James Sargeant at the Bonington Theatre – Yamaha Tyros4 Keyboard Played as an Organ

Yesterday evening, James Sargeant (courtesy of Roger’s Music – Nottingham) entertained a large group of Yamaha keyboard enthusiasts at the Bonington Theatre in Arnold by playing the Tyros4 keyboard (the current Yamaha flagship model).

Over roughly 7 years, you can imagine the amount of demonstrations I have witnessed featuring Yamaha musical instruments and most certainly a fair few with the Yamaha Tyros4 keyboard as the main attraction. Yesterday evening however included a slightly different approach from the norm and rather than using the hundreds of backing styles to aid his performance, James Sargeant instead played the Tyros4 as if it was an electric organ.

James delighted the audience with various well known classical and modern songs – relying completely on his own skills as a musician to see him through the evening.

I am a big fan of backing styles (auto accompaniment) for when I am playing a Yamaha keyboard at home, as this provides an immense feeling of being surrounded by a whole band or orchestra as you perform. It is hard to ignore however the spectacle of a very different and indeed freestyle way of playing as he used a second keyboard and a set of bass pedals to great effect – ignoring backing styles almost completely.

Watching this style of performance is certainly more of a spectacle as there is so much to take in and you also feel more assured that the wonderment reaching your ears is so much harder to achieve. Not only were his hands flying across the two keyboards with ease, but his feet were also carefully triggering the bass notes and overall volume level – a style that is alas rapidly losing appeal for modern generations.

I may no longer run a Yamaha enthusiast website, however my love for these superb musical instruments remain intact – especially after watching a wonderful player and demonstrator by the name of James Sargeant.