Keyboard offers a wide variety of instrumental sounds, in addition to the basic piano sound. Even fairly inexpensive ones usually also offer preprogrammed rhythms or styles and "auto-chord" accompaniment, which provides a harmonic background against which you can play a melody. Higher end keyboards have touch sensitivity, allowing you to vary your volume by how hard you strike a key, and midi capacity, which lets you connect your keyboard to your computer to use -writing and practice with software.

The instrumental sound you choose is called a voice. Before you play a song, choose a voice that you like. Practice selecting different voices, and remember the setting for the ones you prefer. Look your keyboard owner's manual to help you. When you play the songs you can use any sound you wish.  The rhythm controls provide drumbeats to play along with.

The drum rhythms can be changed to suit the kind of song you are playing. Moreover you will find Yamaha tabla styles like kehrva, dadra, teentaal, rupak and jhaptaal in our website. If you have a keyboard equipped with floppy drive or USB  then you may copy these styles in your keyboard user memory to play along music.  Melody keys are used to play the tune of the song with your right hand. The chord keys are used to play chords with your left hand. This makes the song sound full and beautiful with harmonic voice. If you do not know how to play chords then you may use auto chord along with the melody. A MIDI keyboard is a piano-style digital keyboard device used for sending MIDI signals or commands to other devices (computer) connected to the same interface as the keyboard. MIDI is an acronym for musical instrument digital Interface (protocol). The basic MIDI keyboard does not produce sound. Instead, MIDI information is sent to an electronic module capable of reproducing an array of digital sounds or samples that resemble traditional analog musical instruments. These samples are also referred as voices. An encoding scheme is used to map a MIDI value to a specific instrument sample. For more detail click our keyboard lessons link above. The data composed via the sequenced MIDI recordings can be saved as a Standard MIDI File (SMF). MIDI data files are much smaller than recorded audio files.

Keeping Nisar Bazmi's Legacy Alive

Nisar Bazmi brought a new flavor into the world of music. His tunes mainly had urban touch to them. He also gave many new singers to the industry like Runa Laila, Naheed Akhtar, Mehnaz and Alamgir. The duo of composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal were his assistants in India before the independence. However, he is primarily remembered for his compositions in the voice of playback singer Ahmed Rushdi. Bazmi composed music for film "Jamana Paar", in India in the year 1946. After partition Nisar Bazmi migrated to Lahore.

Keyboard is an electric version of the piano. The sounds from a piano are made by the mechanical action of the keys hitting mallets (hammer) on strings. In other words we can say a keyboard is electronic instrument whereas a piano is a percussion instrument meaning it makes it's sound by being struck. Pianos are referred to as an acoustic mechanical instrument which produces its own unique sound. Keyboards usually refer to electronic instrumentation with various digital voices, however the keys are laid out the same as the piano.

Even a high quality keyboard isn't a substitute for the sound of a good piano, but it's an affordable way to get started playing with keyboard, and has the advantage of portability. If you're considering buying a keyboard, we would suggest going for one with full size 61 keys, as opposed to the "miniature" options out there. You don't have to have the full 88-key range of the keyboard but 61 key keyboard is better selection.  It is important that the keys themselves should be the same size as piano keys. Yamaha PSR S-970 keyboard have Mic/Guitar input for use when singing or collaborating with other performers.

When any beginner start playing the keyboard, he have absolutely no clue about chords. Beginners used to wonder how do people play using both their hands. Go to chords section of our website and it will yield good results. When musicians play three or more different notes at the same time, this creates a chord. An example of a major chord is the three pitches C, E and G. An example of a minor chord is the three pitches A, C and E.

The notes of the C major chord correspond to Sa, Ga and Pa of the raga shankarabharanam. Shankarabaranam is a 2015 Indian Telugu-language crime comedy film written by Kona Venkat and the directorial debut of Uday Nandanavanam. It is produced by MVV Sathyanarayana under the Banner MVV Cinema. The music is composed by Praveen Lakkaraju and cinematography is by Richard Prasad and the film editing by A. Sreekar Prasad. The film was a remake of 2010 Hindi film Phas Gaye Re Obama.

