Free sheet music? Is there a catch? Is this for real?

Yes, there IS a free lunch, but there IS a catch!

I've been astounded by the amount of free sheet music available - it's also called "open source" music. Heavens, I've even posgted some pieces for free over at www.MacMusicGuy.com.  So what are the advantages/disadvantages and parameters?

I am NOT referring to the legitimate and semi-legitimate websites out there that are offering a few pieces of sheet music, but the bulk of the site is devoted to selling sheet music. While a valid selling strategy, those sites are not the scope of this article.

There is an amazing amount of LEGAL sheet music available for download at sites that are dedicated to making the music available. These free sites seem to divide up into a few categories:

1. Music that composers put out there for free
2. Scans of public domain publications. In the US this is anything printed before 1923.
3. Public domain music that someone has taken the time to typeset.
4. Free samples that publishers put out.

 Let's ignore #4 for this article. For the other three, what are the advantages / disadvantages?

#1 - Music that composers put online for free

Some of this music can be pretty good, while some is dreadful. You can find music for just about any combination of instruments, and by composers of all sorts of skill levels.

It is a bit gratifying to see people creating music and put it "out there" who have never composed before. You'll see that situation quite a bit on the MuseScore website.

#2 - Scans of public domain publications.

This has been done by quite a few libraries, especially the US Library of Congress.  An advantage here is, again, breadth - you can find music by composers that Grove's Dictionary barely mentions. Often, however, the scans are of music that is not quite clean (some of the scans look like the sheet music was 200 years old or more) - so that can reduce legibility if you are trying to play from a printout.

More often, though, the difficulty lies in decoding the old-style printing. Much of today's printed music is FAR easier to read, a result of decades of effort in the printing industry.

#3 - Public domain music that someone has taken the time to typeset. 

 Again, an amazing breadth of material is available. Most of the scores I have seen have been of decent quality, but are variations in notation usability - i.e. some of the scores are easier to read because the submitter followed standard notation practices when setting the piece. All in all, though, this category is where I start when looking for a piece.


So what advantage is there in BUYING music now?
There are some SERIOUS advantages to buying sheet music produced using the traditional publication route. First is quality - the paper used, the printing, the ease of reading are all going to be superior to what you are likely to print on your inkjet or laser printer.

The editing - assuming it's a quality edition - will also make it easier to play the music. Things like Finger numbers on piano music often gets left out of the public domain music because it is a royal pain to put in (though MUCH easier than it used to be!)

Then there's the issue of supporting the music industry - especially your local music store. Let's face it - the music industry is basically a "Mom & Pop" operation. There's not a whole lot of depth - i.e. money in the bank!


Where is this stuff located?
Here are several sites I've been using:

• http://musescore.com/sheetmusic
• http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/musi/callon/2233/scores2.htm
  
• The Mutopia Project
• Project Gutenberg - Sheet Music
• IMSLP.org

Happy hunting!

Using technology to teach piano

First, my setup:

1) I teach on a digital piano (not a great one, but it's what I have available in the music store where I teach)

2) I have a 10-year old Mac (Powermac Tower - 266 MHz PPC processor running MacOS 9.2.2) that has 2 midi interfaces.

3) I also have a small sound module (a very old Emu SOundEngine that sounds pretty cheesy, but works)

4) Software includes Band in a box, Finale (from 1994), Opcode EZVision, and Opcode's Studio Vision

What do I do with it, in lessons?

1) Record the student using MIDI into EZVision, which is faster to setup than Studio Vision. They can hear themselves. Sometimes I'll bring teh parents  in as well. I'll also transfer the midi file down to my "real" studio, convert the midi into audio, and email the resulting MP3 to the parents as a surprise.

2) Use iTunes (version 1!) to play some jazz or classical piano tracks. One of the students was learning a piece (titled something like Sugar Rag) - so I played a "real" ragtime for them - a recording of a Scott Joplin piano roll. IT started a conversation about what they were hearing, and what each hand was doing..... and how they could do that with enough practice.

3) I've also been using the setup to create new music for some of my other activities, when I have some downtime. This is the advantage of standard midi files - they can be exported on the old Mac, and pulled up into Traktion for further editing on my new Mac... or even a Windows machine.

4) I'll also create a quickie drum track, have EZVIsion loop it, and use that as a fancy metronome for the student to paly to. If we're feeling adentureous, I'll crank up Band-in-a-Box and have it do an even fancier drum track.

