I’ve got a Yamaha P140S digital piano at home, and for the most part I use the three main piano voices, depending upon what mood I’m in, but I tend not to use the other voices much.
Then the other day I decided to play around with the three electric piano voices, and in fact found that I loved them.
Not only did I love them, but it forced me to play in a different style.
Things that sound great on an acoustic piano don’t always work on an electric piano.
Similarly, things that a normal piano sound can’t give you (ringing echoes or shiny vibrato, for example) are natural on some electric piano sounds.
Of course, if you’ve got a synth you can choose pretty much any sound imaginable, but the beauty of picking other keyboard sounds is that the method of playing them is still natural.
That being said, there’s a big technique and performance difference between playing a piano, an EP, a harpsichord, or any other keyed instrument.
That’s not to say you can’t extend the concept and play a whole range of different sounds, but if you’ve got a digital piano with a few additional sounds, why not crack them open a bit more often than you usually do?
This is an especially good technique if you improvise a lot but have got stuck in a rut. Even if you end up playing the same chord structures, I bet you’ll find new ways of playing to suit the sound.
Experiment and have fun!
