Expand Your Digital Keyboard, Expand Your Music

Many new instrument owners ask the question, “What else can I do with my keyboard once I get it home?” Yamaha keyboards are designed with expansion in mind! From new Voices and Styles to songs and sheet music, you can find everything you need to fully enjoy your instrument on the Yamaha MusicSoft Downloadables page.

Here are some of the ways you can expand your instrument:

1. ADD NEW VOICES AND STYLES

Looking to expand your musical vocabulary? Want to open the door to new creative ideas? There’s no better way than to add new sounds and arrangements to your keyboard. Yamaha Voice & Style Expansion Packs and Premium Packs & Voices literally place the sounds and genres of music from around the world at your fingertips — and best of all, they’re free!

Voice & Style Expansion Packs are compatible with most Yamaha PSR-S, PSR-SX and PSR-A arranger workstations (to determine compatibility for your instrument, check the specific expansion pack listing). They offer everything from Indian Taals to Vietnamese instruments, as well as Latino Cumbia, Bolero and authentic Mexican, Caribbean and Central/South American party music accompaniment Styles.

Premium Packs & Voices are regional-themed collections that are compatible with Yamaha Tyros and Genos arranger workstations (to determine compatibility for your instrument, check the specific premium pack listing). These include a wide variety of musical genres — everything from Salsa to Banda to Italian folk music — as well as traditional European, Indonesian and Central/South American instruments.

If you’re the proud owner of a Yamaha synthesizer, you’ll want to check out our Synth Voice Libraries for MONTAGE and MOTIF, which give your instrument even more sonic range and flexibility. These include collections of classic analog and FM synth sounds as well as grand pianos, electric pianos (such as Chick Corea’s custom Mark V), organs, strings, pads and evolving soundscapes.

2. PLAY ALONG WITH THE SONGS YOU LOVE

MIDI songs are collections of data — digital files that tell your keyboard what to play. Because they’re standardized, they work with pretty much every modern digital keyboard, including all current Yamaha digital keyboards, digital pianos, arranger workstations and synthesizers. They offer numerous advantages over simple audio files in that you can freely change their key and/or tempo with no change to the sound quality. You can also mute or solo selective instruments to create your own custom “minus-one” versions of the songs, or change the instrumentation altogether — something that’s not possible with audio files.

Yamaha offers literally hundreds of professionally arranged and performed MIDI songs — including many current and past hits — available for immediate downloading (click here to view the available titles). So what are you waiting for? Start playing along with all your favorites today.

Disklavier owners can avail themselves of special PianoSoft Songs that take advantage of the special features offered by these innovative world-class reproducing pianos. Professional performances of many popular songs and classical compositions, as well as film and show music, are available for the entire Disklavier family of instruments.

3. EXPLORE STYLE FILES

Styles are controlled by the chords you play with your left hand. When you play a chord on your Yamaha keyboard, a backing ensemble joins your performance based on the structure of the chord being played.

Style Files allow you to play along with complete backing tracks in a variety of musical genres. These are not only useful in live performance but also extremely helpful in refining your improvisational skills. From rock to jazz, classical to country, easy listening to R&B, Style Files will make you sound like a pro! Versions are available for most Yamaha digital keyboards and digital pianos — click here for a complete compatibility list.

4. IMPROVE YOUR PROFICIENCY WITH SHEET MUSIC

Incorporating printed music (called sheet music) into your learning and playing is a great way to increase your keyboard proficiency while at the same time allowing you to expand your musical repertoire. Yamaha offers nearly a thousand printable sheet music titles for instant download — everything from pop and rock hits to movie and show tunes to gospel, liturgical and other genres.

As a bonus, the online Yamaha sheet music store allows you to preview the first page of each selection so you can try it before you buy it, along with a number of helpful “widgets” that make the experience interactive. One of these actually plays the song automatically so you can hear the music on the page as well as see it; other onscreen tools allow you to adjust the playback speed, transpose the song to another key, change the “top line” melody from vocal to a wind or string instrument, increase or decrease the note sizes, and save the preview as a printable PDF file.

Check out these related blog articles:

You Are The Artist

What are MIDI Songs?

How Sheet Music Can Improve Your Playing Skills

Click here for more information about Yamaha Voices & Style Expansion Packs.

Click here for more information about Yamaha Premium Packs & Voices.

Click here for more information about Yamaha Synth Voice Libraries.

Click here for more information about Yamaha Style Files.

Click here for more information about Yamaha MIDI Songs.

Click here for more information about Yamaha PianoSoft Songs.

Click here for more information about Yamaha sheet music.