Amen on the chord recognition!! Will it take an act of Congress for Yamaha to wise up? Everyone BUT Ketron offers Yamaha-stye chord recognition as an option. If Yamaha would offer Ketron / Korg / Roland-style chord recognition as an option, the fading of Roland wouldn't be as big a loss to the arranger community. Roland players would have a legitimate "mass-market" alternative. Uncle Dave you got a screamin' good deal on that SD7! For me personally the SX900 would be a non-option, unless it were being driven by a non-Yamaha arranger in a two-tier setup (which is way more than most people would take on a gig.)

Intrigued, what exactly is wrong with Yamaha chord recognition?

I personally don’t try and play very complex chords on an arranger , but I do play full chords and inversions, haven’t really noticed any problems.

Also I don’t play in pianist mode, just split left chords, right melody.

So just interested in what the problems one might encounter are.

I like using 1, or 2 fingers for most chords. In the Yamaha if you only play 1 finger, you get a tonic only, with no 34d or 5th ... unless you use the no musical, ancient, baby Casio way (sorry - it bugs me) then a single note give a MAJ chord, add a Black key to the left for Min, and there's a thrid option for 7th, but I forgot it. That's against everything I ever learned in theory.
As a manual bass player, I never learned the really complex LH chords that many organists, and pianists use, so the sinple 1 finger maj - add the second finger to change Maj/Min and more than that, I have to use more fingers.

Hi Dave
so problem is more so , what they call the single finger chords, and by the sounds of things, they’re far from that if you need 3 fingers to play a 7th.

Might do a bit of investigation and make sure I have actually picked best mode for me, seems to be working ok.

Yamaha does a great jb with 3+ dinger chords - even jazz, rootless chords. The simple method I prefer works like this. Using just 2 fingers, I get Maj/Min/7th - all else requires 3 or more.
If I press:
C - I get C major
C+Eb - I get C minor
C+Bb - I get C7

This relates to the theory practices of building chords, and makes more sense to me. Sounds like you use 3 notes or more, and that's terrific. Probably very common for a pianist, or organist. I was a bass player before I was a piano player! LOL

Hi Dave ,
the above is closer to playing a real chord than the Yamaha method.
Just tried the single finger and the multi finger, pressing the next black note down from the C ( Bb) to get min and the next white down (B) to get the 7th , isn’t all that great musically, but maybe easier to remember if one doesn’t understand chords?
You just have to know the root note, and the black one , down next to it will give the minor etc etc.
Just discovered fingered mode which is great, don’t get a chord till 3 notes are held down,
Fingered on Bass, brilliant, I’ll have to spend more time practicing inversions, should I ever need to use it.
A1 fingered, I think I’d get myself in trouble.

So back to my multi finger or fingered mode, toss up between those 2 for me.

I learnt a bit about chords years ago when I was learning piano. The left hand arpeggio style I liked playing, was useless for keyboards, but at least I learnt a bit about chords.

I posted to reemphasize Dave's point-- if you're used to the "easy" mode on a Roland, Korg, GEM, etc., the SD7 is a much better choice than the SX900.

If I could play all the component notes of a chord timely and accurately, I wouldn't bother with an arranger- I would just get an organ or synth/workstation. Easy chords are gold!! On a Roland for example, you can actually play DOZENS of chord types, including many slash chords and tensions, with one, two, or three fingers. Yamaha isn't an option unless you're prepared to relearn everything. Yamaha could fix this by changing their menu structure for chord recognition and adding some options. But Yamaha knows everything. Yamaha is always right! I doubt they ever will.

Ketron arrangers are rare unicorns, so I haven't had much seat time with them. None at all with the latest generation of products. What I recall from the SD5 is that for the 3-note inversions I use to trigger minor 7ths on Roland and Korg, Ketron tends to recognize these as a 6th chord. This presents a problem for me, because i would have to re-learn my hand positions on songs I've been playing for years.

Now I don't know nearly enough about music theory to argue that minor 7th chords are more "important" than 6th chords. What I can say is that minor 7th chords appear much more frequently in the pop music I like to play. I have a lot of Hal Leonard-style EZ-play books, and 6th chords almost never appear in these. Even the full SATB sheet music I've purchased seems to have more minor 7ths than 6ths.

[Getting a bit off-topic, but recent Casio products have a mode that actually EXCLUDES recognition of the 6th chord, making minor 7ths playable in all inversions. Casio's simplified chord fingering logic is actually very good. Unfortunately their keybeds, MIDI implementation, and overall quality is NOT good! However, the existence of this mode shows that Casio's product designers also favor minor 7ths over 6ths.]

If Ketron has fixed my "problem" with their recognition of minor 7ths, I might start saving up for an SD40. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing. Too many combinations to ask you to try, I would have to test one for myself. Way too expensive to just "take a chance." And if there are problems, it wouldn't be easy to trade in or get my money back. So I stay on the fence. Good thread though!

Hi Ted,
Most of my old books are that type also, not that I have a problem reading music, but I love them because I can actually see the notes and chord symbols without squinting.

I have that problem too I fingered mode, I end up playing a 6th chord instead of the min 7th , now before learning something new, I just make sure I play the min7th in its root position.

From a theoretical standpoint (music theory), most chord embellishments (like 7ths, add9s etc) are there for color and beauty. The basic Maj-Min-7, and dim are the building blocks for the melodies that float through the (chord) changes, but adding the "color tones" is what separates the simple from the sublime.
Example:
A simple I - vi - lV - V7 progression will give you a suintable backing for thousands of songs. Much of the 50s and 60s music in the US is loaded with this very chord progression. If you add a 6th to your l chord - it's almost the same as your straight vi chord. In C, the notes of a C maj are C-E-G-C, and a C6 is C-E-G-A. Notice that these notes are teh same as an Amin7: A-C-E-G ... this is where your bass notes become paramount to the tonality you're seeking.
I won't go into a big theory lesson here, but the watered down version is this:

1) To any Major, or Minor chord, you can add a 2, or a 6 without changing the fundamental integrity of the chord. The added notes serve to sweeten the harmonic structure, and add some live to an otherwise basic chord.

I'll address your questions in detail if you have any, but this is the simplest way to add love "sizzle" to your basic chording.

Hi Dave
Thank you. You’ve just encouraged me to do a bit of testing in regards to 6th and min7th chords.

My theory on having to play min7th chords in root position ( so that Yamaha recognises it as the min7th) isn’t correct.

Root position plays Am7 chord A C E G
First inversion plays A6 chord. C E G A
Second inversion plays Am7 chord. E G A C
Third inversion plays Am7 chord. G A C E

So guessing I’ll have to be careful not to play a min7th chord in first inversion, or I’ll get a 6th chord, which would mean I’d have the incorrect bass note playing ie I’d have a C playing instead of an A?