Examples

Moog Liberation (1980)

Yamaha SHS-10

Main article: List of keytars

[edit] 1980s

The Moog Liberation was released in 1980 by Moog Music. It included two monophonic VCOs and a polyphonic section that could play organ sounds. The neck had spring-loaded wheels for filter cutoff, modulation, and volume as well as a ribbon-controlled pitch bend. The Liberation had a single VCF and two ADS envelope generators.
The Roland SH-101 is a small, 32 key, monophonic analog synthesizer from the early 1980s. It has one oscillator with two waveforms, an 'octave-divided' sub-oscillator, and a low-pass filter/VCF capable of self oscillation. When a shoulder strap is connected to it, and the small handgrip with a pitch bend wheel and a pitch modulation trigger is used, the SH-101 becomes a keytar.
The Yamaha SHS-10 from the late 1980s has a small keyboard with 32 minikeys and a pitch-bend wheel, an internal Frequency modulation (usually referred to as FM) synthesizer offering 25 different voices with 6-note polyphony. Onboard voices include a range of keyboard instruments (pipe organ, piano, electric piano, etc.); strings (violin, guitar, double bass, etc.); and wind and brass (clarinet, flute, trumpet, etc.).

[edit] 1990s–2000s

Herbie Hancock performing with a Roland AX-7 at the XM Sonic Stage at The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival

The Roland AX-7, which was manufactured from 2001 to 2007, contains many more advanced features than early keytars. It has 45 velocity sensitive keys (without aftertouch), and a 3-character LED display. Several features aimed towards stage performance are present, such as a pitch bend ribbon, touchpad-like expression bar, sustain switch, and volume control knob, all on the upper neck of the instrument. There is also a proprietary "D-Beam" interface, made up of infrared sensors that detect nearby motion. This interface can be used to trigger and control effects.
In August 2009, Roland released the Roland AX-Synth, a model of keytar that contains its own synthesizer sounds in addition to being a MIDI controller.

[edit] Related instruments

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (November 2011)

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While some inexpensive children’s toys are manufactured in the same shape as a keytar,^{[citation needed]} and marketed with the keytar name,^{[citation needed]} these toys have very limited capabilities. They can typically only perform one note at a time (monophonic) or in some cases, two-note polyphony.^{[citation needed]} Professional models allow the performer to play many notes at once (except for older instruments such as the aforementioned Roland SH-101). As well, the sound quality for the samples or synthesis is usually very rudimentary.^{[citation needed]}

Piano key frequencies

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This is a virtual keyboard showing the absolute frequencies in hertz (cycles per second) of the notes on a modern piano (typically containing 88 keys) in twelve-tone equal temperament, with the 49th key, the fifth A (called A4), tuned to 440 Hz (referred to as A440). Each successive pitch is derived by multiplying (ascending) or dividing (descending) the previous by the twelfth root of two (approximately 1.05946309435929...). For example, to get the frequency a semitone up from A4 (A♯4), multiply 440 by the twelfth root of two. To go from A4 to B4 (up a whole tone, or two semitones), multiply 440 twice by the twelfth root of two. For other tuning schemes refer to musical tuning.

This list of frequencies is for a theoretically ideal piano. On an actual piano the ratio between semitones is slightly larger, especially at the high and low ends, where string stiffness causes inharmonicity, i.e., the tendency for the harmonic makeup of each note to run sharp. To compensate for this, octaves are tuned slightly wide, stretched according to the inharmonic characteristics of each instrument. This deviation from equal temperament is called the Railsback curve.

The following equation will give the frequency f of the n^th key, as shown in the table:

Alternatively, this can be written as:

Keyboards with alternative sets of keys

There are some rare variations of keyboards with more or fewer than 12 keys per octave, mostly used in microtonal music, after the discoveries and theoretical developments of musician and inventor Julián Carrillo (1875–1965).
Some free-reed instrument keyboards such as accordions and Indian harmoniums include microtones. Electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros plays one of these. Egyptian belly-dance musicians like Hassam Ramzy use custom-tuned accordions in order to play traditional scales. The small Garmon accordion played in the Music of Azerbaijan sometimes has keys that can play microtones when a "shift" key is pressed.

