The instrument 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 drum beats to play along with. These rhythm beats are also called styles..  The drum rhythms can be changed to suit the kind of song you are playing. You will also find tabla styles like kehrva, dadra, jhaptaal with my book. If you have a keyboard equipped with floppy drive then you may copy these styles in your keyboard user memory.  Melody keys are used to play the tune of  the song. Use your right hand. The chord keys are used to play along with the melody with your left hand. This  make the song sound full and beautiful. If you do not know how to play chords then you may use auto chord along with the melody. 

Learning Keyboard in Desi Style

The article here is to teach you keyboard in Desi Style and in the end you will be able to play Indian and Pakistani film songs. Harmonium, keyboard and synthesizer keyboard are taken to mean the same thing, and are called simply the "keyboard". The  notations are used to describe the keys on the keyboard: For convenience, the reference note, called the tonic or the key or the Sa, is assumed to be the first white key, indicated in the diagram by the letter "S". If you want to sing you may assign any key as "Sa", according to your voice scale. The technique how to assign any key as "Sa" in a sargam (seven sur)  will be explained in detail in Sargam section  this book. 

In this article the fingering of keyboard are also used in harmonium learning. We will assign same fingers in keyboard  as well as harmonium so, that we will not face any difficulty if we play both instruments. Most people who play harmonium are not able to play keyboard perfectly. But now you will be able to play both instruments with ease 

Keyboard And Computer Music

Music can be defined as collection of small pieces of regular sound played at predefined time interval.  It is the small water droplets that make the ocean, like wise music is also an ocean that  is made up of  small parts, it is called “note”.  An ingenious collection of these notes played over a period of time results in a melody which could be a Mehdi Hassan  or A . Rahman  song.  Hence both  western and Indian or  for that matter any  form of regular music has a set of basic notes from which they grow, something like alphabets.  There is new concept  evolving called “computer music”  where a musician  explores beyond the basic  notes  that  are defined  in music.  In cakewalk  it is possible to explore beyond basics. Today  almost all  the keyboards are computerized and produce MIDI music.  MIDI means  musical  instruments digital  interface. Midi music is editable in computer or MIDI keyboards.

Let us see more on Notes.  “Notes” what are they?  Note can be technically explained as a sound frequency. Actually the sound that is produced when you press a key on musical keyboard is called as “NOTE”.  It does  not matter  if you press  the white key or the black key. Each key plays a predefined frequency. A frequency is number of cycles per second. The note gets its shape by the amount of time you hold down the key and release it.  This is called the note length or duration.  Hence to make a “tune” or a “melody” or “song”  you should play a bunch of these notes at proper duration and length. Before going more into it, let us explore the keyboard. This is called the note length or duration.

Western Music Notes Verses Indian

Before we can learn  how to play  scales  chords  and various progressions it is vital that we  learn  the notes on  keyboard  and how  they relate  to each  other. The  best  way to describe the notes on the keyboard  is by comparing  them to the notes of the alphabets. The first seven notes of the keyboard are ( A - B - C - D -E - F - G ). Each note differ with each  other in sound.  Notice that  the seven notes  of  keyboard  repeat themselves over and over again. The notes sounds the same but the pitch differs. For example if you play C and move to  the right  until you  find  the next C,   you  will  notice  that if you  play them simultaneously, both notes sounds the same but one is higher than the other

Please read carefully:

Middle C marks the center of the keyboard. As you will notice the C Major is the easiest and simplest scale of the twelve. In C Major Scale you may play the song "Ik pyar kaa nagma hai".  It consists all the  white keys from  any starting  C  to  the next octave  C in western system.  If we start  thaat bilawal from white middle key 'C' then the bilawal thaat will  become  C major Scale  of  western  music. Bilawal  is  same as  Cmaj.  This is the secret of  Desi Style learning. You can play  all the  songs of Raga and Thaat Bilawal in Western Scale too.

A standard  semi professional music  keyboard  has 48 keys.  You  will see  4 sets  of  12 keys.  This 12  set of notes  is technically called  an  octave. Why 12, why not  13?, Good question.  The aim of  this article is to keep it simple;  Western  is  based  on  logarithmic division. Read the information below, and try to remember it.  You can start playing Indian or Pakistani  song  from any  note.  And starting note will  always  become  our  reference note or Sa. Remaining notes will  be arranged  according to Thaat or scale of the song. It is easy to start our hindi scale or thaat  from black key. In western music also,  Fifth  note from C is as 5^th . In Indian music “Sa” note is  based on your reference note or the key you selected for starting point as Sa. You can start playing Indian  or  Pakistani  song  from  any note.  And  starting  note  will  always  become  our reference note or  Sa.  Remaining  notes will  be arranged  according to Thaat or scale of the song. We can further go in deep by playing song in raga of that particular thaat.  

In the western music system the “C note” itself does not change and  “scales” denotes the pitch changes. Western music system has an “absolute” naming for the keys whereas in Indian  the notation is “relative. Desi music have combined  both. In the seven tone-scale the second,  third,  fourth,  sixth,  and seventh  notes  can  be sharp or flat,  making up the twelve notes in the Western scale. However, ragas can specify microtonal changes to this scale: a flatter second, a sharper seventh, and so forth. Furthermore, such variations can occur between styles, performers or simply follow the mood of the performer. There is no absolute pitch; instead, each performance simply picks a ground note, and the other scale degrees follow relative to the ground note.

Note:  “Sa” does not “map” always onto “C”.  It could  start at F and still form a S R G M PD N scale in which case the corresponding western notes also change.   In the western music system the “C note” itself does not change and  “scales” denotes the pitch changes. Thus Western music system has an “absolute” naming for the keys whereas in Indian  the notation is “relative. Presently you may relate the “Sa” of Indian  to “C” of Western which is fortunately identical to each other .  A Scale is a set of 7 notes in a proper order and interval. Just remember this, a scale is set of 7 notes with predefined intervals. The distance between each note is called as interval. It is true that  scales and ragas are not same. You have  learned about raga in raga section of the book. Apart from having seven different notes, there are not many similarities. There is a huge difference between a scale and raga in tonal quality or the sound density. 

Raga has many dimensions to it. First,  it has an emotional overtone.  Just mere traversing SA to SA can be called as a major scale or Cmaj. Though the notes and intervals are just the same. A raga can have 4 or more notes with intervals. This kind of reduction of notes in a scale is called as modes in Western classical music. Experts believe proper training is required to play Ragas fluently. This comes by good practice and understanding of note usage. A western trained top-notch musician will be able play a phrase of 1/64 note at a good speed but will find it difficult to play raga without proper training. It is the reason that western music is fast. Indian music is melodic in nature while western music is harmonic in nature. Chords produce harmony. I hope now you will be ready to believe that it is not possible to play Indian songs with western training. Desi Style is the mixture of Western & Indian.