An electronic keyboard (also called digital keyboard, portable keyboard and home keyboard) is an electronic or digital keyboard instrument

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

.

The major components of a typical modern electronic keyboard are:

• Musical keyboard
  Musical keyboard
  A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
  
  : The plastic white and black piano-style keys which the player presses, thus connecting the switches, which triggers the electronic note or other sound. Most keyboards use a keyboard matrix circuit
  Keyboard matrix (music)
  Most electronic keyboards used in synthesizers, electronic organs, and digital pianos use a keyboard matrix circuit to connect the switches for each key. In this matrix circuit, the rows and columns are made up of wiring...
  
   to reduce the amount of wiring that is needed.
• User interface software: A program (usually embedded in a computer chip) which handles user interaction with control keys and menus, which allows the user to select tones (e.g., piano, organ, flute, drum kit), effects (reverb, echo, telephones or sustain), and other features (e.g., transposition, an electronic drum machine)
• Rhythm & chord generator: A software program which produces rhythms and chords by the means of MIDI electronic commands.
• Sound generator: An electronic sound module
  Sound module
  A sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a keyboard, for example. Sound modules have to be "played" using an externally connected device...
  
   typically contained within an integrated circuit or chip, which is capable of accepting MIDI commands and producing sounds.
• Amplifier and speaker: a low-powered audio amplifier and a small speaker that amplify the sounds so that the listener can hear them.

Electronic keyboard is combination of processes of pressing mechanical keys and producing sounds by means of electric circuitry.

In the 12th century clavichord

Clavichord

The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...

 and harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 were developed.