There are a few ideas. Got any others?

A Music Career? This is a career?

Thoughts on the morning before heading down to Georgia Southwestern to perform a recital with Rebecca Lanning: I've been playing piano for 40 years - professionally for over half that (Nope, I ain't as old as that makes me sound). I find it interesting that even though I have a Masters Degree in Piano Performance, I've been paid to play "Classical" less than a dozen times over that period. Rock-n-roll, jazz, country, wedding..... tons of times. Classical, not so much. This may indeed be a comment on my skillset or level of playing - I decided early on that I didn't want Classical to be my entire lifr, and that is required if you are going to make a living at it (I didn't want to live in NY or Chicago either). It also may be a comment on what I'm good at - being a musical chameleon. I've done Classical, yes - but also jazz, rock, country, misc. wedding stuff, pop - and performed on piano and multi-keyboards of various ilks - and been on about a dozen recordings (including one that was nominated for a Grammy). I've even produced two albums with my band at church (tom&co). And I teach - both privately and in a college. So I guess it is a career - at times seriously aggravating, at times seriously wonderful. Two weeks ago I was playing in Storm Lake, Iowa with the Joey Stuckey band playing pop/rock originals - tonight in Americus, Georgia accompanying a phenomenal Mezzo-Soprano in every style from Lieder to 20th C. to TinPanAlley. It ain't boring!

Putting music "out there"

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This is my latest thing to try - putting my music "out there" in the marketplace. Now, I'm nowhere near "signing a label contract" - nor am I interested in that. For that matter, a label wouldn't be interested in what I do anyway, so it all works out! I've put tracks from the two tom&co albums into snocap - so anyone can purchase and download tracks from both albums. Seasons has been available since 2003 at cdbaby. I placed Brethren - our first album from 1999 - on cdbaby in the fall of 07, but didn't want to make it available digitally because two of the tunes are covers. The amount of paperwork to keep track of when selling covers online is more trouble than its worth fro may particular project. However, using Snocap means I can pick and choose which tracks are available, which is nice. So this is yet another experiment in using technology in music. It has the added benefit of being able to tell the tale to my music classes, and makes things interesting. You can never tell what I'll put up in my Snocap store. As of this writing it's only tom&co stuff, but there will be different things down the road.

Joey Stuckey Band slideshow

Here is a slideshow featuring pix and music from the Joey Stuckey band trip to the Boston area to perform on Emerging Artist TV. It was a lot of fun to do - the EA guys are a good group./

I'm the keyboard player with the cool hat.

New video performance

This is a performance of "I Surrender All" that I did at Vineville North in July, 2007. This was a jazz improv version - inspired by the thought that this traditional church tune sounds kinda mournful - but the idea of surrendering to Someone who is perfect is pretty cool, and should be cause for celebration!

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Making a CD: Lessons learned

Now that it has been a couple of months, what have I learned? What would I do differently?

1) This was definitely worth the time involved. not so much from a monetary viewpoint, but from a PR (the parents really appreciated it) and from a "cool" aspect (the kids thought it was cool I knew how to do this. Greater cool factor = greater opportunity to teach them)

2) It really brought home the fact that having equipment does no good by itself. You have to take the time to learn how to use it. I had all this stuff (that I use for other purposes), yet it took some thinking to figure out how to make the CD happen.

3) There are easier ways to accomplish this same thing. There are direct - to - CD recording decks out there (or even the Alesis Masterlink). In that case you can record the performance straight to a CD, and even hand the student the CD right there. It's the CD equivalent of sticking the cassette recorder in front of the piano and pressing "Record". You could even get a set of preprinted blank CDs (Diskmakers sells them) that have your studio's logo on them with room to write the student's name on them.

You lose the ability to edit, though.

I'd love to hear from other teachers who have attempted this same thing.

Making a CD: The Reactions

So the MIDI got recorded, edited, transferred to audio, shipped over to the recording studio, printed, and mailed. What were the reactions?

Overwhelmingly positive! I had made the kids promise not to tell what was coming (and most kept the secret!), so the kids received a package in the mail from their piano teacher. I told them it was up to them whether to keep it a secret until Christmas, or to let their parents see what was in it.

I don't think any of them waited!

