The operating system of TYROS, PSR1/2/3000 keyboards and CVP200/300 Clavinova digital pianos have a great deal in common - so we hope this series will provide a useful workshop for owners of each of these instruments. Part 6 In October I received a letter from Derek Kirkup of Gateshead who had written to the Yamaha Club asking about step-recording a chord sequence. By way of an answer I ve put together a little exercise based on a tune I m sure you ll recognise... Style: Christmas Waltz Tempo: 88 b.p.m. Silent Night composed by Franz Gruber 8 bars Intro C / / C / / C / / C / / Bars 1-8 (Intro) 9 10 11 12 G7 / / G7 / / C / / C7 / / F / / 13 14 15 16 17 Dm7 / G7 C / / C / / F / / Dm7 / G7 18 19 20 21 22 C / / C / / Dm7 / / G7 / / C / / 23 24 Fill-in ------------------ 25 26 27 D7 / / C / / G7 / / C / / C / / 28 29 30 31 32 Bars 33-34 (Ending) 10 DECEMBER 2006 / JANUARY 2007
Step Recording A Chord Sequence 1. Preparation: I think it s essential to have a clear idea of the chord sequence in my mind before I begin to record. For me it helps enormously to have the chords written out (as a sort of diagram) so that I can see just (a) which chords are needed, (b) in which order they should be played and (c) how many bars/beats each chord should play for... This is why I ve provided my version of the score for Silent Night opposite. Having established this it s time to find a suitable accompaniment style. This is easy because Silent Night, as one of the most popular Christmas carols, is featured in the Music Finder list. (Fig. 1) Fig. 2. This information gives the instrument the important instructions it will need to reproduce the style you have chosen when it eventually plays back the completed chord sequence. The fact that this is done automatically is a bonus - believe me! d) Select [STEP REC.] from the screen Fig. 1. The screen shows me that the style recommended by Yamaha for Silent Night is called Christmas Waltz (at a tempo of 88 b.p.m.) and, just to get the feel of this, I play a C major chord (because the piece is written in the key of C major) in the accompaniment part of the keyboard. The Intro (Intro 3) starts to play as soon as I strike the keys and it s obvious straight away that this style was written with Silent Night in mind. I shall want to include the Intro pattern in my recording so I listen to it again and make a note on the score how many bars it lasts... eight bars. Music Finder has also set an appropriate sound for my right hand and I m quite happy to accept the selection. 2. Recording the chords: Right... down to the serious business of recording the chords. The step record feature is ideal for anyone who has trouble changing their left-hand chords quickly enough to keep up with the music. The chords are entered into the recording one by one - as you ll see - giving you plenty of time to find the right notes for each. a) Press the [DIGITAL RECORDING] button on the panel of your instrument. b) Select SONG CREATOR from the screen. c) Use the [TAB] buttons (sometimes labelled NEXT on older instruments) to go to the CHORD display where you ll find that some information relating to the Christmas Waltz style has already been entered in the program. (Fig.2) Fig. 3. With the screen display as shown in Fig. 3 select the breve (full bar) icon highlighted above. For as long as this icon is selected each chord you play will last for one full bar. e) Make sure the INTRO 3 lamp is illuminated and then find the notes of a C Major chord on the keyboard. f) Play the chord eight times (once for each bar of the intro pattern s duration). The screen now looks like this... (Fig.4) Fig. 4. DECEMBER 2006 / JANUARY 2007 11
Note: If you can only count seven Chord C Maj in your display at this point don t worry. The first one is entered near the top of the list. g) Check the BAR/BEAT/CLOCK reading at the bottom of the screen. This tells us that the instrument is now ready and waiting to record bar 9. (Fig.5) Fig. 5. Note: You ll see that I ve marked the score on page 10 with bar numbers. Bars 1-8 (not shown) are taken up by the Intro pattern and so the main body of the carol begins at bar 9. h) Now we re into the body of the song and so I select the [MAIN VARIATION - A] button. This change is registered in the display as shown in Fig.6. Fig. 6. i) C Major is the first chord in the score and follows straight on from the Intro. The same chord plays for the next four bars - so play the C Major chord four times on the keyboard. j) At bar 13 the chord changes to G7 - which plays for two bars. So... after checking to make sure that the BAR/BEAT/CLOCK indicator is showing 013/1/0000, find the notes of a G7 and play the chord twice. k) At bar 15 it s back to C Major for one bar - followed by C7 for the next at bar 16. l) Find the notes to input an F Major chord at bar 17 - and then things start to get a little more interesting... There are two chords in bar 18... (Oh heck!) So far we ve used the breve icon to set each chord to a full bar duration. Now it s time to discover what the other icons are for. The Dm7 chord at the beginning of bar 18 plays for two beats. Here again you can see the value of planning because my score also shows the duration of each chord so I can easily work out how many beats to assign. m) Select the minim (two beats) icon. Find the notes of a Dm7 chord and play it once. Now take a look at the screen... (Fig.7) Fig. 7. The BAR indicator is still showing bar 18 - but the BEAT indicator tells you that the instrument is now waiting for BEAT 3. n) Select the crotchet (one beat) icon. Then find the notes for G7 and play the chord on the keyboard. Now the BAR indicator shows that bar 18 is complete and the instrument is ready to start bar 19. (Fig. 8) Fig. 8. o) It s back to the breve (full bar) icon for a C Major chord which lasts the whole of bar 19... p) The same chord continues for two beats into bar 20 - so select the minim icon and play C Major again. q) Switch to the crotchet (one beat) icon and play a C7 chord to complete bar 20. 12 DECEMBER 2006 / JANUARY 2007
