Yamaha CP33 Stage Piano Review

Nice upgrade from my Yamaha P90.

I purchaed this piano for the piano sound and feel.Any additional instruments or features that come with it are a bonus.The acoustic bass, strings and jazz organ sounds are done very well also.

While nothing replaces the feel of a real piano, this keyboard comes very, very close and the lighter touch on the higher keys really takes you there.

I only wish that the power transformer was inside of the piano instead of requiring a wall wart (transformer).

If you want a great piano sound and feel get this keyboard.If you want speakers to go with it as well as some more sounds, look into the CP300, but then you will need to add $1000, 30 more pounds and a deeper frame.

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Product Description:
The CP33 is made for the serious musician on-the-go. Sit down with one, and the instrument becomes an extension of your hands and your musical imagination. The authentic piano voices and rich expressiveness come alive at your touch, and the sound is big enough to blast through a full band onstage - yet nuanced enough to work magic in an intimate club.Yamaha's extensive experience in crafting fine acoustic pianos helps us in creating the ultimate digital pianos. Our advanced Graded Hammer Effect (GHE) action gives all keys an authentic resistance that increases from the top register to the lower - just as on an actual acoustic piano. Which means that you can naturally pound out thunderous low notes with your left hand and let the fingers on your right dance and fly with the high notes.In crafting the authentic sound of the CP series, we used meticulously recorded stereo samples of top-quality instruments, taken at various playing strengths, and included subtle elements such as String Resonance, Stereo Sustain, and even Key-Off Samples that capture the felt dampers muting the piano strings - providing the most authentic sounding and finely nuanced acoustic piano voices possible.The CP stage pianos are also master keyboard controllers that give you full command of your gear. Play and control external tone generators. Assign different voices to different keyboard sections and create multi-textured layers of sound. Two instrument zones on the CP33 with panel sliders, let you easily tweak the level of each instrument as you play. You can also freely reassign the sliders and wheels to control other sonic characteristics of your gear, such as sound attack, decay, brightness and filter cutoff.At just under 40 lbs. the CP33 is a very compact and portable yet full size stage piano.

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I'll Be Seeing You: 51 Songs of World War II (Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook) [Paperback] Review

I have been looking for a piano book of WWII songs.Anyone who loves those songs from that era will be more than pleased with this song book.It will bring back memories for those old enough to remember!

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Product Description:
A salute to the music and memories of WWII, including a year-by-year chronology of events on the homefront, dozens of photos, and 50 radio favorites of the GIs and their families back home, including: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy * Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me) * I Don't Want to Walk Without You * I'll Be Seeing You * Moonlight in Vermont * There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere * You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To * and more.

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The Beatles For Jazz Piano (Piano Solo Personality) [Paperback] Review

If you are used to the standard arrangements in Beatles Songbooks and want something new this is a good book to try.This is a piano solo book, with chord symbols, no lyrics.The songs are arranged with more extended chords and some substitutions, as compared with the usual arrangements. Not all the songs are in the keys the Beatles played them in. However, the arrangements are complete and you can play them as is.They do not include any written out improvisation; however, you have some fresh chords to improvise over.Some of the songs sound good adding a jazz swing feel others don't.Some of the songs sound a little strange at first with the extended chords but grow on you.This book is at an intermediate level.
The following songs are included: Get Back, All My Loving, And I Love Her, Eleanor Rigby, The Fool on the Hill, Here There and Everywhere, Michelle, Nowhere Man, Strawberry Fields Forever, With A Little Help from My Friends,

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Product Description:
11 classic Beatles songs specially arranged in jazz-style for piano solo...complete with guitar chord symbols. Songs include: All My Loving * And I Love Her * The Fool on the Hill * Here, There and Everywhere * Michelle * Yesterday * and more.

