Keyboards with Lights that show Chord-Notes

iou – This page contains rough-and-incomplete ideas, gathered from another page

My main page explains how using a keyboard with colored labels (that show chord-notes of the most common chords) offers many benefits - musical, educational, psychological, time-and-life.

Another way to get these benefits is by using a keyboard with lights that shows chord-notes.

* How to get this kind of keyboard? If musicians want this feature, three possibilities are to... 1a) find a keyboard that now has the feature, or 1b) motivate a company to design it into a keyboard, perhaps by using their existing hardware but designing new software, or 2) find a “do it yourself” way by modifying a lighted keyboard with MIDI & software.

iou – What's below now (in the •'s, February 17) is just “reminders for myself” of ideas I want to develop soon, during February 18-24. The ideas include describing...

• the current state of features in lighted keyboards, and how we could supplement-and-improve the features that now are offered. The main current limitation is a focus on using lights to show individual notes, to help a player copy old melodies that already exist {instead of ALSO using lights to show all chord-notes, to help a player also improvise new melodies that are being created}. / Companies that currently have lighted keyboards include Yamaha, Casio, The One, Joy, Vango, and Best Choice, plus (with colors) LUMI & PopuPiano, and others. / an important disclaimer: I haven't yet done the research that's needed to know what features are-and-aren't currently offered, so maybe some keyboards already have some of the features that would “supplement-and-improve” the limited using-of-colors (almost entirely for playing old melodies, not for improvising new melodies) that I'm now assuming.

• ways to effectively use keyboards with lights that are only white or are RGB-colorized. Using colors offers important benefits for playing in the Key of C Major (and Key of A Minor).

• ways to program the keyboard so it synchronizes the changing-of-chords during a chord progression. Maybe this could be done by... having pre-programmed chord progressions (as in Yamaha's E373 & EZ300, but with better designing) that are a “backing track” for improvising, and include the lighting-up of all chord notes; designing ways to “tell the keyboard” WHAT to light-up and WHEN, during a chord progression, perhaps with what-and-when modules that can be downloaded into a keyboard, or with memory-registers that can accept external music ----- {to be continued} [[ iou – Of all the "•"s, this • soon will have the most “added value” with details (re: importing external music with videos or mp3's, plus other options) about ways to put functionalities of What-and-Where into a keyboard.

• the pros & cons of labels and lights, in their overlaps (the functions-and-benefits they both offer) plus the ways that each can be more beneficial than the other. For example, colored labels are better for helping a person develop a strong cognitive-and-functional knowledge of music theory; but lights are better for “scaling up” if my way-to-improvise becomes popular in music education for the young (in pre-K and K-12 schools) and/or old (in community centers and living facilities), and in homes for all ages; although I can DIY-colorize fairly quickly for a few keyboards, it does require time, and it would be more difficult for others (without the experience I've gained from my DIY-ing) to colorize with labels.

• zzz iou – Soon, during February 18-24, there will be more areas (with other kinds-of-ideas), and more details (both above and later in the page) about each area.

Below you'll find descriptions – beginning with quotes from the main page, but with extras – for a musically-valuable feature, for a keyboard that...

A) shows chord-notes with lights:

To make a lighted keyboard more musically useful, makers (or DIYers) could design an additional mode – beyond those now offered – so it “lights up all chord notes” (across the whole keyboard) for each chord being played – e.g. when playing in the key of C, for the main major chords (C,F,G - I,IV,V) or a minor chord (Dm,Em,Am - ii,iii,vi). The resulting benefits would be similar to my red-blue-green colorizing, but in some ways lighting would be better; and in other ways colorizing is better. { Many companies make a “lighted keyboard” but afaik the lights are used in other ways – mainly to show the notes of songs – although my Yamaha EZ-300 sometimes shows lights for a few chord notes but not all chord-notes. This is a wasted opportunity to show chord-notes so players can improvise harmonious melodies, similar to the musical benefits of a colorized keyboard. }

an update: November 3, I discovered the technologically advanced Lumi, with sophisticated RGB lighting. Later I found PopuPiano that is similar but with some differences. I began writing about these here, but it's too long, with many details — and there will be more information after I begin doing more research and discussing this in forums — so I've made another page [the one you're now reading] to discuss details and possibilities.

