Discovery of the Day! Retro Yamaha Electone Books | Mar 23, 2017

Since ’09, I’ve been keeping an eye out for miniature second-hand book fairs, a couple of which pops up every now and then in Singaporean shopping malls. The reason: these fairs almost always have old or used Yamaha Electone books for sale.

Second Hand Book Fair at HarbourFront Centre.
A second Hand Book Fair at HarbourFront Centre. With old Yamaha Electone books for sale.

Walked into one this evening at HarbourFront Centre and immediately headed for the music section. As expected, there were pre-loved / used Electone books for sale. Compared to previous fairs I found, this fair had well over ten books on sale too, including textbooks and supplementary guides. In addition, there were also a couple of Hammond textbooks. These were from a series I have not seen before.

Used Yamaha Electone books on sale.
Three boxes of music books. Including many for the Electone, and a few for the Hammond.

Used sight-playing work books for the Yamaha Electone.
Used sight-playing workbooks for the Electone. There were also some books on improvisation i.e the hardest Electone study subject and a must-know for great keyboard playing.

Many Electone players probably dislike such retro scores. Published before the HS-8 era, none of them come with pre-made registrations, and so to play them involves hours of tedious programming.

I do dislike this downside too. That said, many retro scores are still wonderfully arranged, and in my opinion, definitely worth a few hours of sweaty reprogramming. At the same time, simpler arrangements could be used for uncomplicated performances. In the case of the latter, the Electone Stagea’s many preset registrations are perfect solutions.

Old Electric Organ Scores.
Bought these two. The one underneath is a collection of Stevie Wonder songs for the Hammond. I wonder who signed the cover.

Hammond Pops Vol. 3.
It’s from 1985!

Retro Yamaha Electone Score from the 80s.
Retro Electone Scores could be quite challenging. Accompaniment on older Electones was basic. Players needed to manually play everything.

My Current Collection of Old Electone Albums and Other Organ Scores

Over the years, I’ve picked up quite a few of these retro books, including some that were not published for the Electone.

My collection of old Yamaha Electone books and other albums meant for the electric organ.
Some of my purchases over the years.

Electone Mate Step 8.
Electone Mate Step 8.

Special mention to the one above, which I found last year. While attending formal Electone lessons so many years ago, my class switched to using the newer Electone Study Course series of textbooks after Step 7. In other words, I’ve never even seen Step 8. Thanks to these book fairs, though, I finally have the complete set.

Full series of Yamaha's Electone Mate textbooks for the Electone.
I finally own the entire Electone Mate collection!

Where Could These Book Fairs With Used Yamaha Electone Books Be Found At?

For Singaporean Electone players who are keen on buying such pre-loved books, these fairs are held every now and then at places like Thomson Plaza, Velocity Novena Square, and Singapore Post Centre. Most of the books on sale are textbooks, but I’ve also encountered a couple of really difficult, Grade 4-3 collections. (I’ve ever seen one at Thomson Plaza that was so frightening, I literally backed away)

Alternately, you could check out the physical store of the company hosting these fairs. It’s located at Bras Basah Complex ground floor. I’ve bought a couple of books from there too.

Evernew Book Store (Singapore). Great place to hunt for second-hand books and used music scores.
Evernew. The company hosting these great used books fairs.

My List of Downloadable Electone Scores and Stagea ELS-02C Registrations.

Check out my other Electone posts here!

Summary
Discovery of the Day! Retro Yamaha Electone Books
Article Name
Discovery of the Day! Retro Yamaha Electone Books
Description
Second hand bookshops and fairs are great places to hunt for used Yamaha Electone books. Be it textbooks or higher grade arrangements.
Author
Scribbling Geek
Scribbling Geekhttps://www.scribblinggeek.com
Geek, gamer, writer, movie lover, photographer, and occasional graphic artist. I like to consider myself a one-stop content creator of sorts. But the truth is, I obsess over too many hobbies.

Related Articles

5 COMMENTS

  1. I’m looking for these electone mate books and they are just so difficult to find! Hope I’m as lucky as you are 🙂 I only have the electone mate 5, electone study step 6 onwards and electone playmate grade 7 and 6 while learning n-years back

    • Hi! Nice to hear there are others collecting these classic books too. They are really hard to find nowadays, with the Electone community so small and these books meant only for the Asean market. But they do pop up once in a while in 2nd-hand shops and book fairs. Good luck!

  2. Whooa lucky you!!! I’ve been looking for that yamaha electone mate books. Will you make a copy of that? I will pay for some music sheet copy from step 3-4 book. Let me know if we can make a deal

Thanks for commenting!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

error: Alert: Content selection is disabled!!
%d bloggers like this: