It’s the Magic Formula, Art + Music = Joy

 

The world needs creativity, now more than ever. Whether it be the toe tapping syncopation of a funk track, or the vivid colours of modern visual art, we all need to experience something transcendent, something beyond ourselves.

Luckily, we’ve got just the thing. Casiotone has teamed up with the renowned visual artist Romero Britto to make a portable keyboard piano that is guaranteed to spread a bit of joy wherever it may be. It looks good. It sounds good. And you can rest assured the good vibes will be a-plenty.

Romero was the official artist for Rio Olympics and the Brazil World Cup, and his works hang all over the world, in the likes of Paris and London. Now, his vivid depictions of light and life can make their way into your home, care of this Britto/Casiotone collab. The design, ‘Love Flower & Hearts’ uses vibrant colours and bold lines to depict a sense of joy and optimism. “It came from the inspiration of music,” Romero explains. “Every time I listen to music, it makes me energised, it makes me happy, it makes me want to create even more art.” 

This inspiration becomes cyclical. To look down on your portable keyboard piano and to see Romero’s artwork is to be inspired to play something brand new. His unique fusion of pop art and cubism has an almost child-like sense of innocence and joy. Much of the world’s best music has been inspired by these emotions, and so you will find yourself moved to play in entirely new and unexpected ways.

One of the best things about this model is that it’s portable. We’re talking approx 13+ hours of play-time on 6 x AA batteries, kind of portable. Why should the ephemeral joy and wonder of playing music be confined to your bedroom? It needs to be taken out and shared with friends, family, even with strangers. The built-in speaker makes this a truly flexible instrument, ready for whatever you need wherever you need it. There is something beautiful about playing in collaboration with others, as you all tap into that strange dance of rhythm and melody. More beautiful still, is that moment when complete strangers watch on, and become enmeshed in the experience of music in a public place. For the briefest of moments, you cease to be strangers. Instead, you all understand one another, and what it felt like in that moment to hear that song. As Plato said almost 2,400 years ago, ‘music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination.’ This portable piano and its vivid joyous artwork is the perfect way for music to do exactly that.

While this piano may look whimsical and lighthearted, underneath this veneer, there is a seriously powerful instrument, stacked with the decades of innovation that has made Casio one of the most popular global designers of musical instruments. You can choose from over sixty different tones so whilst it may look bright, it is also capable of the melancholic or the sombre. It has a MIDI recording output, tone memory, and touch response so you can express yourself precisely with every single note. 

This collaboration just works. It looks amazing, sounds even better, and in our experience it is a pretty simple equation: Art + Music = Joy.