The parents came up to me over the next couple of weeks and gushed at how good their kids sounded. The kids (epecially the 5 eyar old twins) were just bustin' out with pride on how thye sounded.

The one exception was one of my adult students, who didn't know I had recorded her (she'd have gotten too nervous) - she wanted to sound better than that, and was very aware of her mistakes. This is common in adult students - we as adults are aware of where we are in the process (kids are just focused on the moment).

I suggested she treat it as a snapshot - and can play it in 6 months to compare how much better she is then.

Was it worth the effort? Oh, yes.

Lessons learned from my viewpoint? That's the next entry.

Making a CD: Send it to the studio

Almost done with this series of entries on creating Christmas CDs for my piano students.

To this point I've detailed the equipment, recording process, editing, and graphics creation. The next step: transferring the data to a studio for actual creation of the physical cds.

At this point in the process, I had graphics files for each student's CDs, plus the assoaciated audio files. What I don't have is a way to print on CDs - it isn't something I need to do very often, so the best route for me was to outsource this part of the project. in other words, I hired a friend who has a recording studio - Joey Stuckey, of Shadowsound music in Macon.

Joey offers CD duplication and on-CD printing as a part of his studio services. After a couple of conversations, we figured the best way was for me to email the graphics files to the studio - they also use Microsoft Publisher, so all I had to do was send the original publisher file. I then used sendthisfile.com to transfer the audio files to them. They were MUCH too big to email them, and I've found sendthisfile.com to be reliable, even when using the free account.

Joey and the staff then took the audio and the Publisher files, ran them through their system, and produced the CDs for me. I brought down some pre-addressed CD mailers, assembled the packages (along with a little note from me regarding what this CD was - a low budget Chrismtas card, if you will), and mailed them out.

Next entry: Reactions and benefits

Making a CD: Graphics

Another entry in a continuing series discussing a custom Christmas present I produced for my piano students - a CD with their performance, recorded in a lesson.

To this point I've detailed how the MIDI data got recorded, how I transferred the MIDI data to my studio machine, recorded the audio, and exported the audio in a CD-friendly format.

But the CDs needed to have SOMETHING printed on them! I googled (at Google images) a piano keyboard, and selected a shot that was a closeup of a piano keyboard (AND that wasn't covered by copyright).

I did a mockup of the CD cover using Microsoft Publisher (a program I do not particularly like - but it was available). I used Publisher primarily because the studio I was sending the audio to also uses it. This allowed me to create a template, and all they had to do was open up the template and change the text to reflect each student's information.

Each CD had the student's name, what date it was recorded, the phrase "Merry Christmas", and the pieces on the CD (along with the track number).

Again, the idea was for the CD to provide a snapshot of the performance - a memory, if you will.

Making a CD: Decisions - how much to edit?

So at this point it the process I had recorded all of the students who were going to be recorded, and I had a floppy disk with several sequence files on it. Several of the pieces had duet parts as well.

Each student had a separate file. Each file - because of how the program works - can contain up to 25 separate sequences. I put each piece into a different sequence. indeed, I put separate takes into separate sequences, except for the 5 year olds.

I transferred the files to the PowerMac in the outhouse, called up the files into Musicshop (an old, defunct sequencer by Opcode), and had some serious decisions to make.

1. How much editing should I do? I could go through and edit every note, put in place just so, and make the performance sound perfect. However, the idea behind this project was to give a positive snapshot of the student's performance - a substitute for a live performance. I decided on minimal editing - after all, I did want the tracks to be listenable!

2. What sounds to use? Piano, yes, for the student - but what about the duet parts? I wanted something that was piano-like, but that allowed the student's performance to be very easy to hear. I decided on an electric piano/Rhodes type sound. The Rhodes proved ideal - you can hear it, but it doesn't cover the piano part in any way.

Most parts were left mostly alone. I trimmed off silence at the start and selected the best "take". One student, who had recorded a longer piece, required me to create a comp (i.e. "composite take"). She had gotten a bit confused entering the B section, but the A section was fine. Due to time constraints I had her re-record the B section, and her second attempt was much better.

In the next entry I'll continue discussing the process and decisions that had to be made.

Making a CD: Recording in the Lesson - Adventures galore!

Looking back, it was interesting at the different approaches I had to take getting the recording done. All of my students had seen me use that old Mac Classic before, and they all knew it would "record" their performances - I use it fairly regularly to help them hear their mistakes. This took the novelty factor down a bit.