r) At bar 21 select the breve icon and play an F major chord. s) At bar 22 select the minim icon and strike a Dm7 chord - then change to the crotchet icon to complete the bar with a G7 chord... t) Then, at bar 23 it s back to the breve icon for another C Major chord. u) At bar 24 it s C Major again - but before you play the chord switch on the [AUTO FILL IN] button and press the [MAIN VARIATION C] button. Then play the C Major chord. 3. Save the chord sequence as a SONG file: We haven t quite finished yet. Before we can safely leave the program the sequence must be saved in the instrument s memory as a MIDI or SONG file. This is so the keyboard will recognise the data as a SONG when you want to play back the sequence. This is what you do... 1) Press the [EXIT] button once. This will take you out of the STEP RECORD window and back to the CHORD page of the Song Creator display. 2) Press [EXPAND]. At the prompt Do you want to convert the data? press [YES] (Fig.11) Fig. 9. The display shows the Fill-in (Fig.9) v) With the breve icon selected play a Dm7 chord at the start of bar 25, followed by a G7 chord at bar 26. w) Play a C Major chord for the duration of bar 27. x) Press the [MAIN VARIATION C] button at bar 28 to add a Fill in to the recording - then play the notes of a D7 chord to complete the bar. y) Play C Major followed by G7 for bars 29 and 30. Then... If you only require one verse... z) Press the [ENDING 2] button - followed by C major played four times (this is the duration of the ending pattern). If you require more than one verse... z) Press the [INTRO 2] button before striking C Major four times (this is the duration of the INRO 2 pattern) to make a bridge into the second verse. This will take us back to where we pick up the body of the song at bar nine - and you repeat everything from there. Fig. 11. 3) Once this operation is complete press [SAVE]. (Fig.12) Fig. 12. 4) This takes you to the SONG USER page where you press [SAVE] again - give the song a name - i.e. Silent Night - and press [OK] Fig. 10. You can play through the chord sequence at any time using the buttons to the left of the display to scroll up (or down) the list to a point you want to listen from - and then pressing the [START/STOP] button in the STYLE CONTROL panel. Fig. 13. DECEMBER 2006 / JANUARY 2007 13
Congratulations! You ve completed the chord sequence. The screen reverts to the SONG CREATOR window but you can now safely leave the program by pressing the [DIRECT ACCESS] button followed by [EXIT] to take you back to the MAIN display window. Playing The Chord Sequence I used a CVP309 Clavinova during the preparation for this article but, as you ll have seen if you have been following it on a PSR1-3000, Tyros 1or 2, or CVP200 series instrument, they all work to a similar design. The way in which a SONG file is called up, however, differs more than usual between models. Some have [SONG SELECT] buttons whilst others do not - so I m going to use a method that should be common to all. I switched the Clavinova off so the MAIN display screen returns to its default setting - which looks like this... Fig. 14. a) Select the button adjacent to the part of the display that shows [SONG]. (Fig.14) b) Use the [TAB] (or NEXT) buttons to move to the USER page. Fig. 15. c) Look for the title of the song we have just saved - Silent Night d) Press the button adjacent to the title to select the song ready for playback. e) Press the [PLAY/PAUSE] button in your keyboard s SONG section to begin playback of the sequence. Add a melody to complete your recording Having recorded the chords in step-time you are now free to concentrate on playing the melody. Why not, once you have mastered this, add the melody voice to the chord sequence to complete the recording? This is what you do... 1) Load the Silent Night chord sequence into the SONG player as outlined above - so that it plays when you press the [PLAY/PAUSE] button. 2) Press the [REC] RECORD button Fig. 16. 3) Use the bottom part of buttons 1-8 under the screen to change the status of channels 9-16 from REC to ON. Channels 9-16 contain the accompaniment we have just created. By switching these channels to ON we protect these parts whilst allowing the melody voices to be recorded. 4) When you are ready to record the melody, press the [PLAY/PAUSE] button - and begin to play the tune after the eight bar intro. 5) When you have finished, press the [REC] button again to stop the recording. 6) To save the recording press the [REC] and [STOP] buttons together. A prompt asks... Song changed. Save? Select [YES] 7) Press [SAVE] and the current title - Silent Night - appears in the screen. If you press [OK] without changing the name the chord sequence file will be replaced with a new file containing the full recording you have just created. If you choose a new name (e.g. Silent 2) a new song file will be created under the new name containing the full recording you have just created - but the original chord sequence will still be preserved under the original Silent Night name. Sorry - this has been quite a long exercise, but I hope you ve had fun working your way through it with me. See you for more in the new year. All the best... 14 DECEMBER 2006 / JANUARY 2007