CONCERT MAGIC
Thanks to Kawai's innovative 
CONCERT MAGIC (CM) feature, 
absolutely anyone can sit at the 
Concert Performer and experience 
the joy of being a real 
performing musician. even if 
they have never touched a 
musical instrument in their 
life!

Concert Magic allows you to play 
a song by simply tapping any 
keys on the keyboard.  
Regardless of what keys you 
play, the notes that are heard 
will be the proper ones in the 
song.  However, what makes this 
really exciting is that you 
control the timing of the notes, 
as well as their dynamics.  Thus 
you can add a level of 
expressiveness and individuality 
to the song that makes it truly 
a performing experience.   

As you play a CM song, a handy 
Note Navigator display helps you 
keep track of where you are in 
each bar, as well as suggesting 
how the rhythm of the original 
song arrangement should be 
tapped out on the keys.

Many of the popular CM songs 
have lyrics which can be 
displayed as the song is being 
performed.  A very exciting and 
innovative feature unique to 
Kawai is the Bouncing Ball, 
which takes advantage of the 
CP's large LCD display by making 
its way over the lyrics, 
following the player's 
performance and encouraging 
everyone around the instrument 
to sing along.
Selecting a Concert Magic Song
The 176 on-board Concert Magic 
songs are divided into eight 
groups by song category: 
Children's Songs, American 
Classics, Patriotic Songs, 
Christmas Songs, Hymns, 
Classics, Special Occasions, and 
International songs.

In addition, you can create your 
own Concert Magic songs from 
song data in Standard MIDI File 
format.

To select a song:

1) Press the CONCERT MAGIC 
button. The song selection menu 
will be displayed.

2) Ten song titles to choose 
from will be displayed at a 
time. The current category that 
you are in will be displayed at 
the very top of the screen.  If 
you need to go to another 
category to find the song that 
you want, press SEARCH BY 
CATEGORY (F1, F2).  You can also 
search for a specific title by 
using SEARCH BY NAME (F4, F5), 
which will list all 176 song 
titles in alphabetical order.

You may use the Dial to scroll 
through all the titles one after 
another.

If you wish to load a CM song 
from floppy disk, press the DISK 
button (F6) first, then select 
your song from the list of 
available files.

3) When you have found the song 
that you want to play, use the L 
or R buttons to move the box 
over the title.  Press the 
SELECT button (F7) to choose it.  
The Note Navigator screen will 
be displayed, and you are ready 
to perform!

Performing a Concert Magic Song
Using Concert Magic is one of 
the easiest, yet one of the most 
enjoyable ways to use the 
Concert Performer.  Just pick a 
song and tap the keys, and you 
are making music!
Being familiar with how a 
particular song goes does help 
when it comes to deciding the 
rhythm of your key tapping.  
However, the Note Navigator can 
help you play a song that you've 
never heard before by displaying 
the appropriate rhythm as a 
large chart.

The Note Navigator chart 
provides an outline of the 
song's rhythm by displaying up 
to four bars at a time.  Each 
bar is divided into beat 
partitions according to the time 
signature.  Within each of these 
partitions are dots () that 
show you where the note events 
should fall if you want to play 
the song with its correct 
rhythm. After you've played past 
a note in the song, the dot 
becomes a cross (+) to help you 
keep track of where you now are. 

To play a selected CM song:
	
1. From the Note Navigator 
screen Press START (F3) to 
listen to the song.  The CP will 
play back the song on its own.  
Press the STOP (F3) button again 
to stop.  Notice how the Note 
Navigator displays the rhythm as 
the song is playing.

2. If you wish to perform the CM 
song yourself, press any of 88 
keys while the song is not 
playing, and this will play the 
first note(s) of the song.

3. Press the RESET (F3) button 
at any time to start at the 
beginning of the song again.

4. To play another song, press 
the SONG LIST buttons (F6, F7) 
to display the list.

5. If you have selected a song 
with lyrics and want view them 
instead of the Note Navigator, 
press the LYRICS button (F1).

6. To exit Concert Magic, simply 
press the CONCERT MAGIC button 
again.

When your performance reaches 
the end of the song, press any 
key one more time.  This will 
not produce sound, but instead 
resets the song to the beginning 
for another performance.

The Bouncing Ball only works 
with song files that are 
specifically designed for 
Concert Magic to take advantage 
of this feature.

A Concert Magic song is made of 
two parts, a melody and the 
accompaniment, and many songs 
have been programmed with 
different sounds for each part.  
You can however select your 
preferred sound for each part 
separately.  The RIGHT1 sound 
plays the melody and the LEFT 
sound handles the accompaniment.  
You can also introduce a RIGHT2 
sound as a layer.

You can transpose the song by 
pressing the TRANSPOSE buttons.

Concert Magic Song Arrangements
Concert Magic songs are 
specially arranged so that they 
will work well with your key 
tapping.  Each of the 176 CM 
songs falls into one of 3 
categories regarding how they 
were arranged, and this allows 
for 3 skill levels of how the 
player should tap the keys to 
appropriately play the song.


EASY BEAT
These are the easiest songs to 
play.  To perform them, simply 
tap any keys that you desire at 
a constant beat.  
You can easily tell which songs 
are Easy Beat songs when you 
look at the Note Navigator.  The 
dots are lined up at a constant 
interval in the chart, 
indicating a constant beat.

MELODY PLAY
These songs are also quite easy 
to play, especially if you are 
familiar with them.  To perform 
them, tap the keys to the rhythm 
of the melody. 


SKILLFUL
These songs are more 
challenging.  To perform them, 
tap out the rhythm of both the 
melody and the accompaniment 
notes on the keys.
It may require some practice to 
successfully play these 
selections.  Even skilled 
players will undoubtedly enjoy 
the challenge that they offer.  
Try listening to these songs 
first, and then try to tap out 
the rhythms that you hear.
Creating a Concert Magic Song
What if you want to use Concert 
Magic to play a song that isn't 
one of the 176 built-in titles?  
One of the fun things about the 
Concert Performer is that you 
can actually take your favorite 
song and turn it into a CM file!

Record your song as a Standard 
MIDI File on a floppy disk.  
Then use your personal computer 
to change the name of the file 
so that instead of ".MID" as 
the extension, it now reads 
".CMG".  This needs to be done 
so that Concert Magic will know 
to look at the file when it is 
searching the floppy disk.  The 
file can now be selected when 
you are in Concert Magic.

As you might imagine, getting 
your song to act exactly the way 
you want it to in Concert Magic 
may require a few adjustments to 
the original arrangement.

The most important consideration 
when creating a song to be used 
with Concert Magic is keeping 
the arrangement as simple as 
musically possible.  This is 
because Concert Magic "pauses" 
the song after every note that 
is played as it waits for you to 
tap the next key, so if there 
are complex patterns that have 
many notes per beat (such as a 
rhythm part), having to tap a 
key for every little note to be 
played can make the performance 
overly difficult.



Here are some suggestions for 
creating a Concert Magic song:

1. Make the melody first.

2. Then arrange the 
accompaniment part so that its 
notes fall on the same beats as 
the melody. (This makes a Melody 
Play song.)

3. Insert a few carefully placed 
accompaniment notes in between 
melody note beats.  (This 
creates a Skillful song.)

Of course, these are merely 
suggestions.  There are no 
steadfast rules for how to 
compose your song, and in fact 
very rewarding musical 
experiences may come out of  
simple trial and error.