Designing "Lighting for Improvising"

[[ iou – Currently this section is just an outline, with incomplete sentences, etc. Soon, January 27-28, I'll write it more thoroughly and cleanly. ]]

programming the chords: It must be programmed to light all notes of each chord. e.g. for C (all C's, all E's, all G's) across the whole keyboard. But it can do more than with color-labels because it also could include supplemented chords like C7 (lighting every C, E, G, Bb).

programming the chord progressions: e.g. for a simple CP of C-F-G-C, tell the keyboard to light up a C-Chord, then F-Chord, G-Chord, C-Chord.

changing the chord in a progression: If an internal built-in "song" is a CP (like C-F-G-C or 12-Bar Blues, or 50s Progression) the programming also can include instructions to change the lighting as each chord changes. This would be similar to the programming of Yamaha EZ-300, which has built-in CP's and lights up SOME chord-notes. The main change would be lighting up ALL chord-notes. / Or the CP sequencing can be programmed-in, but with the timing controlled by a foot pedal, operated by the KB-player.

Two keyboards – Lumi and PopuPiano – have lighted keyboards with many of the features I want. But each of them also has features I don't like, that would make these impractical for the kind of Keyboard Lab I'm imagining would be useful for K-12 schools or for seniors in living facilities or community centers. Or for players of any age, at home. {high cost, size of keys, range of notes}

Based on the little I've learned so far, it seems that the major innovations were done by Roli {company} in designing-and-manufacturing their Lumi {keyboard}; and then many of Lumi's features were copied by PopuPiano. But I'm not sure, and this might be wrong.

PROS:

colorized lights: the keyboards have LED's that are pure-RGB, and their software does color-mixing to produce other colors. {update: Maybe this is wrong, and each light is a single-color LED so that's the only color it can show.}

unlimited number of lighted notes;

sophisticated software that can do many interesting things; I assume these include light-ups for all notes (thru whole keyboard) for each chord in any chord progression; and I assume that each note can have different colors, depending... e.g. C could be red when it's the 1-Note of a C-Chord, but blue when it's the 5-Note of an F-Chord.

CONS:

high prices: compared with cheaper alternatives for a "budget" keyboard lab.

strange colors: PopuPiano has two versions, with keys that (when unlighted) are either "all white" or "all black" instead of the "white and black" that is standard.

mini-keys: they are not the full-sized keys that – especially for a k-12 school with young students – would let a player develop correct "spatial skills" for traditional two-hand playing (without looking).

limited range of notes: Lumi has "units" that can be connected magnetically, so each isolated unit is "musically crippled" by missing a note it should have; e.g. Lumi has only 24 notes (not the typical 61, or even 32 or 37 with mini-keyboards) that are C-thru-C-to-B, and many melodies that would use the top-C cannot be played. Similarly, PopuPiano has 29 keys, C-thru-C-thru-C-to-E, instead of having a top-F and top-G that would be very useful for melodies. / My preference is for notes-below-C that go down thru G and F, and notes-above-C that go up thru F and G. Or just have "whole octaves" as in the typical numbers of keys (25, 37, 49, 61) that allow melodies going down to a low-C and up to a high-C.

Lumi: Like other lighted keyboards, its main focus is to "show the notes of songs" but it also has a "jam" mode that might (I don't yet know) "light up all chord-notes." Today (Nov 7) I looked at the manual for Lumi and it says nothing about a "Jam" mode, so – if this even exists – I don't know what it does with the lights; I don't know that it doesn't "light up all chord-notes," I just don't know that it does this. The answer is “yes” according to musicradar saying "if you want to jam rather than just copy every note in a song, you can choose to have the chords in a song light up so that you can improvise around them," and this seems to be what I want. / It got mostly-negative personal reviews in Reddit. But I haven't yet looked at other reviews, except to search 8 of them for "jam" without finding this word in any review, except briefly (with no details) by musicradar. Also, for my purposes – showing how to make a functional keyboard lab for reasonable cost – it's not promising, due to its 24 keys (not even two full C-to-C-to-C octaves with 25) that cripples it musically, and its high cost ($249 plus a monthly subscription fee of $80 annually), and (based on the reviewers in Reddit) unreliability of its hardware, since an educational keyboard lab should be virtually maintenance-free. Sigh. After seeing it initially, I had high hopes, but so far (based on the little I've found) it doesn't seem to be a reasonable option for keyboard labs, or for most individuals. / There are many other lighted keyboards, and I'll "ask in forums" to see if other people know more about what's now available (do any "light up all chord-notes"?) and the possibilities for DIY-modifying, or persuading a current maker to modify their software so their keyboard can light-up all chord notes.

iou – I'll continue searching for information, will post "what I'm learning" here, or maybe in an appendix (at the end of this page) or even in a separate page.