With 9 year olds and older I could treat the lesson as a regular recording session. I would start the recording, and they would start the take whenever they were ready (a serious advantage of using MIDI). If there was a false start, I just told them to try again, while letting the sequencer roll.

Duet parts I generally recorded right after their parts were recorded. This way I didn't have to try and recreate them later using music I didn't have. I didn't try for exact timing with their part - just tried to get the exact right notes, and get kinda close on timing. (I fixed the duet part timing later in the outhouse.)

My younger kids presented quite a challenge. In particular I have a pair of 5 year old twins who were real excited at recording, so getting them to focus and actually DO the recording took some doing. They finally did a good job, but the duet parts were real rushed, and took a bit of editing later to make functional.

With everyone recorded, it was time to put the files onto a floppy and transfer them down to the outhouse machine.....but that's a story for another entry.

Making a CD: Process Details

So I have a teaching studio at the music store with a very old Mac and a digital keyboard, a small recording setup in the outhouse, and a friend with some professional studio equipment. How do you use that kind of setup to create student CDs?

Step 1: Record the students Each student and I had obviously been working on several pieces for a couple of weeks. We had even done some "practice" recording, so the kids would realize that they often didn't hear their mistakes, so they needed to really focus when practicing, to quash the errors.

Because I was using MIDI, I didn't have to do the standard practice of pushing record, and then cueing the student to start. I pressed record whenever, and then let the student start when they were ready. If there was a false start, I just let the sequencer keep rolling.

The kids did NOT play to a metronome (or click) - there was no real need. When there was a teacher's accompaniment part to record, I played it on a second track, roughly trying to play in sync. I primarily was concerned with getting my timing close to theirs, and playing all the correct notes. Timing errors could be fixed later (again, becuase of using MIDI).

I had to record the accompaniment right then because of time constraints, and because I didn't necessarily have access to that music later.

Each student was placed in a separate file and saved to floppy (I did mention this was an old Mac, right?).

Step 2: Editing I transported the files down to the MaconOutHouse, where I loaded them into EzVision on my powerMac G3. I decided early on not to do much editing. I wanted to strike a balance between letting the recording be a snapshot of the student's performance, and making it listenable.

I did splice together one student's performance at a section break - i.e. I used Section A from Take 1, and Section B from Take 2, primarily because of time. (We didn't have time in the lesson for another take). The only other editing I did on the student's performacnes was to delete dead air at the beginning and ending of their performances.

The "teacher accompaniments", however, underwent some serious editing. I tried to get the accompaniment to line up as closely as possible with the kid's performances. In the case of my rambunctious 5-year-old twins, this was quite a challenge!

Step three: Drop the Audio! At this point, all the MIDI files were cleaned up, so it was time to get the audio onto a hard drive.

The G3 was used to drive my Roland RD-700sx, which provided the piano sounds. It is hooked up to a Mackie Micro1202VLZ, and then into the audio interface to my Mac Mini. I recorded the audio using Soundtrack Pro (but could have just as easily used Garageband, or even the freeware Audacity. )

To make it easier to tell which was the student part and which the teacher's, I used the "Superior Grand" sound for the kid's part, and usually an electric piano sound for the teacher's.

So basically: Start the audio recording. Play the midi file. Save the recording - making sure I named the file something appropriate.

Step four: collect the parts I had previously worked up a graphic for the CD - just a picture of a piano keyboard. I forwarded this on to my friends down at ShadowSound studio. I also zipped up each student's files, and used sendthisfile.com to transfer the files to them.

ShadowSound took the files and created the CDs using their CD burner/printer. They looked great!

I mailed them out the day after everything was complete. Coming

up in the series: Decision, Reactions, and other ways to do the same thing.