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Pictures at an Exhibition and Other Works for Piano [Paperback] Review

If you've never heard a piano rendering of "Pictures at an Exhibition", you've probably wondered just a little at how all that orchestral sound could be duplicated on a piano. After hearing Ivo Pogorelich's piano rendering of "Pictures" (well before I took up playing the piano), I bought this book just to see how it was done. I was delighted that the music I'd heard and the music in print were true to each other, and I was further pleased with all the other Moussorgsky pieces included. This book is jammed with music and will be challenging me and teaching me for years to come. This was a seriously good purchase for this MPM fan.

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Product Description:
The original piano suite, one of the great piano masterworks, along with virtually all of Moussorgsky's other piano compositions, including the well-known piano arrangement of the "Hopak of the Merry Young Ukrainians" from the opera The Fair at Sorochintsy, and the Allegro and Scherzo from the incomplete Sonata in C Major for piano four hands, reprinted from an authoritative Russian edition.


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Total Keyboard Wizardry: A Technique and Improvisation Workbook (Educational Piano) [Paperback] Review

I think it was a really cool idea to split the instruction up into beginner/intermediate/advanced levels as well as technique/improv/etc. The overall approach is very refreshing compared to more traditional piano methods. I like the pep talks Jordan gives in between the exercises. My piano teacher thought that the easy technique section's exercises were too easy, but I've found a way to apply them to all kinds of trouble spots in songs. The harmony section has some cool ideas, and I like the etudes that Jordan inculdes focusing on a point.

Overall, well worth the money, though I can't help voicing some complaints. The grading is a little wierd. It seems like some things in the easy sections are very easy, but then they'll be a run or something that is kind of frusterating and in my opinion not meant for an "easy section." In fact the easy and intermediate sections are really fairly similar in difficulty, and then the advanced just shoots off into a realm that I couldn't dream of playing. The improv and leads sections are a little weak. The improv section just tells you to start improvising on a restricted basis (one, two , three notes) and build complexity. The musical examples you're supposed to learn in this section - written in standard musical notation, seem a little inappropriate. The pep talks in the lead section were pretty weak. The advice is basically to pick a scale and solo using it. Then there's more examples to learn. There's a few licks I got from these examples, but I can't say that they're mind-blowing solos in general (unless you're good enouph for the advanced section). Also, there are only a few keys used for examples, so be perpared to do some transposing.

Honestly, I'd buy this book 100 times over, just in using it so much I've noticed all the little things (and it's more fun to complain).

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Product Description:
Take your playing to the next level with Jordan Rudess, the Juilliard-trained, award-winning keyboardist of Dream Theater! Work at your own pace to improve your skills in physical technique, improvisation, soloing and comping with clear, easy-to-follow directions and exercises that create real results. With beginner, intermediate and advanced exercises that cover everything from classical technique to blazing prog-rock solos and beyond, this book has something for keyboardists of all styles. A CD of the exercises is included - played by the master himself! - as are 12 solo-worthy etudes and a valuable appendix with major and minor arpeggio and scale fingerings.

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Piano Pieces For The Adult Student Efs4 (Music Sales America) [Paperback] Review

This collection sounds a lot easier than it really is.If you can really play the pieces in it, you're probably not a "student" anymore.

Since the terms "easy" and "difficult," when applied to piano literature, are recklessly applied to widely disparate material, the only objective anchor I can give you is this:Do you know the Alfred's Adult Piano course?All of these pieces belong in the "ambitious section" of the third book -- if not far thereafter.

The way I see it, it's really not much of a student's book:no help with explanations or editorial assistance.It's simply an anthology of classics of piano literature in their original forms.

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Product Description:
One of the great collections for the piano, the pieces are graded for elementary, intermediate, and advanced students. Piano works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Schumann, and other masters. Folk songs and light classics are also included.

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First Book of Disney Solos (Beginning Piano Solos) [Paperback] Review

This was a gift for my young granddaughter, who loves playing the piano and also loves Disney music, so this is perfect! She loves it.

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Product Description:
Arrangements of 8 favorite songs from 8 great Disney films, perfect for the beginning soloist. Includes: The Bare Necessities * Beauty and the Beast * Can You Feel the Love Tonight * Colors of the Wind * Go the Distance * God Help the Outcasts * Reflection * You'll Be in My Heart (Pop Version).

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