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Original poster

The right Piano

16 replies

Creole · 28/03/2007 10:16

I'm hoping to enrol my son for some piano lessons soon. I can't seem to decide or know which is the right piano for a beginner.

I saw a lovely casio digital piano on the net with a good price (£350 approx.), but not sure if its appropiate.

Please can you advice me on a suitable piano to buy for a beginner? I don't want to buy an expensive one just in case he gave up on it and also I can't really afford a pricey one.

He will be 7, when he starts.

Many thanks

OP posts:
sassy · 28/03/2007 10:22

I'd buy an old joanna for £50, spend £30 getting it tuned and see what happens.
If he takes to it, sell the piano on in a year or 2 and get something better (real or digital, though I'd always favour real myself - nice piece of furniture as well as better sound). If he doesn't take to it, far less £££ wasted.
Look in local ad pages/on ebay for cheap pianos.

julienetmum · 28/03/2007 11:08

A lot depends on what room you have available.

Nothing beats a proper piano but make sure that it is tuneful (some old ones can be difficult to keep in tune and there is a good action. No keys sticking, the tone sounds good and you can get a good range of dynamics. Loud, soft, staccato.

We however don;t have room for a piano in our house so dh ( a music teacher) has a Yamaha digital keyboard. A digital one MUST have hammer action (if it says touch sensitive that's not the same) it needs to have full size keys.

If we had the money he would get a Clavinova but the Yamaha is fine (we need a fairly portable one as we have to take it to school every week) it cost around £300 ish but he did get a teacher's discount.

Original poster
Creole · 28/03/2007 14:22

bump

OP posts:
SueW · 28/03/2007 14:27

Why not hire one to start with, so you know he's enjoying it?

Our music shop gives six months' rental against the cost of the piano if you decide to go ahead and buy it, so basically you can try it out for that length of time then make a decision whether to go forward or not.

Rent about £40/month for piano and stool and price of piano to buy was about £1700-1800 (before discount)

londongirl1 · 28/03/2007 15:03

I would be careful about buying an 'old Joanna'-type piano - for £50 or so - I would always spend more. My piano tuner told me they can be impossible to tune - and if you son's playing doesn't at least sound ok (as it will quickly on a decent instrument) - he's hardly going to be keen to continue, is he. They also can be very hard to get rid of once you grow out of them - the same piano tuner told me you often have to pay to get them taken away! And no he wasnt trying to flog me a better one - I'd already bought one which I saw in a notice in the newsagent. I spent about £400 and got a decent one. I never think keyboards are the same - although my ex boyfriend's dad did have a Clavinova which he rated.

CoffeeCrazedMama · 02/04/2007 16:15

Sorry if everyone has lost interest in this thread but it caught my eye days too late and I have mucho experience of this topic! Would agree with SueW that hiring is a good solution -much better than an old one for so many reasons - they will take it away if ds does not take to piano, and, most importantly, it will be (or should be!) in tune. You do not know yet if your ds has perfect pitch and it could be messed about by old out-of-tune piano. Some old straight-strung pianos cannot be tuned to concert pitch - we started with one of these as we inherited it with house. Got rid when ds started showing signs of talent. V. glad we did as he does have perfect pitch - tells me when I need to call the tuner in now! Most large piano shops do rental schemes as it is a committment. If you are in South London can recomment Morleys at Lewisham.

Original poster
Creole · 03/04/2007 08:34

Thanks Coffeecrazymama,

I'm very interested, as it happens I live 15 mins away from Lewisham, so will check out Morleys.

Does this mean no one approves of digital pianos? They are much cheaper and I can sell it if he's not interested.

Creole

OP posts:
CoffeeCrazedMama · 03/04/2007 10:40

Creole, not too experienced with digitals - except ds's school bought digital (but not a very good one, I think) which they expect him to play on at assembly. He hates it because he cannot do dynamics (loud and soft to you and me) or pedalling on it. I think you can get much better ones though that have all of these things with the benefit of never going out of tune. So probably better than old rusty piano (like one we threw out!) I know some people are very happy with digital though, and if space (and cranky neighbours) are a consideration they could be a good choice - you can turn the sound down. Any one else any experience of them?

MorocconOil · 04/04/2007 14:16

We have my Grandma's old piano which looks beautiful, but is now in the process of being restored for £1300. (it was virtually unplayable). We were advised that a digital piano could have been put into the shell of the old piano and the quality would have been the same as a good traditional piano. However that would have cost at least £2000. Apparently pianos deteriorate with age.

Original poster
Creole · 04/04/2007 14:54

I just went into a piano shop I was told you can use a headphone with most digital pianos. So sound/noise shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, what do people thing of this digital piano in argos?
casio digital piano

OP posts:
Original poster
Creole · 04/04/2007 14:56

I mean think, not thing!

OP posts:
portonovo · 04/04/2007 15:40

We had this problem recently, and because of a tight budget and wanting the children to be able to practise with headphones on, we went for a digital piano.

We bought this model from Ebay:

yamaha digital piano

This model is also in the Argos book, but it's cheaper on Ebay! We picked this model after visiting lots of music shops and having a go on digital pianos in our price range.

We received the piano 2 days after ordering it, and it is really great. I'm not musical but my daughter is and has played around on various pianos and she likes the sound of it. Friends of hers who have 'real' pianos also like it. It has the 3 pedals so you can learn the proper pedalling.

lionheart · 04/04/2007 16:13

I was going to ask about the very same thing (planning to take lessons alongside DS).

sunnysideup · 04/04/2007 16:25

My experience was that I started learning with a fairly cheap old piano; I think it cost a couple of hundred pounds, from a local piano shop. I loved using a 'real' piano and I think certainly for a year or two, or maybe more, this would be fine for most learners. I now have a much better piano, you will know when the time comes, you start to REALLY hear the difference between your teacher's good piano and the sound you make at home! I think I was at about grade 3 when I went to the good quality piano, and depending on your child it may take quite some time to get to grade 3.....HTH.

snoopy2 · 04/04/2007 18:14

As a piano teacher myself, i would recommend that you rent a piano firstly instead of going out and purchasing one. Old banger pianos do go out of tune very quickly and this isnt good. Also, electric pianos and keyboards do not have the same key weighting as a real piano and i would avoid them unless you have a limited amount of space.
If your son goes on to do the prep test and graded exams it is best that he practises on a piano instead of a keyboard as the exam centres would always have pianos and never electric keyboards/pianos.

Hope that helps!

pianoteacher1 · 05/08/2014 11:15

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