Word: keyboard
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...keyboard is not only becoming pervasive across the U.S. but is also affecting the way music is learned and appreciated. Ever since the boards first hit the market in the early 1980s, rappers, rockers and street musicians have known that they were onto something cool. The sleek, usually portable instruments offered a solid beat, a big sound and all sorts of groovy techno- twists at a manageable price. Today keyboards are about a $600 million-a- year business. Some 15 million have been sold in the U.S. alone, where unit sales of electronic keyboards have outpaced the traditional acoustic-piano...
That is one reason keyboards have a way to go before they attain pure musical respectability. "When the keyboard is used for gimmicks and effect, the status, the art and the tonality are lost," says Paul Ellison, chairman of the string department at the U.S.C. School of Music. "It's not coming from the soul of the artist, it's coming from the brain." Indeed, there are lots of switches and buttons to get used to, even on simpler keyboards...
...decade ago, such a surge of rhythm could only have been achieved with complex, pricey and cumbersome equipment. Today any garage band can sound as big and as studio-slick as Fleetwood Mac, if only the young musicians stick with it. "People get these keyboards at home and use them for a while, then put them in a closet," Flores frets. "With 15 minutes of practice daily, you can learn to play any instrument. You cannot get away from education." Parents who want the family prodigy to put in more than 15 minutes on the upright are concerned that serious...
...never met anyone who's had his technique ruined by a keyboard with full-sized keys," reassures L.A. music instructor Alpha Walker, who has been teaching piano for nearly 30 years. "Kids who didn't take lessons because they didn't have pianos are signing up to work on the keyboard." The instrument has amassed all the pop impact of the electric guitar. "Everyone who presses a key can get a sound," says the jazz-based singer-songwriter Patrice Rushen. "But combining those sounds, to really use the keyboard as an instrument, that's when the talent comes...
...Nothing can replace the real instrument," he says, "but if you're trying to do sound effects or you don't know how to play another instrument, it's great." But Margolis already has it all in perspective. "The piano is the more beautiful instrument," he says. "But the keyboard is the more interesting...