Step 7 - Understand the Auto Accompaniment Keys

There are a whole series of buttons above the left side of the keyboard that help you control the auto accompaniment.  When you pressed the OTS key, you automatically set up some of these controls.  Let's look at the controls now.

Start and Stopping

On the far right is a very important control, [START/STOP].  This turns your rhythm on. If you press it again, it turns the rhythm off. (If the accompaniment is playing, it will turn everything OFF.)  On the far left side of the ACCOMPANIMENT CONTROL is the ACMP ON/OFF button. It turns on the rest of the accompaniment voices - the bass, piano, guitars, etc.. If the light is lit, the ACMP is ON. Press this button to toggle the accompaniment on and off. Turning the accompaniment ON does not actually start the other instruments playing. It just says they will start playing when you finger a chord.  You could play the instrument with just a rhythm section and no other accompaniment.  If you have started the rhythm and it is playing, pressing one or more notes to trigger the left-hand chord will start the rest of the accompaniment playing.

Exercise

To get used to some of your options, you might try some experimenting. When you turn your keyboard on, there is a BrightPiano selected as the MAIN voice and STRINGS as the LAYER and LEFT voices.

1. Make sure the LAYER voice is OFF and the LEFT voice is OFF. Also make sure that the ACMP button is OFF. If you play the keyboard now, you hear a Grand Piano over all ranges of the keyboard. Give it a try.
   
   
2. Turn ON the LEFT voice. Now when you play, you hear strings played by your left hand while your right hand is playing the BritePiano.
   
   
3. Turn OFF the LEFT voice and then press START/STOP to start the rhythm. You'll hear a drummer that will accompany you as you play the piano over the full range of the keyboard.
   
   
4. Turn ON the LEFT hand voice. Now you have the drummer while you play strings on the left hand and piano on the right.
   
   
5. Press START/STOP to stop everything. OK, now Turn OFF the LEFT voice, but turn ACMP ON. Press START/STOP and the rhythm starts (and only the rhythm). Play some notes with your right hand piano. It's just the piano and rhythm. Now play a chord with your left hand. That will trigger the rest of the accompaniment and now it, too, will be playing along with the rhythm. Finger a different chord you will hear the accompaniment change tone to match the chord you selected.
   
   
6. Turn ON the LEFT voice and now when you play a chord with your left hand, you will hear the Strings playing that chord in addition to all the other accompaniment voices playing the chord.

Sync Start and Sync Stop

Locate the [SYNC STOP] and [SYNC START] buttons on the right side next to the START/STOP button. With all the accompaniment stopped, press the [SYNC START] button The light will come on signaling that SYNC START is ON. "SYNC" is short for Synchronize and when this is ON, as soon as you hit a key, anywhere on the keyboard, the rhythm will start playing. When the rhythm starts, the SYNC START light goes off and remains off. If you have ACMP ON and you press one of the keys in the accompaniment section, this will launch not only the rhythm but the accompaniment as well.

[SYNC STOP] works only with the ACMP ON and as soon as you turn this option ON the [SYNC START] option will automatically be turned ON. In this case, however, the [SYNC START] does not trigger the "start" until one of the keys in the accompaniment section is pressed. When the SYNC START option is ON, the accompaniment plays only as long as you are fingering a chord. If you take your left-hand off of the keyboard, the accompaniment stops (and the SYNC START light is turned on automatically.) Press a chord again and all the accompaniment starts up again. You can use this, of course, to stop all the accompaniment including rhythm at some point in your song. When you want to start it up again, just finger a chord. Of course, if you want to keep that accompaniment playing,once you resume, you'd better turn OFF that SYNC STOP option. You can do that with your left hand during the rhythm pause or, if you started playing again, reach over and turn it off with your right hand.

Style Variations

There are four buttons under MAIN labeled [A], [B], [C], and [D].  All of the preset styles in your keyboard include four variations of that style.  The first variation, [A] is usually the simplest, that is, it has fewer accompaniment voices and they are playing a simple accompaniment pattern. When you select the [Main A] variation, the button next to [A] will be lit.  To move to the next variation, press the [Main B] button.  For whatever style you may have selected, try out the four variations playing a few chords in each to listen to how the patterns change in each variation. In some songs, you may want to include all these variations in your arrangement.  In others, you may want to use only one or two of the variations.

Auto Fill and OTS Link

OK, now take a look at the [AUTO FILL] and [OTS LINK] buttons.  If the [OTS LINK] button is turned ON, the keyboard will automatically switch to the 2nd OTS setting when you press the [Main B] style variation button.  Pressing [C] will simultaneously switch to the 3rd OTS setting.  With [OTS LINK] turned on, each of the 4 style variations is automatically linked to the corresponding OTS variation.   As you move from style [A] to [B] to [C] to [D], the OTS moves from [1] to [2] to [3] to [4].

As you move from one style variation to another, the drummer may throw in a bit of a fill pattern to help with the transition.  That's what the [AUTO FILL] button is for.  If it is ON, there will be an auto fill included as you move from one style variation to another.  Turn this button OFF and there is no fill pattern included.  The separate [BREAK] button can be used to insert a drum break whenever you want it.

Intros and Endings

Each of the preset styles includes one or more "intros" to the style.  With everything stopped, press any of the four style variation buttons and then press the [INTRO] button. The [INTRO] button is a toggle switch. If it is ON, the light above the style you selected will be blinking. If it is OFF, the light will not be blinking. Press the [INTRO] button several times to see this effect. If it is ON, that is the variation light is blinking, when you play a chord to start the rhythm, the intro will start and provide an "introduction" to your song.  The intro can be 1 bar, 4 bars, or even 8 bars long.

There is also a separate [ENDING] button.  When you come to the last measure, press this button and an automatic ending for that style will play to close out your performance.  If you press the [ENDING] button twice quickly, you trigger the ritard. The ending will play and the tempo will gradually slow down as the song comes to an end.

If you look at the MAIN screen, you will see the INTRO/ENDING box next to button [E]. This shows you which particular Intro and Ending is currently selected. You can change these selections. From the MAIN screen, press button [E] to open the INTRO/ENDING window.

This opens up a little window showing the available Intros and Endings for this style. The currently selected intro and ending is highlighted. If you press [D], the selection will move among the three choices. Pressing [E] moves the selection of the ending. You can try out the various versions and see which one you prefer. When you are done, press [EXIT] to return to the MAIN screen.

While you can change the particular intro or ending, the next time you load that preset style, the default choice will be loaded with the style. Later on in these lessons, you will learn how to "tune" a style to your own preferences and save that style in the USER area or on a floppy disk. The "selected" intro and ending are saved with the style, so if you are making your own style version, you can save it with your preferred intro and ending.

Well, we're almost there. In the next lesson, we'll explain how to set the tempo and give some suggestions on picking a left-hand voice and then you can start playing for the next several weeks!