Tagged As: Casio Lighted Keyboard
Question:
Just wanted to know if anyone has ever had an experience with Casio LK or Yamaha EZ lighted keyboards (or any other brand). Are lighted keyboards any good for a beginner like me, who is NOT UNABLE to read music, but wants to learn the easy way? I mean, are lighted keyboards the easiest way around? and if they are, would they make a good player out of me? In other words, is it just playing the song that matters (which I guess a lighted keyboard would teach me how), or there are other things that a lighted keyboard wouldn't teach me? I am about to buy a Casio LK-73. But first I would like to know more about the whole lighted keyboard thing.
Answer:
First, if you insist on getting this feature, buy the Yamaha keyboard not the Casio. The Yamaha EZ series allows you to do this with any MIDI file. The Casio is limited to its own onboard songs. The Yamaha keyboards sound better too. (I actually have several Yamaha synths/keyboards and Casio synths from the time Casio was in the pro market so I am not prejudiced necessarily). The Yamaha Clavinova CVP line has had this feature for a long time. The Yamaha EZ line of keyboards is a much cheaper way to try it out. I bought a CVP specifically for this feature, but I do not find it helpful at all. It is much easier to read music than to read lights, at least for me. A keyboard is 5 to eight octaves. Your eyes cannot see lights simultaneously that are spread all over the place on the keyboard. You have to look at the lights for the bass notes, put your fingers of your left hand in the right places, and then look up at the lights for the treble notes, and put the fingers for the right hand on the right notes. Contrast this to reading music on a page. Your eyes can read music on a page that shows in one place the simultaneously playing of notes spread over many octaves on the keyboard. As you get better, you don't need to look at the keyboard much at all. In other words, the music shows you in notation, in one little place, easily readable by your eyes at one time, what notes the right hand plays and what notes the left hand plays. You just place your hands there. Sure, it seems like it might be easier for a beginner to just look at some lights--but as soon as the music gets spread out over the keyboard, I can assure you, this is no longer so. Maybe if you had great peripheral vision that allowed you to see five to eight octaves of lights at one time, this would be so. But, as far as I know, most humans are unable to do this. The lights might be good as a memorization tool, to force a player to look away from the page. But then you are using the lights as a crutch instead of the music. I find they just are not that useful. Some other digital piano manufacturers had this feature many years ago, but they gave it up as not that useful. In fairness, some people LOVE this feature on Clavinova CVPs.
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