Making a CD: Technologies and Process

Another post in the continuing story of making a CD for my student. Today: a look at the technologies used. This is not the only process possible - indeed, there are easieer ways to do this. However, I decided to use what I had available. I should note that it wasn't one CD - it was 9 different CDs, each student received a CD with only their perofrmances on it, plus it had their name and song titles printed on them (along with a neat graphic of a piano keyboard). The first of the technologies used is actually fairly old: MIDI. [I remember when it first came out - I got married when MIDI was still in diapers]. MIDI is basically a "language" (the computer geeks call it a protocol) that allows a computer to memorize what notes were pressed when, and how hard. It also can keep track of things like sustain pedal presses, when the sound was changed on the keyboard, and more. So I had the computer "memorize" what keys the students played when. This allowed me to easily transfer the MIDI data down to the outhouse using - gasp! - a FLOPPY DISK. [the outhouse = my studio back at the house. It's the little house out back.......yes, my family enjoys puns.] MIDI files are ridiculously small - you could fit all the parts for all of Beethoven's symphonies on one 1.4 megabyte floppy. That same floppy will only hold something like 6 seconds of CD quality audio. The DISadvantage is that the quality of the "box" - synthesizer, soundcard, etc. - actually making the sound when "fed" the MIDI file is what determines how good the music sounds. Another technology: a sample playback keyboard - specifically, a Roland RD-700sx, with 88 weighted keys and a very nice sound. This was used to actually create the sound that was eventually recorded. The audio was recorded using a Mac Mini with an M-Audio Firewire audiophile box attached to it. I used Apple's SoundTrack Pro to record the audio, but there are other options available (for me, Traktion from Mackie, or the free Audacity software would have worked as well.) Other technologies used: the internet and email - used to transfer the audio files to a friend's commercial studio. He then used a CD burner and printer to actually make the CDs. Then, of course, there is the United States Postal Service, which took care of delivering the packages to my students. That's an overview of what was used. Next posting - details on how this project was accomplished.

Making a CD: My equipment

As a reminder, this series of posts is a review of a special project I did for my students - recording them in the studio and getting CDs made of their performances.

But first, an overview of what equipment I have available, which influenced the process I went through.

In the studio at the music store (Young America Music in Macon, GA) I have a positively ancient Mac Classic (it runs at a whopping 16 MHz processor speed) that dates from 1992. I run opcode EzVision on it for basic sequencing work - I use it fairly often to record the kids as they play - they are amazed at the technology ("It's HOW old?) and the fasct they can hear themselves.

I teach on a home digital piano from Casio - it's what the store has available. It isn't bad, but not the best in the world by any stretch. Keys ARE weighted, though, and the piano sound is pretty good.

In the outhouse studio (so named because it's the house out back) I have a small recording setup - a Mac mini, Soundtrack software, and an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile interface. My keyboard is a Roland RD700 - has an excellent piano. I also have a mac G3 desktop - running (yep, you guessed it) Opcode's EzVision.

The fundamental problem (challenge!) is that I don't have a direct way to record the audio that the kids produce in the studio. A cassette recording is out of the question - quality is too low (and would be a real pain to get done).

So there's the setup and the problem. The story continues in the next post with details on the technologies used and the process........ all to give my students and their parents something to listen to.

Piano Studio: An Experimental Christmas Present for my students

The situation: The store where I teach (Young America Music) has been doing construction for some time - adding on a new building - so we were not able to have a fall recital there. My schedule was so full I was not able to schedule a recital somewhere else, so I decided an experiment to give the kids something to work towards, and they would have something fo their own to give to their parents: A CD of themselves playing. Following episodes will detail the equipment I have available, what skill sets were required, other ways to accomplish the same thing, decisions that had to be made in the process, and the results. It was an interesting process - probably made more complicated than necessary because I'm fairly picky - but the end results were fairly satisfactory. Tune in as the story unfolds! You can set your RSS reader to subscribe to this blog, or add your email address in the feedblitz box over there on the side. You'll get an email when this blog is updated!

Improvisation on the Piano

I have been working - in my mind, at least - on an outline re: teaching improvisation. Usually my starting point is either a book of some sort, from which I pick up a pedagogical outline, or my own experience. In terms of improv, though, the books I've found seem insufficient. They are either way too theoretical, or way too tune-based. By the latter I am referring to the design where a book throws several tunes and basically says, "Here, play this".

There deosn't seem to be material which walks a student through the process of working on an improvisation, which has started me thinking about the process you go through when improvising. What musical skills and knowledge do you have to have in order to imrpvo successfully? What ear capabilities?

In this, also, my own experience is proving deficient. I don't remember how I started improvising - other than I began by adding in parts to the boring piano accompaniments I was playing for my high school choir.

