FredAt

Hello All,

I would rate myself as a fairly accomplished ex-musician having at one time spent a lot of time learning, playing and enjoying the classical guitar and the flute along with a brief, though very enjoyable, flirtation with the piano.

And then... life took its toll. I was too busy studying, chasing girls, working... and the music fell by the way side. I now want to seriously start playing music again and have settled for the idea of getting a Yamaha/Casio piano both for myself and also in the hope of giving my 6 year old son an early start.

I have found that there are instruments that look reasonably serious available starting at around the £700 mark and then scaling the heights all the way up to 5 figures. I guess my own budget, to stay within reason, would be around the £1000 mark.

I should add that what interests me is classical music. I am posting here since I have no way of knowing

• How much I need to spend in order to get an instrument that can make music rather than just being a toy.
• What features I should look out for whilst making a choice.

I hope that someone here will be able to give me a few useful pointers.

CrazyVegn

Hi,
IDK how to convert £1000 into American dollars but I do know you can get a used baby grand piano for around $1,000 and less.
The reason I don't mention Yama or Casino is because I've had both and do not like electric. The sound quality on a real piano, especially grands, is superior.

TheBig3

It sounds like you're putting a lot of opinion in this. I use a Yamaha and I think its fine. The sound on an actual piano is obviously better, but the food in my stomach is better than a good sounding pinao.

Furthermore, you can always buy a decent piano once you're making money with it. To learn the muscle memory of a song, you just need a tuned, piano-sounding instrument.

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FredAt

Thank you for the replies but this still does not help me. At what sort of £/$ level do the Yamahas start getting to be real pianos as opposed to toys?

Astronomer

I bought my digital piano for about $700AU and it's a Casio. However, it is not my main instrument of choice - I have an actual "acoustic" piano as well. If I didn't have a real piano as well, I probably would have splurged a little more on the digital piano. I only really bought it for gigging/performing live. But the main things I look for in a digital piano are:

1) Full length
2) Weighted keys
3) Sustain pedal option
4) Authentic sound

These are all pretty basic features so you can't go wrong really. My Casio serves me well, it's still not the same as playing a real piano though...

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