Here are some extra comments now:

Probably this feature would be economically practical only for a company that already has a keyboard that now (as-is) has lighted keys as part of its hardware. For one of these companies, "lighting all chord-notes" would be mainly software-based (thus easier and more practical, more likely to happen) instead of hardware-based. And...

Maybe the software would have to be included "within the keyboard" (thus 1a or 1b) instead of being added-on with a DIY solution (2).

Maybe the existing hardware cannot supply enough electrical current to light up ALL chord-notes instead of only a few chord-notes; but maybe it has enough capacity to light MORE chord notes, e.g. on a 61-note keyboard instead of lighting 5.08 12-note octaves (C thru C) it lights only 2.67 octaves (beginning with the "middle F" thru the next-higher C, plus C# thru B, and the highest C# thru C), or maybe only 2.08 octaves (C thru C thru C), with either option (2.67 octaves or 2.08 octaves) giving a player enough range-of-notes to creatively improvise melodies. Another 1b-solution (with new designing by a keyboard maker) would be to increase a keyboard's ability to light MORE notes (or ALL notes) with increased capacity for electrical current.

The chord-notes could include supplementary notes, like the flatted-7 of 7th chords. Of course, this would increase the electrical current that's required, due to having 4 chord-notes (in each octave) instead of 3 chord-notes.

When comparing keyboards with chord-note lighting and chord-note colorizing, the main similarity is... giving intuitive-and-instant recognition of chord-notes, with similar benefits (musical, psychological, educational, time-and-life). But there are differences: chord-colorizing can be done with any keyboard, but only some keyboards (currently a small minority) could be chord-lighted; but if a keyboard lab uses chord-lighting there is no need to decide "how many should be colorized and not-colorized" because every lighted keyboard can easily become lighted-or-unlighted by pushing an on-or-off button.

[ iou – By mid-November, here I'll describe other benefits of lighted vs colorized. And my suggestion that IF a keyboard lab has mostly lighted keyboards – if this somehow becomes possible & practical – it should have at least one colorized keyboard, and we should encourage students to consider the possibility of colorizing their own personal keyboard (if they have one) that they use outside the lab. ]

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Here are additional details – that soon will be combined with the details above – quoted from my page for Do-it-Yourself Colorizing:

Its main focus is to "show the notes of songs" but it also has a "jam" mode that may "light up all chord-notes." Today (Nov 7) I looked at the manual for Lumi and it says nothing about a "Jam" mode, so – if this even exists – I don't know what it does with the lights; I don't know that it doesn't "light up all chord-notes," I just don't know that it does this. The answer is “yes” according to musicradar saying "if you want to jam rather than just copy every note in a song, you can choose to have the chords in a song light up so that you can improvise around them," and this seems to be what I want. I have a feeling that the notes of a chord will be different colors (i.e. C would be one color, while E & G would be other colors) but maybe this limitation could be overcome; this would be easy (because it could be done with software) IF each key is capable of showing multiple colors, but I think their current version has only a single color for each key.

It got mostly-negative personal reviews in Reddit. But I haven't yet looked at other reviews, except to search 8 of them for "jam" without finding this word in any review, except briefly (with no details) by musicradar. Also, for my purposes – showing how to make a functional keyboard lab for reasonable cost – it's not promising, due to its 24 keys (not even two full C-to-C-to-C octaves with 25) that cripples it musically, and its high cost ($249 plus a monthly subscription fee of $80 annually), and (based on the reviewers in Reddit) unreliability of its hardware, since an educational keyboard lab should be virtually maintenance-free. Sigh. After seeing it initially, I had high hopes, but so far (based on the little I've found) it doesn't seem to be a reasonable option for keyboard labs, or for most individuals. / There are many other lighted keyboards, and I'll "ask in forums" to see if other people know more about what's now available (do any "light up all chord-notes"?) and the possibilities for DIY-modifying, or persuading a current maker to modify their software so their keyboard can light-up all chord notes.

iou – I'll continue searching for information, will post "what I'm learning" here, or maybe in an appendix (at the end of this page) or even in a separate page.

Here are some extra comments now:

Maybe the software would have to be included "within the keyboard" (thus 1a or 1b) instead of being added-on with a DIY solution (2).

[ iou – Soon, December 14-17, here I'll describe other benefits of lighted vs colorized. And my suggestion that IF a keyboard lab has mostly lighted keyboards – if this somehow becomes possible & practical – it should have at least one colorized keyboard, and we should encourage students to consider the possibility of colorizing their own personal keyboard (if they have one) that they use outside the lab. ]