How useful is the transpose button on your arranger? I am sure you encounter situations when you know your song very well and which key you like to play in, then all of a sudden, your special guest decided to sing in a different key - so what do you do? Hit the transpose button or play in the correct key?

With my PA80, it's right there. But with my new, second board, I have to hit three buttons and 2 pages (screen) back before I can transpose! And it's a Yamaha!

..rb

I strongly rely on my transpose button. I can play my butt off, but I'm one of those self taught players.. I can't read music so trying to figure out differnt key sigs is like pulling teeth. One of these days I may learn to read music, but everytime I try I just lose interest.. I wonder why that is. Can't seem to get myself focused on learning that. I'll get a ways into the lesson and all I want to do is just play the keys.. That's why I had to drop lessons when I was a kid.. I never like to play music the way it was written... My teacher hated me for that.. I'd always change something.

Squeak

I find transposition quite useful to vary a tune, somewhere in the middle, then go back to the original key, makes quite a nice variety in a piece if not over used.
jam on,
Terry

I generally have my transpose on most of the time. I've found that many of the voices on my keyboard (a now archaic Ketron MS60) sound richer and more mellow when transposed down a couple of half tones or more.

When at times I play with a trio, the guy who usually books those gigs and who plays trumpet with us has us all use "C Concert" fake books. So I make my keyboard a B flat instrument, like the trumpet and the sax, so we all read off he same music and all play in the same key. (The horn players don't use B flat books in this case). The tenor sax player doesn't like that too much, because it is not the best sounding range for the sax, but the trumpet guy finds he doesn't have to hit those real high notes, which are a challenge for him.

When I'm playing solo and doing some vocals, I find most of the tunes are written in keys that are a bit too high for my voice. I've found that transposing down 4 half tones suits my vocal range much better, so that's what I generally do.
Paul C.

Ahem

I try my best not to use the transpose button and play the C# minor scale as is.

..... I use the transposer button (on a kn6000) quite a bit..... for midis not originally done in my vocal key, for guest singers who don't sing in the key I play the tune in (I really admire those of you who can play a tune in 'any' key ... if I'm doing a tune with a 'guest vocalist' I want to concentrate on what they are doing, and not on the transposition of the tune), AND for myself on those really busy weekends, and nights when the voice isn't quite where it should be ... just drop the key down a notch and everything's fine ...
t.

Squeak...
Like you, I am self taught. Even got kicked out of piano lessons as a kid...just couldn't relate to the stuff the teacher wanted me to learn.

On top of that, I think I am "keyboard dyslexic" in that I could never tell one white note from another...so play everything in black keys, mostly F#. It was a real hassle when I started trying to figure this stuff out.

C, for instance is +or-6 from F#. Bb up 4 half steps, etc. But once I got all the steps from F# memorized it was a piece of cake.

Seems like every singer, horn or guitar player I work with has different keys. The transpose is must. Couldn't play without it. Thank God for buttons... like transpose, registrations and freeze.
Eddie

I have a trio that includes a trumpet, guitar/trombone or tenor sax and me. I set my x1 to turn on 1 whole step down. That way both the trumpet and sax player can play out of the same fake books that I used when I learned the song. Once I learn a song I don't need the music anymore.

I also use the transposer to put songs into my vocal range. 1 whole step down works for me for a lot of songs. If I do a Beatles tune I usually dial it down 2 whole steps. I play "Yesterday" in F but sing it in D.

The transposer is a great invention!

Tom

Use it! But don't forget to bring it back to a standard key. You might forget it if you fall in love with the song and the female singer. It happened to me. I was using two keyboards I transposed the bottom one but not the top one because I wil not use the top one for that particular song. When you do the second song, ouch!! figure it out how it sounds. Then you have to hurry going to the keyboard menu to transpose it back to a regular key.

Well EMj is my favourite level to play songs at...and yes I can only achieve this with transpose as I only know the C F G chords and AMin, DMin, Emin..

Its just sooo hard to play chords...C F G is sooo easy.. Also, its easy to place your fingers in C F G than say an E chord..