The keytar is a lightweight

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

that is supported by a strap around the neck and shoulders, similar to the way a

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

is supported by a strap. Keytars allow players a greater range of movement onstage, compared to conventional keyboards, which are placed on stationary stands or which are part of heavy, floor-mounted structures. The instrument has a

musical keyboard A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, s ...

for triggering musical notes and sounds. Various controls are placed on the instrument's "neck", including those for pitch bends, vibrato, portamento, and sustain. The term "keytar" is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsMIDI Controller", "Remote Keyboard", "Strap-on Keyboard", or variations thereof. Though the term "keytar" has been used since the introduction of the instrument, it was not used by a major manufacturer until 2012, when the Alesis company referred to the "Vortex", the company's first product of this type, as a "USB/MIDI Keytar Controller". CEO and co-founder of Tap Tap Strum, Kyle Zimmerman, later came out with the design for the Keytar L8R. The Roland AX-Edge, which incorporates its own synthesis engine, is referred to by the manufacturer as a "keytar". Keytars may either contain their own synthesizer engines, or be MIDI controllers. In either case, a keytar needs to be connected to a keyboard amplifier or PA system to produce a sound that the performer and audience can hear. MIDI controller keytars trigger notes and other

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

data on an external MIDI-capable synthesizer,

sound module A sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a piano-style musical keyboard. Sound modules have to be operated using an externally connected device, which is often a MIDI controller, of which ...

or computer with synthesizer software. While keytars are usually used to create musical sounds, like any other MIDI controller, it could also be used to trigger such as MIDI-enabled lighting controllers, effects devices and audio consoles. Yamaha KX1

History

The oldest forerunner of the keytar probably is the

orphica The orphica is a portable piano invented by Carl Leopold Röllig in the late 18th century. Like a guitar, the orphica could be held on a shoulder strap, thus being an early forerunner of the modern keytar. Only a few orphicas were made in Vie ...

, a small portable piano invented in Vienna in 1795, which was played in a similar position as the modern keytar. The piano accordion first appeared in 1852. In 1963, the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

manufacturer ''Weltmeister'' introduced the ''Basset'', as a Keytar shaped Electric Bass Piano. In 1966, Swedish organ manufacturer Joh Mustad AB introduced the Tubon, a tubular electric organ. This instrument was worn with a strap around the shoulder and could be played standing or sitting. The Tubon had a half-keyboard on one end accessible to the right hand, controls to be used at the "neck" on the opposite end for the left hand, and a speaker at the end of the tube. It was sold in the UK as the Livingstone. It saw use by Kraftwerk and

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the early 1970s, Edgar Winter often performed with keyboards slung around his neck, but they were not technically keytars because they had no "neck"; he actually used an ARP 2600 keyboard and a lightweight Univox electronic piano with shoulder straps added. In late 1970s and early 1980s, Jan Hammer, the composer best known for his composition and sound design successes for ''

Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann (director), Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo ...

'', frequently used several keytars including ''Royalex PROBE'' which he helped develop. Jan is seen for instance using his PROBE in the music video for the " ''Miami Vice'' Theme". Also in the 1980s, Wayne Famous of the band the Producers strapped on a regular Oberheim

, which caused him to develop back problems. The earlier keytars commercially released in late 1970s–early 1980s includes: * Hillwood ''RockeyBoard RB-1'' (synth piano with VCF) designed in 1977 with influence from Edgar Winter, * PMS ''Syntar'', an early keytar synthesizer designed by George Mattson (Performance Music Systems) and exhibited at 1979 Atlanta

NAMM The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

* Davis ''Clavitar'' (controller) used by George Duke and

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he hel ...

in early 1980 * ''Powell Probe'' (controller) designed by Roger Powell, and * ''Royalex Probe'' (controller) helped to develop and used by Jan Hammer in early 1980s ''etc''. (''for details, see''

List of keytars A keytar is a keyboard or synthesizer hung around the neck and shoulders, similar to a guitar. List of keytars * o grip — keyboard model without control grip. * pt grip — keyboard model with optional control grip. Custo ...

) Among them, the most widely known earlier keytar may be the " Moog Liberation" released in 1980. Early users included Spyro Gyra keyboardist Tom Schuman. Though Devo is associated with keytars, they never used them except in music videos and promotional ads for the Liberation. The earliest printed use of the word "keytar" was in 1980, when it appeared in an interview with Jeffrey Abbott (Keytarjeff) by Tom Lounges of ''Illianabeat'' magazine (now ''Midwest BEAT Magazine'') who now hosts a weekly interview show featuring legends of the music industry on N.W. Indiana's PBR radio station. Although Steve Masakowski has been incorrectly credited for many years as the inventor of the keytar, in an interview with Peter Hartlaub of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...

'' on December 11, 2009, he only claimed to have invented an instrument called the Key-tar which was a string-based instrument. The keytar was made popular in the 1980s by glam metal bands, as well as synthpop, new wave and electro musicians. Changing trends in music diminished the keytar's popularity during the 1990s, continuing on until the late 2000s when a major revival was sparked by artists and groups such as The Black Eyed Peas, Flight of The Conchords, Motion City Soundtrack,

No Doubt No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band has consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. Since the mid-1990s, ...

