Been getting a lot of emails lately about choosing the right keyboard.
So today, I am going to give you a quick checklist to help you make your decision.
Here’s what’s important when buying a keyboard.
1) Weighted Keys
2) 76 Keys or more
3) External Speakers
4) Ability to Plug into sound system
5) Transpose Button
6) Simple Sounds like Strings
Let’s look at each one briefly.
Weighted Keys- this doesn’t mean they have to feel just like a real piano. Only a real piano will. But they should have SOME weight to them.
76 Keys- At least have 76 Keys. This way you will be able to do the octave stretches and other things more comfortably. 88 is obviously the best. You can start with less, but with my program you will be playing and eventually want to upgrade.
External speakers- That way you can totally annoy your wife, husband, roommates, etc… with your loud playing before you get good. 🙂 You will want them when people come over and want to hear you play after they find out you actually can.
Ability to plug into a sound system- So you have the option to play at church, a coffee shop, or someplace else. It happens. You can do it.
Transpose button- You can use 4 chords to play everything until you get good enough to start playing in different keys. A little cheat, but whatever. Stills sounds great!
Simple sounds- There should be a few extra voicings or sounds like violin, strings, steel guitar. No more than a few. Why you ask? Because when it comes to keyboards…less is more.
A real piano has ZERO buttons. The more buttons you add, the farther away from a real sounding and feeling piano you get.
Don’t go button crazy. IMHBECO (in my humble but extremeley correct opinion) you will regret it.
I used to be correct about 99% of the time.
Now that I am married (and have a kid) that seems to have dropped drastically! 😉
Okay, thats it for now.
Oh one more thing. People want to know what kind of keyboard I play.
It’s a Yamaha P140.
I love it.
So there you have it.
Now get to playing the piano, WITH BOTH hands here:
