YAMAHA SYNTHESIZERS: WHERE TO BEGIN? PLAYING THE SOUNDS….

YAMAHA SYNTHESIZERS: WHERE TO BEGIN? PLAYING THE SOUNDS....
So, you are sitting in front of a Yamaha synthesizer for the first time and you are wondering..." Where do I start?"

The best place to begin your journey into the world of the Yamaha synthesizer is playing the sounds.
Now, by this I don't just mean play a few notes; play a couple of chords and then move on to the next Voice.

By "playing the sounds" I mean taking each Voice (what we call the basic sounds in Yamaha synths) and exploring what every controller does and how each Voice was programmed to be an expressive individual instrument. I like to approach every Voice as if it is a unique instrument, whether it is an emulation of a real instrument, or something uniquely crafted in the synthesizer itself.

If I'm playing a Voice that is meant to sound like an acoustic guitar, I want to use every controller option that I can that allows me to be as expressive with this sound so that I can evoke the expressiveness of some type of guitar playing. Aftertouch, assignable knobs, assignable function buttons, foot switches and foot controllers all allow the performer to tweak the sounds and add nuances and performance effects that go beyond just playing the keys. And, there's always more than one way to do things.
Customizing these personal preferences/parameters to your liking is why you are using a synthesizer as your choice of instrument for musical expression.

This is what it means to play a synthesizer.

I will use this space on yamahasynth.com to point out some obvious, some not so obvious features of the Voices in our synthesizers, in order to make it easy and establish a beginning point for those who need that type of "jump start". Some of the simplest features can go unnoticed.
I can almost always count on showing some of the more common preset Motif Voices to someone who has owned an instrument for years and still getting an astonished reaction of, "I didn't know it did that!"

Please check here for my latest pointers regarding playing Yamaha synthesizers. As establishing this site progresses I'll elaborate more on Yamaha synths, performance and recording techniques, and using Yamaha synthesizers with computers and i OS devices.

Feel free to post questions on the Forum, and look for more in depth application oriented articles from all of us on this site.

Welcome to www.yamahasynth.com!

Tony "Tones" Escueta

About the author

Blake Angelos

Yamaha Synthesizer Product Specialist Blake Angelos has over thirty years of experience with music hardware and software. An expert in music technology, Blake has conducted numerous clinics, master classes and presentations throughout the United States, Europe and Canada. In his role as Product Specialist for the Synthesizer Department Blake appears in many product videos and artist interviews, writes many articles for YamahaSynth.com and co-hosts a regular Podcast called “Behind the Synth”.

Before his work with Yamaha, he taught music theory and jazz studies courses at Arizona State University; managed a technology-focused music store in Seattle and was a production supervisor at Microsoft, where he led a team that developed groundbreaking interactive music content for the Microsoft Network. Blake holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Northern Colorado and a Master of Music degree from Arizona State University. Blake currently resides in Bellingham, Washington with his family, and between his travels around the world for Yamaha, he performs as much as possible with several jazz and creative music groups in Bellingham, Seattle and other places in the Pacific Northwest.