Rob +1

For me, it's all about a love of music. People sometimes think I'm joking when I talk about my handy Casio keyboard:

It's clearly limited. I wouldn't call it a piano and I don't use it that way. Yet, it's so small and portable that I can literally take it with me anywhere anytime. And I do.

It's most definitely a fun instrument, it doesn't break the bank, it's great for all kinds of musical exploration, and it gives me a ton of joy!

Instruments are what we make of them.

--
Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
TIME

      navindra Navindra, I LOVE that little Casio! It's so cute and I bet it's fun playing around with, on a long journey or perhaps sat outside in the sunshine, when you don't want to be indoors.
      I recently upgraded from my 61 key Casio to a digital piano [AKA fake/not real deal/not deserving of the name piano/insert disparaging descriptive of choice because I don't care] and to me if feels like a substantive, proper grown up instrument. It does not have the beautiful curves of an acoustic piano made of solid wood, but for the price I paid it is surprisingly pretty and the sound is a real step up from my little Casio, which is now packed in its box until I donate it to charity for someone else to use. Yet despite having made the decision not to hoard a keyboard I'll never use, I am now sorely tempted to buy a mini keyboard like Navindra has, just for the novelty value! 🙃

      "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

          Nightowl I am now sorely tempted to buy a mini keyboard

          I want something like that as well! It's not only great for travel or lazy backyard afternoons, but you can also play some drum beat for jazzing it up.

          Now THIS is not a piano, and I desperately want it 😁

              Oh it is?? Tell me more please?

              Rubens omg... you shouldn't have shown that... now THAT I simply MUST have!! 🤩😍💖

                Look on YT, there are some pretty amazing performances made on the cat keyboard!

                Well sadly (or luckily, depending on your viewpoint), the cat keyboard is all out of stock. But all jokes aside, I actually am looking for something small and cheap that has various voices and drum beats. Not just to practice in the backyard 😃 But more for providing a rudimentary drum track and (for example) clarinet solo to have some options in case the duet fever hits me again 🙂

                And yes, I realize that I could start a new thread for that, but on the other hand it seems that this topic finally ran out of steam so why not ask here 😆

                  Sophia I actually am looking for something small and cheap that has various voices and drum beats.

                  While it's nice to have it all onboard a portable keyboard, I've kinda been intrigued by Band In A Box. I'm not sure that's something I wanna pay for, haven't decided. Or whether there might be a different setup that could perhaps even follow my lead with things like changing tempo or taking another verse / chorus on the fly, not sure if that exists. But it's an interesting subject.

                      Bellyman Band In A Box

                      Wow, interesting! I must read up on it. Thanks for that!

                          Sophia , I play in a trio, piano / bass / drums. But there are times when I think about doin' some solo stuff. One of my challenges is often running out of fingers. I can split the keyboard and play bass on the lower part. I can add some strings to the pianos sounds. I might even be able to croak out a few words. But I run out of fingers to play the stuff my brain wants to throw in there. LOL!

                          As someone who used to play an organ, I would also consider getting a pedal board to play bass on but they're quite expensive. There are some drums available on the keyboard, and I do sometimes use them to practice on but they are pretty monotonous just as they are.

                          Anyway, I'm always pokin' around on YouTube, lookin' for new thoughts, ideas, toys, whatever. 🙂 And good jazz, always lookin' for that. 🙂

                              Bellyman There are some drums available on the keyboard, and I do sometimes use them to practice on but they are pretty monotonous just as they are.

                              Yeah, that's definitely a concern. One day I'd love to be able to play boogie, slow jazz, bossa nova etc and they would sound boring without bass and drums. But when just using a keyboard drum track, bridges or solos etc would be out. We need an AI in the box that can follow our lead 😁

                                I love that cat keyboard. I see it all the time at Target and I play whatever is playing on the store’s radio (I play by ear).

                                My wife thinks I’m insane because why play that keyboard when we have plenty of pianos at home.

                                In my opinion, the cat keyboard is special!

                                Oh I mean cat piano. Or is it cat digital piano? Or is it a cat-real-piano?! 🙂

                                That one is easy. It's a real cat piano if it can have keattens 🤣

                                Okay, showing my age here a bit...
                                My current version of Band In A Box is from 2009, it wasn't all that expensive then, can't remember how much. It took me a long time to figure out how to use it. My version came with a feature called Real Drums, which is comprised of samples. BIAB is definitely geared toward jazz, and the Real Drums include very realistic and very usable brush and stick kits. Although you can't really use BIAB on the fly for accompaniment, it's fairly easy to make some good sounding back tracks which can be exported as midi or audio in separate tracks or combined. And, remember this is with the 2009 version. So, maybe current versions can do even more.

                                An easier way to get some backing tracks, although more restricted, is with Jamie Abersold's Play-A-Long sets. They are recorded with the drums in the middle, piano on one side, bass on the other, so very easy to use just the bass and drums. Some of the JA stuff suffers from tempos being a little too fast, but most of it is spot on with the original arrangements. His Miles Davis, Jobim, and Count Basie tracks are very good.

                                Years ago, maybe in the early 90s, I had a neat little thing from Yamaha called QY-20. It was about the size of a VHS tape, had several drum kits, three or four basses, some piano voices, organ, vibes, horns, strings, ran off of midi, had a set of buttons laid out like a keyboard, and was either programmable, or, if I remember correctly, which I might not, could follow left hand chords from a digital keyboard. I also remember a friend who had a Yanaha PSR something or other that would follow left hand chords. Of course, tempo changes had to be changed manually; not exactly AI, but quite usable.

                                If I were using something like Band In A Box, I'd probably be creating my own arrangements with it and then playing along. I don't tend to do things like everyone else, tending to pair songs together that may not have been paired previously, taking off onto little side trips where I might play a part of a different song in place of the current one where the chord structure works just fine, but it's unexpected, sometimes even a bit humorous or playful. I'd probably not be that interested in off-the-shelf tracks to play along with.

                                I do kinda remember a friend, years ago, that had a Yamaha keyboard that would do some little tricks like play along with bass? or drums? and had a few quick "buttons" of some kind that he could quickly generate a 2 bar? or 4 bar? ending. Not even sure what that would have been. I recall it being pretty simple, not really able to handle complex chord structures, that kind of thing. Certain kinds of music it might work better with than others. Probably not so great with jazz.

                                Anyway, I haven't exactly seen setups that were geared towards flexible live performance, usually more geared towards laying down some decent sounding studio tracks. And I suppose that's nice. Maybe not quite what I'd ultimately hoped to find. Never know, with AI so commonplace in music these days, it may not be that far off that AI could be a person's backup band, live, impromptu. Guess we'll see.

                                johnstaf Sophia Now THIS is not a piano, and I desperately want it 😁

                                I have one and it's horrible.

                                It has tiny keys that are difficult to control. I didn't buy it to play like a piano, I wanted and extra MIDI controller for different functions.

                                  navindra Thanks navindra. Very nice keyboard you have. That 32 key one has even less keys than my monophonic 37 key one, which I absolutely love. I think it is or was one of the first publicly-available 'physical modelling' keyboards. Still works excellently after all this time. Definitely not a piano, but does amazing stuff with the ribbon/mod unit, and after-touch keys. Just captured this pic 10 mins ago to give a shout-out to keyboards, which certainly have at least some piano DNA, as can be seen in the key layouts of keyboards. And pianos generally have a keyboard front-end too of course.