Keyboard For Dummies
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If you're looking for inspiration from great songs but don't know what pieces highlight your particular type of keyboard, the following lists will set you on the right path. Each list presents ten songs that feature a specific type or family of keyboard. These lists aren't ranked; no one entry is better than another. They're compiled only to make you aware of songs. Be sure to listen to the songs, buy the ones you like, and learn how to play them. Six top ten lists in one: what a bargain!

10 piano songs/pieces

  • "Angry Young Man" — Billy Joel

  • "Moonlight Sonata" — Ludwig van Beethoven

  • "Jessica" — The Allman Brothers Band (featuring Chuck Leavell)

  • "Bridge Over Troubled Water" — Simon & Garfunkel (beautiful intro by Larry Knechtel)

  • "I Loves You, Porgy" — Bill Evans (Sunday at the Village Vanguard)

  • "Take a Pebble" — Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  • "My Song" — Keith Jarrett (The Carnegie Hall Concert)

  • "Tiger Rag" — Art Tatum

  • "Bennie and the Jets" — Elton John

  • "Tipitina" — Professor Longhair

10 Rhodes electric piano songs

  • "Living For The City" — Stevie Wonder

  • "Red Baron" — Billy Cobham (featuring Jan Hammer)

  • "Cause We Ended As Lovers" — Jeff Beck

  • "Butterfly" — Herbie Hancock

  • "Get Back" — The Beatles (featuring Billy Preston's classic solo)

  • "Riders On the Storm" — The Doors

  • "Spain" — Chick Corea

  • "Angela" — Bob James

  • "Boogie Woogie Waltz" — Weather Report (great wah-wah effect use!)

  • "Sheep" — Pink Floyd

10 Wurlitzer electric piano songs

  • "What'd I Say" — Ray Charles

  • "The Logical Song" — Supertramp

  • "Put It Where You Want It" — The Crusaders

  • "Mercy, Mercy, Me" — Cannonball Adderley

  • "Mama Told Me Not To Come" — Three Dog Night

  • "Pretzel Logic" — Steely Dan

  • "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" — Marvin Gaye

  • "Stay With Me" — Faces

  • "Money" — Pink Floyd

  • "Waiting For a Girl Like You" — Foreigner

10 Clavinet songs

  • "Superstition" — Stevie Wonder

  • "Trampled Under Foot" — Led Zeppelin

  • "Outa-Space" — Billy Preston

  • "Tell Me Something Good" — Rufus

  • "Green Earrings" — Steely Dan

  • "Thelonius" — Jeff Beck

  • "You Haven't Done Nothing" — Stevie Wonder

  • "Up On Cripple Creek" — The Band

  • "Exodus" — Bob Marley & Wailers

  • "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" — Frank Zappa

10 organ songs

  • "Green Onions" — Booker T. & the MG's

  • "Born To Be Wild" — Steppenwolf

  • "The Champ" — Jimmy Smith

  • "Rondo" — Keith Emerson

  • "Green-Eyed Lady" — Sugarloaf

  • "Light My Fire" — The Doors

  • "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" — Procol Harum

  • "Squib Cakes" — Tower Of Power

  • "Chest Fever" — The Band

  • "Hot 'Lanta" — The Allman Brothers Band

10 synth songs

  • Switched On Bach — Wendy Carlos (the whole album!)

  • "Fanfare For the Common Man" — Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  • "On the Run" — Pink Floyd

  • "Frankenstein" — Edgar Winter Group

  • "Radioactivity" — Kraftwerk

  • "Snowflakes Are Dancing" — Tomita

  • "Chameleon" — Herbie Hancock

  • "Lucky Man" — Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  • "Sweet Dreams" — The Eurythmics

  • "Oxygene (Part 4)" — Jean-Michel Jarre

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Jerry Kovarsky is a regular columnist for Keyboard magazine and longtime product management guru with Casio, Korg, and other companies who have been instrumental in bringing keyboard technology into people's homes and onto stages and studios around the world.

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