After many weeks of work, I have finally completed the last two parts of my Music Finder Project. I have just uploaded all the results to the PSR-2000 Tutorial site ( http://pages.prodigy.net/watersj/Yamaha2K/ ) . The primary end result of this project is an expanded Music Finder database for the PSR-2000/1000 keyboards (which could also be used by CVP owners). This release includes almost 1,900 records covering over 1,500 unique song titles. It also references 174 different styles in the PSR-2000, that's almost all that are available. In addition, I have replaced the keyword field with information indicating which fake book, or fake books, each of the 1,500+ songs can be found in. Using the Search features of the PSR2000, a user can, on the fly, create a subset of this database which contains only songs that are found in any of 60 some fake books on the US market. In fact, I have already created dozens of these databases and they are available at the site for download. For example, if you happen to have the Ultimate Fake Book, I have created a corresponding mfd for that book with over 500 records.

The MusicFinderView program from Michael Bedesen and the Music Finder View from Fabian were essential in being able to complete this project. I have also provided an extensive new lesson on how to use these utilities.

A Music Finder database with almost 1,900 records sounds like, and in fact is, a relatively large database. However, to complete this project I had to combine the song indexes from 60 different books that resulted in a list of 16,000+ songs. After standardizing song title formats and eliminating duplicate titles, I was still left with over 10,000 unique titles in all those books. You'd think there would be a lot of duplication among the books, but actually about 7,000 titles appeared in one, and only one, of the 60 different fake books. At any rate, I wound up with a master song file with about 10,000 entries and for each of those entries I had a list of the books each song appeared in. Every title available in the expanded Music Finder database had to be compared to this larger song list to find out what books the song was in and those book abbreviations added to the keyword field to produce the final result.

I hope some PSR-2000 owners find this useful. I know that in developing this and working with it, I found it very enjoyable to have records in the Music Finder database that, more or less, mirrored the book I was playing from. Since books are usually arranged with songs in an alphabetical order and the Music Finder database showed song titles in an alphabetical order, I could simply go from one record to the next and the corresponding song would be the next one in the book, or at least within a page or two. Then, without having to figure out any styles or instruments, I could merely start playing with an accompaniment that was recommended for that song. I found this particularly useful when playing in the Early Rock & Roll Fake Book since the songs there used styles I wasn't all that familiar with. It was a great treat to just try out a song and have a style (and tempo) that seemed to fit perfectly fine.

As another by product, I personally wound up adding 160+ songs to the total and, in the process, became much more familiar with the styles available in the PSR2000. I found quite a few new (to me) styles that were really pretty good! I hope other players will also enjoy playing from these databases.

Hi Joe
I just downloaded the new "super" MFD from your site. I won't get a chance to check it out until tomorrow since I'm watching the Emmy's right now. I would say that YOU deserve an award for what you've done and shared with other PSR2000 owners. Thanks for your efforts and for making it available to all of us!

Tom G.

I echo TomTomSF's sentiments 100%. Joe Waters deserves the top PSR2000 keyboard support award anyone could present for all the terrific information he provides on his PSR2000 website. http://pages.prodigy.net/watersj/Yamaha2K/index.html

Joe's Music Finder file compilation was certainly an intense project which I'm sure took him months and weeks to compile. For him to generously share this with the PSR user community at large (for free) shows just how special many of the people in the Yamaha PSR user community really are. I'm glad I was able to contribute some of my song style selections along with a number of other contributors as well. Another invaluable PSR keyboardist (& software programmer) I want to mention is: Michael P Bedesem. Thru his generous talents as a computer programmer he offers our Yamaha PSR keyboard community so many VERY useful PSR utility programs (free) which improve PSR file (style/songs/registrations) creation and management. Checkout/download from Simon Williams (another terrfic PSR devotee with an awesome website and great PSR keyboard aftermarket products available as well) all of Michael Bedesem's excellent utility programs: http://www.svpworld.com/psr_software.htm

Joe,
I don't own a 2000 but from what I saw and you explained one heck of a job you did for all to share!
Terry

MusicViewFinder, by Michael Bedesen, is a PC program that will read any mfd file and allow you to print out a copy of its contents. Any PSR owner can use this program to take advantage of this database. I have a separate lesson at the Tutorial site that explains in detail how to use MusicFinderView. There are other lessons there of general interest, such as How to Download files and How to use WinZip. The Fake Book section, of course, can be useful to anyone and the PSR Performer MIDI files will play on any PSR.