Frequencies of the audible range on a twelve and eight equal tempered scale

Other uses

Keyboard of a Letter-Printing Telegraph Set built by Siemens & Halske in Saint Petersburg, Russia, ca. 1900

A number of percussion instruments share the keyboard layout, although they are not keyboard instruments with levers that are depressed to sound the notes. Instead, the performer of instruments such as the xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, and glockenspiel strikes the separate-sounding tone bar of metal or wood for each note using a mallet. These bars are laid out in the same configuration as a common keyboard.
There are some examples of a musical keyboard layout used for non-musical devices. For example, some of the earliest printing telegraph machines used a layout similar to a piano keyboard.^[4][5]

Playing techniques

Despite their apparent similarity, keyboard instruments of different types require different techniques. The piano hammer mechanism produces a louder note the faster the key is pressed while the harpsichord's plectrum mechanism does not perceptibly vary the volume of the note with different touch on the keyboard. The pipe organ's volume and timbre are controlled by the flow of air from the bellows and the stops preselected by the player. Players of these instruments therefore use different techniques to color the sound. An arranger keyboard may be preset to produce any of a range of voices as well as percussion and other accompaniments that respond to chords played by the left hand.

A typical piano keyboard

Even though the keyboard layout is simple and all notes are easily accessible, playing requires skill. A proficient player will have undertaken much training to play accurately and in tempo. Beginners seldom produce a passable rendition of even a simple piece due to lack of technique. The sequences of movements of the players hands can be very complicated. Problems include wide-spanned chords, which can be difficult for people with small hands; chords that require unusual hand positions that can initially be uncomfortable, and fast scales, trills and arpeggios.

Playing instruments with velocity sensitive (or, dynamic) keyboards (i.e., that respond to varying playing velocity) may require finger independence, so that some fingers play "harder" while others play more softly. Keyboardists speak of playing harder and softer, or with more or less force. This may accurately describe the player's experience—but in the mechanics of the keyboard, velocity controls musical dynamics. The faster the player depresses the key, the louder th

Size and historical variation

Keyboards of Nicholas Faber's organ for Halberstadt, built in 1361 and enlarged 1495. The illustration is from Praetorius' Syntagma Musicum (1619). At the top is the earliest example of the "seven plus five" layout. The bottom two illustrate the earlier "eight plus four" arrangement

