General MIDI isn't the issue. General MIDI is a certain agreed-upon set of patch numbers and a couple of effects control paramaters that all GM devices will implement, so that a GM sequence made with one device will sound more-or-less the same on another device. Basically that just means that if you have a sequence with piano, bass, and drums that works on your GM synth, the same sequence will also play the piano, bass, and drums patches on any other GM synth.
The keyboard needs to have a MIDI Out port to be used as a controller. Note that cheap ones will often not offer control over certain things like aftertouch or sometimes even velocity