The 1996 Digital Piano Page 20

Why digital? Digitals allow you to practice any time of day
or night without disturbing your family or the neighbors, digitals
are easy to move, and they never need to be tuned.
Buying the digital that's best for you is easy if you know
what to look for. Compare brands and when you find one you like
choose a model that has the features you want. Some important
features to look for are; sound quality, keyboard action, amount
of keys, and the look of the keyboard. Include extra instrument
sounds or anything else that will make your digital fun to use.
Then sit down and make music!

Computer Collaboration Page 68

Compose your own music! You can compose and edit scores;
record and play back original pieces while printing out the
sheet music in your own home. Hook up your digital piano
to your PC and let them communicate via a MIDI interface. Get your
musical software together and you're ready to go!

The MIDI's range in price from $40.00 for a basic unit to
$300.00 for units which can access many devices at once. For
beginners the basic unit is great. To start you need two MIDI
cables which you can buy at most music stores. Some MIDI's come
with sound cards, if not you just install an interface.
A sequencer, or note recorder software package lets you
multitrack, mix, arrange and playback, and correct your mistakes.
Sequencers feature quantizing processes, which can move notes to
fix performance mistakes.

The MIDI is great for personal use and to showcase your
compositions. Use disks to create a MIDI file or the net to upload
and show off.

Resource Directory Page 86

A listing of music software companies, manufacturers etc.

Glossary Page 88

Look up the words that will help you understand the technical

language used to describe electronic instruments. Once you're

familiar with words like action, algorithm, channel, CD-Rom, DIP

Switch, Frequency, Multitimbral, Polyphonic, Signal-to-Noise Ratio

you'll be able to find the software and instruments that are best

for you.