Yamaha PSR-E273 61-Key Portable Keyboard

The Yamaha PSR-E273 is a portable arranger keyboard with a host of features designed to make learning easy and fun for beginners. The unit sports 61 full-size keys and 401 realistic onboard sounds that are exciting and interesting to play, including acoustic and electric instruments, drums, sound effects, and of course, a grand piano. Built-in speakers and a headphone jack make it ready for both your home recitals and private practice sessions.

The PSR-E273's Quiz mode expands on the Yamaha Education Suite (YES) found in many of the company's home and portable keyboards. Quiz mode prompts you to repeat notes, simple melodies, or chords, giving feedback on correct and incorrect answers—turning ear training into a gamelike experience.

The LCD displays notes for the 112 built-in songs (with a corresponding songbook available as a free download). It also shows learning modes to teach both pitch and timing. The keyboard can pause song playback, if you strike a wrong note while playing along, resuming once you find the correct key. Another convenience is Duo mode, in which a teacher and student (or parent and child) can sit side by side and play the same range of pitches on either half of the keyboard.

The 143 auto-accompaniment styles put an entire backing band at your command, following chord changes in a wide variety of music genres, from rock and R&B to classical, country, electronic, and many more. Begin by using the Smart Chord feature to play chords with one finger, and then return to multifingered chords as your playing evolves.

The PSR-E273 features a Song Recorder, which offers traditional recording and playback of your performance for practice and evaluation. A second recorder, the Phrase Recorder, operates more like a musican's loop pedal. It records a short one- or two-bar phrase, then loops the phrase continuously, so you can improvise over it—a fast and easy way to create modern-sounding grooves and phrases.

The 3.5mm input jack allows you to plug in a phone or MP3 player and play along with your favorite songs on the unit's speakers. For total portability, the PSR-E273 can be powered via six AA batteries. It can also be powered by a PA-130 AC adapter (power supply and batteries available separately).