If you have a phrase that emphasizes on the Sa, c major chord is an obvious choice. But since Ga and Pa are also present in the C major chord, you can try the C major chord over melody lines which emphasizes the Ga or Pa too. In any given key or scale you can play in, there are primary chords. They are like family members of that particular key. In any given scale in Indian keyboard or desi keyboard, there are 3 "family members" that are residents of that key,  these are the  (I) chord, the (IV) chord, and the (V) chord. They are far the most likely chords to occur in any given key. For example, if I am playing in the Key or scale of C, and the first chord is the C chord and I have to guess what the next chord is, I would guess that it would be either the F chord or the G chord. Why? Because those are the other "family members". To see all family members of all keys and to find other family members visit Indian chords section in our website. Indian keyboards or desi keyboards terms are only used to show that we are dealing with Indian music e.g. sa re ga ma. In Indian music system we still can use western chords with melody.

Harmonium or Reed Organ is a keyboard instrument similar to a pipe organ. Harmonium consists of reeds and sound is produced by air being pushed or sucked over reeds resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion. The sound from a harmonium is identical as the sound of a accordion and belongs to the accordion family. In accordion or harmonium stream of air is pumped through a reed. The reeds are a series of thin brass tongue set into the opening of a heavier brass base. Each base is roughly 1/4 inch by 2 inches. There must be a minimum of one reed per key while two or three are the most common. The thin tongue vibrates when air passes through the opening. Small thin reeds have a higher pitch than wider longer thicker reeds.

Coupler is a mechanical feature of a harmonium, which allows double key function. It automatically presses the corresponding key of the next octave when any key is pressed. The result is that playing one key engages two reeds simultaneously. This arrangement produces a much richer sound than an uncoupled keyboard. The coupler may be engaged or disengaged by the user with knobs attached to the harmonium. There is one advanced kind of harmonium which is called scale changer harmonium. This is an elaborate mechanical arrangement whereby the entire keyboard may be shifted up or down. The keys are connected with cloth tape allowing them to be slide up or down the scale from note to note. One can easily change the key of a al piece by sliding the keyboard, rather than learning a new fingering technique. The best fingering technique is to start learning harmonium from first black key or first white key. To play harmonium first black key is recommended. In advance stage you can also learn to play harmonium from any key. In scale changer harmonium you need not to learn to start playing from other keys. Note that a precaution should be taken while buying scale-changing harmonium, as the failure rate is very high rather deplorable!

However, harmonium is also a keyboard, and so these lessons apply equally to the harmonium as well as to the electronic synthesizer keyboard/piano. The important difference between keyboard and harmonium is that you can - and do play the keys with your left hand also; but for harmonium, your left hand is used in pumping the bellow to force air under pressure into the inside of the harmonium. In keyboard our left hand is used for chords. An ordinary keyboard is sufficient to master all the lessons that will follow. If you already have a keyboard, you do not need to buy anything else as of now. For solo performances, you may use a synthesizer keyboard or a harmonium, depending upon your taste, convenience and availability. Harmonium traditionally suits better for accompaniment during performance of ghazals, geet, thumri etc. For more detail visit our harmonium lessons.

Natural notes (pure or major) are called shudh notes which are shown as S, R, G, m, P, D, N. The notes, or swars, are Shadj, Rekhab, Gandhar, Madhyam, Pancham, Dhaivat and Nikhad. When singing these become Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, and sargam stands for "Sa-Re-Ga-Ma". Only these syllables are sung, and further designations are never vocalized. When writing these become, S, R, G, m, P, D, N. A sign of apostrophe on the right side of a letter (S') indicates the octave higher, a sign of apostrophe on the left side of a letter ('S) indicates the octave lower. Re, Ga, Dha, and Ni may be either tiver or komal; Ma may be either shudh or tivar and is then called tiver Ma. Sa and Pa are immovable (once Sa is selected),

Don't think there is anything that you can practice that will have as much an impact on your playing as sargam. Take the sargam challenge. Play the sargam every night for one month and then re-assess your playing skills afterward. With sargam practice anyone will be able to play songs without notations help.

In other words Sargam is the collection of notes or the swar of the scale. It has been mentioned earlier how notes of the sargam relate to the western scale. Practicing to play sargam is bit like weight training. Basic rules of weight training are to start with simple exercises with lightweights. As you get comfortable with lightweights, you increase repetitions or increase the weight you are lifting. You also focus on muscle group you work on. You go to heavier and more complex exercises after you feel comfortable with the basic exercises. When we say sargam, we don't just mean a scale of notes but it means the act of playing the sargam. Playing the sargam is the single most important thing you can do when you are learning harmonium or keyboard. When beginning to learn harmonium, the teachers should not stress the playing of the sargam too much or enforce it. After all, there is nothing joyous about playing one note after the other in succession, over and over again. Getting students into sargam is a challenge.

