English-Chinese Electronic Keyboard Button Usage Dictionary

Author: Ma Xingqian
Editor-in-Chief: Ye Lai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-04-18
Features:
Fragment: Overview of Electronic Keyboards
Electronic keyboards (Electone) are electronic instruments. Conventional instruments are referred to as traditional instruments. They produce sound using vibrations from strings (like violins), reeds (like organs), and air in tubes (like trumpets). Electric and acoustic instruments, such as electric organs (Elec.Organ), electric guitars (Elec.Guitar), and electric clocks that can play music, use traditional instruments as sound sources and are controlled by electrical circuits. These electric and acoustic instruments cannot be classified as electronic instruments. Electronic instruments are those that generate the 12-tone equal temperament scale and simulate various timbres through circuits. They include: electronic keyboards (Electone), digital pianos (Digital Piano, EP·Piano, Clavinova), electronic accordions (Elec.Accordion), drum machines (Drum Machine, Digital Percussion), tone generators, MIDI keyboards, and synthesizers. We refer to keyboard instruments that simulate and synthesize sounds through electronic technology as electronic keyboards. We refer to electronic acoustic keyboard instruments that create, modify, and synthesize sounds through electronic technology as synthesizers. We refer to computer systems that create, edit, store, and print musical works through MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) as music computers (CAC, Computer-Assisted Composition). Compared to traditional instruments, electronic instruments have a wider range, such as a piano with 88 keys, while large electronic synthesizers can have 128 keys. The dynamic range of electronic instruments is greater, such as a violin's sound power being only 75μW (microwatts), while an electronic keyboard can reach hundreds of watts. Synthesizers have 128 levels of volume control. Electronic instruments can create full-frequency range sounds from 20Hz (hertz) to 20kHz that the human ear can hear, providing comprehensive auditory stimulation and experience. Electronic instruments have rich timbres. Through sampling technology, they can reproduce the sounds of all traditional instruments, natural sounds, human voices, and animal sounds; create special and novel sounds that humans have never heard before; and edit and process various sound effects, such as wah-wah, rotating sounds, reverb, valley echo, and hall reverb. They can perform high-difficulty techniques that only skilled performers can achieve, such as arpeggios, glissandos, vibrato, and tremolo. They also have functions such as automatic accompaniment (automatic harmony and rhythm), recording, memory, and synthesis. One person can produce the effect of an entire band. Electronic keyboards come in two types: upright and portable. Upright electronic keyboards are fully functional and have high power, with two or three hand keyboards and a row of foot keyboards. Portable electronic keyboards are divided into standard keys (with key widths the same as a piano) and children's keys (mini keys). Electronic keyboards mainly consist of three parts: keyboards, knobs, and speakers. Control knobs can be further divided into three parts: timbre, rhythm, and chords.