... was not getting me a decent piano, and getting instead a 5-octave keyboard. The reasoning was "let's wait to see if she likes and is good at it, *then* we'll get her a piano". Well, I liked it, but due to being a keyboard and not a real piano, I never got to be good at it, because trying to play decent music in a 5-octave keyboard is just completely impossible. So they did never get me that piano, and though I spent the better part of 6 years in piano classes (trying to practice on my keyboard and ending up going all the way cross town to the music school in the afternoons to try and practice on a real piano as much as I could), I was never any good.
Ok, that said, not all keyboards are bad. I agree that a piano needs tuning (not as much as you'd think, but still needs it), and that a nice full-sized keyboard is very nice.
The thing with the piano is, besides being, like, a *real* piano, sounds and all that, the touch and sensibility of the keys of a real piano is key (no pun intended) to playing and interpreting a composition. You can control a lot more than just the keys you're playing, the strength that you apply is very important. Besides, playing piano with hard keys does wonders for your wrists (might have saved mine from RSI so far), because of all the exercise you give your fingers.
Now a full-sized keyboard is nice, but if you want to go by that route, you need to pick one that has force-sensitive keys (don't know if there's a name for it :p), where the strength you push the keys affects the volume and harshness of the sounds. And you really have to get a full-sized keyboard, otherwise there will be certain compositions that you won't be able to play in it, and that's really frustrating :p
shana |