Terry
I'm pretty sure that your new Tyros will load the MFD files. Although, I don't think you play a lot of covers.

Scott
Yes, you're right... there are a lot of great contributors to thank (including you)! I think it's so cool this Yamaha PSR world!

Tom G.

Hello

Joe, I thanked you on the Yamaha PSR style forum and I would like to thank you again. I am currently getting ready for my first gig on the PSR2000. Your great work certainly is going to make things a lot easier for me. I currently have 2125 listings in my Music Finder list and I have just recently begun with a lot of tunes to add yet.

I was going to play out with the 2000 and my Techics KN1000. But I think I will leave the KN at home, and keep it as a back-up. These Music Finder files was the last straw for the KN. (I may not even buy the Korg PA60 I was thinking about. They sure don't have anything going for the consumer like Yamaha and the forums and styles etc., and certainly nothing like Joe's site. Korg's forums are not even user friendly, not to mention the keyboard.) So you are influencing me to save some money and to travel light.

I also wanted to thank Scott Yee, and Michael, and everyone that has been kind enough to contribute to this project.

Personally, I think Joe Waters should be on Yamahas payroll for all the good he is doing.

Thanx again

Scott Langholff

Fact:

Joe Waters, Scott Yee, George Kaye, Michael Bedesem, DonM, Simon Williams and Uncle Dave all helped in my decision to purchase my PSR2K last year. Also, they represent some of the best, most genuine people you could ever meet (especially not having actually MET any of them in person!) We are truly fortunate to have these knowledgeable people as part of our Forum family!

Angelo

You can surf the web until the end of days, and you won't find a forum with this caliber of knowledgeable individuals with the additional concern for their arranger counterparts or musicians in general. Anyone can be smart, but to also be compassionate and caring is another thing all together. Unselfishness abounds around this place. Joe waters and company, you're the best. Thanks for all the hard work and sharing of your efforts. Brian

Here, here! Well said, Brian! I couldn't agree more. Great bunch hanging around here!
Tom G.

I'd like to thank everyone for the compliments and add my own thanks and appreciation to the wider PSR community. There are some neat resources on the PSR-2000 Tutorial site, but much of it would not be there if not for the work of folks like Brian Miles, who has converted hundreds of styles for PSR users, Michael Bedesen, who has authored a whole suite of utilities, Simon Williams, who runs SVPWorld and has created a host of styles for PSR users, Bob Gelman, who moderates both the psr-songs and psr-styles groups, Fabien Jansem, creator of Music Finder Editor, Jorgen Sorenson for his popular "Unofficial Yamaha Resource Site", and, of course, Scotty Yee and the many folks who contribute regularly to this forum and the Yahoo forums. Speaking of forums, I'd like to announce that I've started a new forum focused on songs and the music styles/tempos/voices that would be appropriate for that song. You can, of course, get to this new Music Forum from the Tutorial site, but this link, odd as it may look, should also work: http://pub44.bravenet.com/forum/show.php?usernum=3777490050&cpv=1

This is a Bravenet forum I'm trying out. I, too, haven't been wild about Yahoo so I thought I'd try out Bravenet, which has been pretty good in supplying other free web master services for my site.

This forum obviously is focused on the PSR 2000/1000 styles, but the general information may be useful to other users as well. I've added a few entries to kick things off, but I'm hoping others can contribute their suggestions as well.

Here's an elementary AK question (but then, I'm an elementary AK user). With all this really cool stuff available for PSR players, could any of this be utilized by a non-PSR AK user (like Ketron)? The reason I ask, seems that I've seen something about a style conversion program. Is there such an item (for PSR to Ketron)? If so, where/how is it obtained? Thanks!

Glenn