The chromatic compass of keyboard instruments has tended to increase. Harpsichords often extended over five octaves (61+ keys) in the 18th century, while most pianos manufactured since about 1870 have 88 keys. Some modern pianos have even more notes (a Bösendorfer 225 has 92 and a Bösendorfer 290 "Imperial" has 97 keys). While modern synthesizer keyboards commonly have either 61, 76 or 88 keys, small MIDI controllers are available with 25 notes. (Digital systems allow shifting octaves, pitch, and "splitting" ranges dynamically, reducing the need for dedicated keys.) Organs normally have 61 keys per manual, though some spinet models have 44 or 49. An organ pedalboard is a keyboard with long pedals that are played by the organist's feet. Pedalboards vary in size from 12 to 32 notes.
In a typical keyboard layout, black note keys have uniform width, and white note keys have uniform width and uniform spacing at the front of the keyboard. In the larger gaps between the black keys, the width of the natural notes C, D and E differ slightly from the width of keys F, G, A and B. This allows close to uniform spacing of 12 keys per octave while maintaining uniformity of seven "natural" keys per octave.
Over the last three hundred years, the octave span distance found on historical keyboard instruments (organs, virginals, clavichords, harpsichords, and pianos) has ranged from as little as 125 mm to as much as 170 mm. Modern piano keyboards ordinarily have an octave span of 164–165 mm; resulting in the width of black keys averaging 13.7 mm and white keys about 23.5 mm wide at the base, disregarding space between keys. Several reduced-size standards have been proposed and marketed. A 15/16 size (152 mm octave span) and the 7/8 DS Standard (140 mm octave span) keyboard developed by Christopher Donison in the 1970s and developed and marketed by Steinbuhler & Company. U.S. pianist Hannah Reimann has promoted piano keyboards with narrower octave spans and has a U.S. patent on the apparatus and methods for modifying existing pianos to provide interchangeable keyboards of different sizes.^[2]
There have been variations in the design of the keyboard to address technical and musical issues. The earliest designs of keyboards were based heavily on the notes used in Gregorian chant (the seven diatonic notes plus B-flat) and as such would often include B♭ and B♮ both as diatonic "white notes," with the B♮ at the leftmost side of the keyboard and the B♭ at the rightmost. Thus, an octave would have eight "white keys" and only four "black keys." The emphasis on these eight notes would continue for a few centuries after the "seven and five" system was adopted, in the form of the short octave: the eight aforementioned notes were arranged at the leftmost side of the keyboard, compressed in the keys between E and C (at the time, accidentals that low were very uncommon and thus not needed). During the sixteenth century, when instruments were often tuned in meantone temperament, some harpsichords were constructed with the G♯ and E♭ keys split into two. One portion of the G♯ key operated a string tuned to G♯ and the other operated a string tuned to A♭, similarly one portion of the E♭ key operated a string tuned to E♭, the other portion operating a string tuned to D♯. This type of keyboard layout, known as the enharmonic keyboard, extended the flexibility of the harpsichord, enabling composers to write keyboard music calling for harmonies containing the so-called wolf fifth (G-sharp to E-flat), but without producing aural discomfort in the listeners (see: Split sharp). The "broken octave," a variation of the aforementioned short octave, similarly used split keys to add accidentals left out of the short octave. Other examples of variations in keyboard design include the Jankó keyboard and the chromatic keyboard systems on the chromatic button accordion and bandoneón.

Description

Harpsichord with black keys for the C major scale

The twelve notes of the Western musical scale are laid out with the lowest note on the left;^[1] The longer keys (for the seven "natural" notes of the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B) jut forward. Because these keys were traditionally covered in ivory they are often called the white notes or white keys. The keys for the remaining five notes—which are not part of the C major scale—(i.e.,C♯/D♭, D♯/E♭, F♯/G♭, G♯/A♭, A♯/B♭) (see Sharp and Flat) are raised and shorter. Because these keys receive less wear, they are often made of black colored wood and called the black notes or black keys. The pattern repeats at the interval of an octave.
The arrangement of longer keys for C major with intervening, shorter keys for the intermediate semitones dates to the 15th century. Many keyboard instruments dating from before the nineteenth century, such as harpsichords and pipe organs, have a keyboard with the colours of the keys reversed: the white notes are made of ebony and the black notes are covered with softer white bone. A few electric and electronic instruments from the 1960s and subsequent decades have also done this; Vox's electronic organs of the 1960s, Farfisa's FAST portable organs, Hohner's Clavinet L, one version of Korg's Poly-800 synthesizer and Roland's digital harpsichords.
Some 1960s electronic organs used reverse colors or gray sharps or naturals to indicate the lower part(s) of a split keyboard: one divided into two parts, each of which produces a different Registration or sound. Such keyboards allow melody and contrasting accompaniment to be played without the expense of a second manual and were a regular feature in Spanish and some English organs of the renaissance and baroque. The break was between middle C and C-sharp, or outside of Iberia between B and C. Broken keyboards reappeared in 1842 with the harmonium, the split occurring at e4/f4.
The reverse-colored keys on Hammond organs such as the B3, C3 and A100 are latch-style radio buttons for selecting pre-set sounds.