So, my initial thoughts:

1. Scales and keys play a part. You need to know instinctively what notes fit a particular key.
2. Knowing chords is also a part. You could work off the notes in a particular chord.
3. Some Rhythmic capabilities is necessary - being able to play rhythmic patterns for comping work, for example.
4. A sense of form - you'd want to play differently between the verse and chorus.
5. There's also the non-note-based but oh-so-important performance aspects such as tempo, dynamics, expressions, and articulations. Intonation, too!

So in what order would you teach these concepts? Using what material? At this point I am certain you can't segment the areas listed, but how to mix them together into a cohesive whole is a fairly knotty problem - not to mention the problem of keeping things interesting!

More entries as the thinking warrants.

Acoustic versus Digital pianos

Heard mention the other day that a local piano tuner was recommending to some of his clients to switch to digital. He said he was tired of keeping all those acoustics in tune.

Sounds to me like he's ready to retire!

My views have changed on this subject over the years as technology has evolved on both the acoustic and digital fronts. While I do believe there is NOTHING like playing a quality grand (the expressiveness and sound is unbelievable), the digitals come out ahead when comparing a quality digital piano and the cheaper spinets and consoles.

The acoustics have the advantage of longevity - even a cheaper spinet will last for decades (IF taken care of). I don't believe the digital keyboards will last much longer than a decade, of that long (Depends on how much they are played, of course). The acoustics in general allow a bit more touch control, and especially pedalling nuance (things like half-pedalling, etc are just not possible with most of the digitals.)

On the other hand, digitals never go out of tune. You can use headphones. They generally have additional sounds, useful for keeping practice interesting (ever heard Bach played with a harpsichord sound? A vibe?). The MIDI capabilities, when used with a computer, open up a world of possibilities. Some are portable.

So what do I recommend when buying a digital? I look at three primary things: Key size, Keyboard feel, and Sound. The keys have to be full sized, and the feel needs to be as close to a grand as possible. (I currently really like the feel of the Casio Privia series, for example - especially in it's price range.) I tell my parents to sit down and really listen to a piano's sound for an extended period of time - if their ears aren't tired of hearing the sound, then it will probably work.

I wish all my students could use a quality grand piano in their practicing - but that's not going to happen in this lifetime. The digitals are a great alternative.

That;s my opinion. What do YOU think?

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http://www.tomrule.info/music
http://www.tom-and-co.com

Teaching Youngsters and Herding Cats

Some of the kids I teach are fascinating. Some days, they are all focused on playing the piano. Others, you might as well be at the zoo.

Now, some of my teachers growing up were, compared to the way I teach, very standoffish. I would play, they would make a comment or two, and we would move on. I remember having more conversations as I got into High School, and it became apparent I was going to major in music.

I would say I am an active teacher. I treat a lesson more like a rehearsal - the student and I are working together to improve their skill. I guess the best sports analogy is that I'm the coach (but a coach that can STILL play the sport!).

But some days - and with a couple of my students, it's every day - you have to go with the flow. I want them to remain excited about piano, but also to get something done (hey, that's what their parents are PAYING me for!). So I listen to the stories about their day at school - and indeed, ask them how things are...and we play.

Some days it's more playing. Some days it's more talking.

Some days I'm teaching piano. Some days I'm herding cats.

It is never boring, though.

--------------------------------------------------- The MacMusic Guy

Basic Info | www.tomrule.info/music The MacMusic Blog | macmusicguy.blogspot.com The Band | www.tom-and-co.com ---------------------------------------------------

Performing and Equipment: Some questions

I am beginning to think about replacing my keyboard, and that brings up some thoughts about the place equipment has in a musician's life.

I currently use a Kurzweil K1200 - yes, old and outdated compared to current keyboards, but still definitely functional for my purposes. Plus you CANNOT beat the Electric Piano sounds in that thing!

It strikes me that the equipment you have can serve as either a limitation or an inspiration, depending on the circumstances and your attitude. Bad, limited equipment can indeed keep you from making music - but older equipment that is still functional can still be usable. The catch is that it often takes longer, or mroe effort - which may in turn produce better music.

Musicians have long struggled with their equipment. How many pianos did Mozart have custom ordered? Beethoven had a special piano created with heavier strings that sounded louder, to compensate for his slowly growing deafness.

Good equipment is necessary for a performing musician to work. Good equipment alos costs $ - it's the old "you get what you pay for". I paid more for my Kurzweil than some other competing keyboards, but the thing has lasted well over a decade. It's amazing what having a metal body will do for longevity! (plus I take real good care of it).