7. Playing with accompaniment (Arranger)
7.1 What is an Arranger?
Think of the Arranger’s Music Styles as your backup band. Your
You are the band leader, which means that you have to tell the members of your band what to play, including how many bars there are to each song part and how the melody and/or solo should be accompanied.
There are two main levels: Basic and Advanced, each consisting of two divisions called Original and Variation.
As the name implies, Basic is the “normal” accompa- niment level, with the basic ingredients of a profes- sional sounding accompaniment. The Advanced level may contain another version of the selected Music Style or a more elaborate one. On either level (Basic and Advanced) you can choose between the Original accompaniment or an alternative (called Variation). The latter usually adds one or two parts to the current accompaniment.
If you want the accompaniment to become more com- plex as the song evolves, here is a useful sequence:
Typical song structure
1st Verse | 2nd Verse | 1st Chorus | 3rd Verse | 2nd Chorus |
|
|
|
|
|
Basic | Basic/ | Advanced/ | Basic/ | Advanced/ |
Original | Variation | Original | Variation | Variation |
Other elements help you refine the accompaniment. Instead of abruptly changing to Advanced/Original, you may want to play a short transition to announce a new part of the song. That is what Fill In [TO VARIA- TION] and [TO ORIGINAL] are for.
See “Switching Style arrangements (divisions)” on page 28 for other Music Style divisions and functions you can use to create a professional sounding accom- paniment.
Each accompaniment (or Music Style) consists of up to five parts:
Rhythm— This part takes care of the drums and percussion.
Bass— This part plays the bass line of the selected Music Style.
Accomp. 1~3— These are the melodic accompani- ment parts. Certain Music Styles use this feature, play- ing anything from a piano line to a guitar line, an organ line to a synth pad line.
The bass and accompaniment parts rely on the chord or note information you play in the chord recognition area, i.e. the keyboard zone you have assigned to the Arranger (originally the left half of the keyboard).
Also note that you can use the drum patterns of a Music Style in other One Touch Program modes (Piano and Organ). These patterns can be started in the same way as entire Music Styles (with bass and melodic accompaniments). See “Starting and Stop- ping Styles” on page 26.
Settings
Press the One Touch Program [ARRANGER] button.
The
•The Sync Start function is turned on. This means that the Arranger will start as soon as you begin playing with your left hand.
•The Intro function is activated so that Style playback will start with a musical introduction.
•The keyboard is split at F#3. Use your left hand to “transpose” the accompaniment pattern(s), and play the melody with your right hand.
•It selects a suitable (preset) tempo as well as an Upper Tone for the selected Music Style.
■ Additional notes
•To change the split point, see “Lower Tone on/off and split point” on page 44.
•As in Split mode, the
•See “Auto: changing the Arranger defaults” on page 44 if you don’t want the
Piano Style Arranger — chord recognition on the entire keyboard
If you press the [WHOLE] button after pressing the One Touch Program [ARRANGER] button, the entire keyboard will be scanned for chord information for the Arranger. Let’s call this mode Piano Style Arranger mode.
The Arranger decodes every chord you play – no mat- ter where you play it. Causing the Arranger to play another chord requires that you play at least a triad
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