Apparently the best instrument you own is the one you play.
Currently I am playing my Yamaha PSR-e313 which I bought in a charity shop for £35 about 3 months ago. I have other keyboards but for some reason this one just seems very comfortable to play. It has 100 styles which provide auto accompaniment as you throw chords and melodies at it. This is something I love doing. I usually know when I want to play but not what I want to play so messing around for an hour or so until something sticks is good fun.
I found a style today which made me play differently than I had been for the previous hour. A decent chord progression emerged and before I knew it I had recorded the track for reference and written some lyrics for it. It's far from finished and these little demos are useful references for the future.
While a lot of musicians hate the idea of arranger keyboards I think that if nothing else they are a great starting point. No rigging up loads of gear, no faffing around try to get that 'just right' sound before I start playing and loads of styles that I can try without having to start from scratch.
There's no point powering up the studio when there's nothing to record.
