Keys to The Kingdom

By JAY COCKS

They are easy on the ears, a test for the fingers and a balm for the spirit. With a little imagination and manual dexterity, electronic keyboards can make otherwise struggling players feel like pros. Not like Horowitz, exactly; more like Flash Gordon auditioning for a garage combo, or one of those zoological enigmas who made spacey sounds in the Star Wars saloon. Keyboards can reproduce instrument sounds, even sample sound effects (from a rain forest to a barking dog), and turn any tin ear into a one-man band.

The keyboard is not only becoming pervasive across the U.S. but is also affecting the way music is learned and appreciated. Ever since the boards first hit the market in the early 1980s, rappers, rockers and street musicians have known that they were onto something cool. The sleek, usually portable instruments offered a solid beat, a big sound and all sorts of groovy techno- twists at a manageable price. Today keyboards are about a $600 million-a- year business. Some 15 million have been sold in the U.S. alone, where unit sales of electronic keyboards have outpaced the traditional acoustic-piano market for at least five years. Says Don Griffin, owner of West L.A. Music in Southern California: "They're the word processors of music."

| In fact, the keyboards combine the challenge of a computer and a Steinway grand yet are relatively easy to use. The boards can produce a dazzling range of musical effects, sounding jazzy or elegant at the flick of a button or a switch. And though top-end pro keyboards can cost upwards of $3,000, general consumer models for the "hobbyist" market usually go for a couple of hundred dollars. Besides having model numbers that make them sound like racing cars, boards like the Yamaha DX7IIFD look like the instrument panel of a new Ferrari prototype. The Roland E-20 ($2,500) even has a liquid-crystal display window that flashes such information as the chord being played and the tempo being used, expressed in beats per minute. Looking at a readout to see what chord you are playing can be a hotdog move, like a weekend racer eyeing his tachometer to check how he is doing.

That is one reason keyboards have a way to go before they attain pure musical respectability. "When the keyboard is used for gimmicks and effect, the status, the art and the tonality are lost," says Paul Ellison, chairman of the string department at the U.S.C. School of Music. "It's not coming from the soul of the artist, it's coming from the brain." Indeed, there are lots of switches and buttons to get used to, even on simpler keyboards.

All these snazzy features do have a practical application, however. When Yamaha introduced the DX7 model in 1983, its computer memory was capable of retaining and playing back prerecorded background accompaniment. The keyboardist, supported by a simple drum machine or sequencer, could surround himself with sound. Says Alfredo Flores Jr., former president of the National Association of Music Merchants: "You go into a nightclub now, and you see three guys standing in the band sounding like twelve."

A decade ago, such a surge of rhythm could only have been achieved with complex, pricey and cumbersome equipment. Today any garage band can sound as big and as studio-slick as Fleetwood Mac, if only the young musicians stick with it. "People get these keyboards at home and use them for a while, then put them in a closet," Flores frets. "With 15 minutes of practice daily, you can learn to play any instrument. You cannot get away from education." Parents who want the family prodigy to put in more than 15 minutes on the upright are concerned that serious piano lessons may be undermined by the keyboard craze.

"I've never met anyone who's had his technique ruined by a keyboard with full-sized keys," reassures L.A. music instructor Alpha Walker, who has been teaching piano for nearly 30 years. "Kids who didn't take lessons because they didn't have pianos are signing up to work on the keyboard." The instrument has amassed all the pop impact of the electric guitar. "Everyone who presses a key can get a sound," says the jazz-based singer-songwriter Patrice Rushen. "But combining those sounds, to really use the keyboard as an instrument, that's when the talent comes in."

And the music lessons. Ben Margolis, 11, of West Los Angeles, has a Roland D-20 that he can mess around with when he's finished his piano lessons. "Nothing can replace the real instrument," he says, "but if you're trying to do sound effects or you don't know how to play another instrument, it's great." But Margolis already has it all in perspective. "The piano is the more beautiful instrument," he says. "But the keyboard is the more interesting one."

With reporting by Scott Brown/Los Angeles and Don Winbush/Atlanta