Sargam fixes everything. If your right hand is not strong enough, sargam fixes that. If you are not confident in class, sargam fixes that. If you don't know where the notes are at the beginning, or how to sit properly for long periods of time or need discipline or you are trying to increase your speed or clarity or timing or rhythm, sargam fixes all. Sargam needs great practice, but it doesn't have to be boring. Nothing is more boring than playing the same notes over and over again, so spice up your sargam with some of the variations. This will sound like you are actually playing something else.

There are various books written on harmonium or keyboard but no suitable book is available on basics. These books were for advance learning and lessons were difficult to follow. Our e.book of sargam ID-4466 is the first effort to produce sargam lessons in easy and with simplified exercises. With these lessons you will be able to play and sing-along with your harmonium or keyboard. All the exercises are produced with simple diagrams, videos and notations. With ten thaat and thirty short sargam video lessons, you will be able to learn without and instructor or teacher. Thanks to great composer Nisar Bazmi sahib and all those colleagues who cooperated with us in compiling these fundamental lessons. For more detail visit our sargam section.

There are twelve scales in western keyboard system and ten thaat in harmonium system. Learn singing while playing harmonium with ten thaat. Most harmonium students do not have correct approach learning harmonium and in the end they can only play harmonium but cannot sing-along their harmonium notes. We have prepared video lessons of ten thaat individually with three types of sargam exercises. These ten thaat video sargam lessons are divided into 30 short parts for easy download. In these video lessons raga based films songs are also provided for practice with each thaat along with alaap, akaar and meend. These video lessons are comprehensive and require no extra books. The best and fastest way to learn is to use these video lessons is in conjunction with our e.book ID-3366 and e.book ID-4466.

Lakshan geet is a raag or raaga geet and its verses show the mood and the details of particular properties. It also teaches the way of singing and completely show the picture of the raga . Lakshan geet is probably the most typical fixed composition used for vocal instruction. This is a style of singing where the lyrics of the song actually describe the features of the raga .

If the lakshan geet is memorized, one will never forget the raga and its properties. Throughout ones life, whenever the raga is heard the words keep coming back. In our lakshan geet tutorial  asavari lakshan geet is sung in a beautiful style by Iqbal Yousuf Ramzi who is a ghazal geet singer. This lakshan geet will show what is real mood and properties of raga asavari and you will be able to play asavari songs in a better way shortly after listening lakshan geet.

The word alaap means a dialog or conversation. Alaap is a dialog between the musician and the raga. The purpose of including an alaap in a composition is for the singer to set the scene for the composition itself. In order to tell a story emotionally, the storyteller is required to set the scene for the listener. The alaap prepares the listener to receive the emotions from the singer. Suspense is also being built up through the alaap for the listener.

In other words, alaap is the beginning part of the raga, starts with the key note of the mode it uses, that is “Sa”, both in the instrumental and vocal pieces. The tempo at the beginning is usually slow in order to show the scale and the key structure of the melody. There is no drum in this section; if it is a piece of vocal music, there are no lyrics with it.

The asthayee is the first part of the main melodies in the raga. It consists of two music phrases, and is the most important part that shows the raga’s main musical ideas. In vocal music, this part always comes with lyrics. Antra, which originally meant “the rhyme of the poem,” it can also be translated as “stanza". The length and times of improvisations mainly depend on the feelings of the performers.

Alankars are different sets of the swar that will enable you to practice and familiarize yourself with the different sounds. You should practice these till you can play them correctly without looking at the keyboard. While you practice how to play, please sing-along too so that you can improve your voice and can learn how to sing more in tune.

Alankaars are extremely useful for practice and are a great way of getting familiar with your keyboard or harmonium. In this website there are some Alankars for practice; try to play them continuously for an extended period of time; its extremely important that your fingers move smoothly on the keyboard because when you are playing a metered melody, an extra second's hesitation is enough to send you out of synchronization with the taal or rhythm.

 Harmonium Video

Ramzi Film Song