Bianca Santos's Blog (BTEC Level 3 Music): Music Technology In Performance

Music Technology In Performance
(Keytar/Syntar)

History

Circa 1980 (Syntar)

The first Keytar or ‘Syntar’ (That was the first name given to it) was invented in the 70s called ‘Circa 1980 Syntar’ but the first appearance of it was in a magazine called 'Illianabeat Magazine' after being mentioned to the public through an interview. The very first Keytar for sale in the market was in the 80s by a company called 'Moog Company' and it was called 'The Moog Liberation’.

Moog Liberation (1980)

People still don't know who the inventor of the Keytar/Syntar was, but there was man named Steven Masakowski and he was the one who got the credit for it even though he claims he didn't invent it.

The Keytar is an Electronic Keyboard with or without a build-in synthesiser in it. It has several different voices/sounds in it such as strings, brass and distinctive electronic leads, you can also program your Keytar to sound like an Electric guitars.

The Keytar can also be used as a MIDI Controller to send MIDI sounds to the computer.

The person using a Keytar for their performance can strap it around their body or just put it on top of a keyboard stand.

There were similar instruments in the 70s but they weren't considered as Keytar because they didn't have the neck like a guitar where you can add effect while playing, but you could put a strap on it and wear around the neck.

The only manufacturer that still make the Keytars now is 'Roland' but before after it being invented it was Yamaha, Moog, Roland, and Casio.

Keytar In Performance

One of the first band to show to the public how the keytar sounds like in a performance was the band called 'Devo'. There is another band called 'Frank Goes To Hollywood' and there one of their songs where they use the Keytar sound a lot, and the name of the track is 'Relax'.

One the best Keytarist known is a man called Herbie Hancock who was really famous in the 80s and his song called 'Chameleon' is one of the best examples of Keytar playing because in the song he really shows off his Keytar skills and what he can do on it. There are also other famous solo artist such as Howard Jones, Prince, and Weird Al Yankovi who started using the Keytar on their performance and that helped the instrument to get more popularity. From all this artist I mentioned Prince is the only on who designed his own called Purpleaxxe

Prince's own designed Keytar (Purpleaxxe)

The only problem people had in the 80s with the Keytar, was its weight and that was one of the reasons why most of the artists and bands stopped playing the Keytar after the 80s.
Artist like James brown had the same problem with the Keytar because of its weight, in one of his performances he had to cut the song shorter because his back was hurting too much. Other artist like Rick Wakeman were sent to the hospital after a performance because of the heavy weight of his Keytar.

from 90s-2000s people kind stopped playing the keytar but 7-8 years later the Keytar made a serious comeback in the music industry, with new designs, less heavy and more modern it started being more played not only in Electronic music but also in other genres such as Pop/R&B, Hip Hop, and Funk. Even Snoop Dogg played the keytar himself in one of his music videos in November, 2007 called 'Sexual Seduction'.

This is just one of Gaga's custom
made Keytar, she has many other
one with different looks.

Matthew Bellamy playing his custom
Keytar in one of his concerts.
The Neck of his Keytar actually
looks like a normal Guitar.

Modern artist such as Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Will.i.am, Justin Timberlake have played the Keytar while performing and some of them has their own custom made Keytar such as Matthew Bellamy and Lady Gaga.

Moog Liberation (1980)

Throughout the years the Keytar has involved a lot since the creation of the first one which was the 'Moog Liberation' in 1980.

Alesis Vortex (2012-2013)

Since the first one, there are about forty-six Keytar invented and each of the has some different in it, some of their own build in sound and there are some without it which are used to control other synthesisers or sound expanders, vis digital signal which we call it the MIDI Controller/USB or analog signal.
The latest Keytar released is the Alesis Vortex made by Roland

In the video down bellow shows all the Keytar and how different some of them look, the different styles and also their name and where they are from.