their midi controller line. Might be smaller than you’re looking for though.
Those Yamaha Refaces were a weird bunch. The DX hit the same time as the Volca FM and isn’t compatible with actual DX7 patches due to being short an operator or two whereas the cheaper Volca is. I heard better things about the organ one.
It’s about a 30% chance any given thrift store has a 2000s era (or earlier) big Casio or Yamaha keyboard for like $40.
so i don’t think i can offer much direct advice