A Keyboard Teacher's View

A question often asked me by new students and their parents relates to which make and model of keyboard to buy to get started. You'll be looking for one that's not too expensive, but has at least all the basic functions required to make the most out of the lessons you're paying for. You probably decided not to get a real piano, due to lack of space to put it and what can be a very expensive exercise to purchase one, have it professionally moved and tuned on a regular basis. A professional digital piano may also be out of the picture at the moment, maybe down to cost, weight and finding a space.

There's so many keyboards on the market, the choice can be nauseating to the complete beginner. So, first a word of advice, in the absence of any further professional guidance, go for a brand that is recognised and established. In terms of beginners' models, this really leaves a couple of leading brands that provide at least the basic functionality you'll need, from a teacher's perspective. These I have to say at the moment are really Yamaha and Casio.

Now, Yamaha has long been in my opinion the market leader in terms of balancing value for money with quality of the instrument across the board from basic model, through fully functioning digital piano, right up to full concert grand piano commercial instruments. However, in recent years I have shifted my opinion as to who currently rules the roost at the entry level of the market, with the latest models that these companies are now manufacturing.

There was a time when the Yamaha PSR range satisfied both the value and quality side in terms of keyboards for new starters, although to find a keyboard from Yamaha these days that satisfies the basic requirement of Touch Sensitivity that you would need to approach any serious playing you'll be looking at paying upwards of £145 online and anything up to £200 in some stores. The model in question is the Yamaha PSR E323 and I would not currently recommend any Yamaha keyboard below this level to any of my own students to begin their lessons.

So it seems that Casio have now captured the entry level of the market with their more than satisfactory new LK 230 keyboard and while some stores may also price this up to the £200 mark, you will find some stores offering this model as low as £125 on special offer and there are even some websites that claim to be able to supply this for less, although when it comes to investing in a new musical instrument, I would stick with what you know and trust.

Why is the Casio LK 230 the best value for money for a beginner on the keyboard at the moment in my opinion as a teacher? Well I can pick out a few positives for you from a lesson I gave to a student just today who owns one of these keyboards. The thing you notice first is the rather funky "Key Lighting System" and whilst not essential at all to learning keyboard from scratch, its a great little touch, especially for children and does have some benefits if you wish also to learn pieces with the alternative approach of following the built in Education Suite. The keys show you where to put your fingers and whilst this is of course no substitute for a real teacher at all, it's definitely a bonus. This function can be switched off easily if it becomes too distracting.

The keyboard does, of course have Touch Sensitivity, which to the layman means the sound gets louder the harder (or faster) you press the key, so a bit like a real piano. There's a wide variety of quite realistic instrument sounds and whilst still obviously the sound of a keyboard, will come across well in a good performance. The are also as you would now expect a range of backing styles and accompaniments that the student can learn to manipulate and enhance their ability to create a convincing performance. The digital display is quite easy to read and shows everything the student needs to see before commencing their performace.

I was most impressed as a teacher though to see that the Single Finger chord accompaniment system now makes a lot more sense from a real musical perspective than it ever did before on older Casios or than it does on Yamaha's latest models either. If you don't know about music this won't mean anything, but basically the "short-cut" pattern that you figure with your left hand to tell the keyboard which chord accompaniment to play has a logical relation to the shape of the chord on an actual piano without a machine controlling. For example, to play a D minor chord, you press D and F, the actual first two notes of the D minor chord, not D and C#, or D and Eb or anything else that does not actually bear relation to a D minor chord played on a keyboard without these supplementary functions.

So from my point of view with my teacher's hat on, this last point I made in conjunction with the cost and the overall feel of the instrument, which is good for both children and adults, make this your keyboard of choice for the complete beginner to learn playing keyboard.