, and Steely Dan. Another instance is in early 2008 with Snoop Dogg's music video for his single "

Sensual Seduction "Sensual Seduction", also known as "Sexual Eruption", is a song by American rapper Snoop Dogg. It was released on November 20, 2007 as the first single of his ninth studio album ''Ego Trippin, with the record label Geffen Records. The song w ...

", in which he uses a keytar as a throwback to old school bands. Notable manufacturers of keytar models have included Moog, Roland, Yamaha, Korg and

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. ...

. As of 2013, the

Roland AX-Synth The Roland AX-Synth is a keytar that is manufactured by Roland Corporation, and was released in late August 2009. This modernized instrument builds on the features of its predecessor, the Roland AX-7. The most notable change is the addition of an i ...

, the Roland Lucina, the Alesis Vortex and Rock Band 3 Wireless Pro Keyboard, are the mass-manufactured keytars on the market.

Examples

1980s–1990s

The Moog Liberation was released in 1980 by Moog Music, and was considered the first mass-produced strap synthesizer. It included two

monophonic Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

VCOs and a polyphonic section that could play

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

sounds. The neck had spring-loaded wheels for filter cutoff, modulation, and

volume Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). ...

as well as a ribbon-controlled pitch bend. The Liberation had a single VCF and two ADS envelope generators. The Roland SH-101 is a small, 32-key,

analog synthesizer from the early 1980s. It has one oscillator with two waveforms, an 'octave-divided' sub-oscillator, and a low-pass filter/ VCF capable of

self oscillation Self-oscillation is the generation and maintenance of a periodic motion by a source of power that lacks any corresponding periodicity. The oscillator itself controls the phase with which the external power acts on it. Self-oscillators are therefor ...

. When a shoulder strap is connected to it, and the small handgrip with a pitch bend wheel and a pitch modulation trigger is used, the SH-101 becomes a keytar. The

Yamaha SHS-10 The Yamaha SHS-10, known in Yamaha's native country, Japan, as the Yamaha Sholky, Sholky being derived from "Shoulder Keyboard", is a keytar (a musical keyboard that can be held like a guitar) manufactured by Yamaha and released in 1987. It has ...

, released in 1987, has a small keyboard with 32 minikeys and a pitch-bend wheel, an internal

Frequency modulation Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and computing. In analog ...

(usually referred to as FM)

offering 25 different voices with 6-note

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

. Onboard voices include a range of keyboard instruments (pipe organ, piano, electric piano, etc.); strings (violin, guitar, double bass, etc.); and wind and brass (clarinet, flute, trumpet, etc.). A larger model, the Yamaha SHS-200, was released the following year, and came with 49 keys and dual stereo speakers.

2000s–present

The Roland AX-7, which was manufactured from 2001 to 2007, contains many more advanced features than early keytars. It has 45

velocity sensitive Keyboard expression is the ability of a keyboard musical instrument to change tone or other qualities of the sound in response to velocity, pressure or other variations in how the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard. Expression t ...

keys (without aftertouch), and a 3-character LED display. Several features aimed towards stage performance are present, such as a pitch bend ribbon, touchpad-like expression bar, sustain switch, and volume control knob, all on the upper neck of the instrument. There is also a proprietary "D-Beam" interface, made up of

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...

sensors that detect nearby motion. This interface can be used to trigger and control effects. In August 2009, Roland released the

, a model of keytar that contains its own synthesizer sounds in addition to being a MIDI/USB controller. In 2010, Roland released the Roland Lucina AX-09. This model does not have a traditional neck, but is still considered a keytar because of it is a strap-on model and is in the AX line, with many identical features to its AX predecessors. It is unique in that it includes an additional, front panel USB port to accommodate a

USB flash drive Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply ( interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A bro ...

, which may contain MP3, WAV or

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange ...

files for playback. The Lucina has 150 internal sounds and may also be used as a MIDI/USB controller. Also in 2010, Mad Catz released the Wireless Pro Keyboard for Rock Band 3, a 25-key velocity-sensitive MIDI-compatible keytar controller. Despite its sub-$100 price, it is designed for serious use outside of the game. Synthpop band Freezepop have used it on stage. In 2012, Alesis released its first ever keytar and is the first major manufacturer to actually use the term "keytar" in the model name and description. The Alesis Vortex USB/MIDI Keytar Controller is unique in that it includes eight velocity-sensitive drum pads/sample triggers, which enable the performer to create beats or trigger clips, built right into the body of the keytar. It also features a unique "accelerometer", which allows the performer to control MIDI parameters by tilting the neck. Although Alesis claims to have manufactured "the first USB keytar controller", the Roland AX-Synth and the Roland Lucina feature USB connections with the same function and were released three years prior to the Alesis Vortex. Fear of Domination Tuska 2019 (1)

References

External links