Digital Piano Musical Instruments
Today's digital pianos can produce excellent, realistic piano sounds made from computerized samples that rival the finest acoustic pianos. Plus, they can mimic other piano sounds---the classic Rhodes and other vintage electric pianos---as well as produce other musical instrument voices such as horns, saxophone, guitar, drums and more. Whether they are used strictly as a piano for home entertainment or student lessons, or as a creative tool by a professional musician on stage, digital pianos can make learning and playing music fun.
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History
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Today's professional keyboard players and piano students can thank the legendary Stevie Wonder for sparking the idea for the digital piano. In 1983, Wonder approached Raymond Kurzweil, founder of Kurzweil Music Systems, with the concept of creating a musical instrument with a similar type of sound sampling and data digitizing capabilities as reading machines used by the blind. Kurzweil developed a prototype digital piano called the Kurzweil K250 especially for Wonder. In 1984, Kurzweil began selling the K250---the first electronic piano with sampled sounds that could faithfully replicate the sounds of an acoustic grand piano---to professional musicians around the world. Since the K250's introduction, the digital piano has remained at the heart of live performances of rock, soul and popular music. Along with Kurzweil, other famous makers of today's digital pianos include Roland, Yamaha, Kawai and Casio.
Home and Student Pianos
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Digital pianos for the home or for piano students are usually designed as consoles to give them the look of the classic acoustic piano. Higher-end models that are best for learning have 88 weighted or semi-weighted keys, often with hammer action capability, that mimic the feel of the acoustic piano keys. While these models of digital pianos usually have several piano sounds and may have other musical instrument voices on board, they are primarily designed for use by the casual player or student who simply wants a more convenient and lower-cost alternative to an acoustic piano. An alternative is a portable "slab" digital piano that can be placed on a stand and conveniently moved when desired. Some portable digital pianos designed for consumer use may have fewer than 88 keys and may not have the hammer action of the higher end consoles.
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Professional Stage Pianos
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Professional stage pianos are usually portable, and they usually have 88 weighted or semi-weighted keys with hammer action and a large number of musical instrument voices. They also have a high degree of polyphony, which means that the piano can produce multiple notes at the same time. A digital stage piano with 64-note polyphony, for example, can produce as many as 64 notes at the same time, giving the professional musician the ability to recreate acoustic piano effects more realistically. Multitimbrality is another key feature of a professional stage piano that enables the musician to play a piano sound, a guitar sound, a bass sound and a drum sound all at the same time. Modulation wheels and pitch bend controls---creative tools to alter the sounds during a stage performance---are also common features of professional digital pianos.
Synthesizers, MIDI Controllers and Workstations
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Synthesizers, MIDI controllers and workstations are other specialized types of professional digital piano musical instruments that can be used on stage and in the recording studio. Synthesizers, for example, look like a digital piano with a familiar keyboard, but they do much more than reproduce the sounds of different types of pianos and other musical instruments. Musicians can create completely new sounds on a synthesizer and incorporate them into their stage performance or studio recordings. Workstations also have a familiar piano keyboard, but are loaded with sound samples and a high degree of polyphony to help musicians create new sound mixes or riffs that they can save and play back in live performances. MIDI controllers or keyboard controllers also have a piano keyboard, plus multiple knobs, buttons and sliders. Musicians use a controller to transmit MIDI data to external synthesizers and other sound producing hardware.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit piano image by Vasiliy Koval from Fotolia.com
