Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Did you expect this?

While we have one thread talking about the grand, let's see the other end of the spectrum.

Casio commercial for their sub $1000 digital piano:
http://youtu.be/u37Wb66CDTU
(fast forward to 2:20 if you are in a hurry)

It is a commercial of course, and to be fair, it didn't actually make any conclusion, although it obviously implied one.

The question is, while I am sure you can hear the differences, but did you expect this from an inexpensive digital?

Is today's digital a valid learning/practicing instrument?

You will get a lot of different opinions on this. IMHO, you will not develop the same technique on the two. My daughter played the first 3 years on a digital (Yamaha P140). Then we upgraded to an acoustic. I can see the difference playing on a real piano for the last year has made. I think its because a piano allows the player to control the nuances much better than a digital. I am not talking just key strike -- I am sure that a digital will respond to varying touch just as well. I think its the interaction of the parts of the system that allows a piano to produce music in a way that the digital simply does not -- and the player learns to interact with those subtle things in this instrument.

A friend of ours bought the Yamaha from us for their kid, and my daughter still gets to play it from time to time. The music sounds just sterile and un-inspiring on the digital. That lovely sound from the piano also inspires the player to do more.

Also to keep in mind that the recorded sound is not a good indicator of what it sounds like in real life. You can process the sound to hide the differences. I don't know if Casio is playing games here to understate the differences -- but I expected a lot more dynamics in the Alla Turca passages than is evident from the grand. Like here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geER3iQDO5k

I would expect the digital to fail at delivering that kind of dynamic range.

Yes, if the goal of having lessons is to tinker around with a toy and have fun with it. Kids can also learn to read notes. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. A few school districts around here provide "piano lab" in schools for this same purpose.

But if you want your kid to play Mozart or Beethoven, then no. Not even close.

Completely agreed. The sound of a digital is wimpy and muffled, and the action feels lethargic. It is impossible to produce power or beauty on these "pianos."

In the video, they were playing Mozart....

Did you listen to the version provided by rlinkt?

I did, and we all know nothing beats Steinway, under the hands of a master, OK, Fazioli fan boys might argue, but that is not the point.

Not saying a $800 digital is a $20,000+ grand equivalent.

A better comparison is with a $3,000 used upright that many of the parents would buy for their 7 year olds.

Did you hear something obviously wrong in the CASIO promotion video? Or let me ask the question another way: Is there any truth in it?

Keep in mind, the digital in the promotion is the one of the least expensive digital on the market today.

Perhaps the question ought to be phrased somewhat differently. Can a beginner rise to the ranks of artist using only a keyboard as a learning tool?

It's fairly well understood that a master can make any instrument sound its best, whereas a beginner cannot make a magnificent instrument sound great.

When you are a student, the interest should not be in what you can make sound great, but in what you can learn. For a beginner to rise to the ranks of an artist he needs two things: an instrument, and a decent teacher. If one had to choose between a poor instrument and an excellent teacher, or an excellent instrument and a horrible teacher, my choice would always be the former. In an ideal world it would be both.

There is also the matter of which piece is chosen for such a demonstration, and then how the piece is played. And that is clear in that particular demo.

OK, ideally, we want to start a kid on a good grand. When that is not an option, the question is:

If we start a beginner on a digital, are we giving the student a significant deficit comparing to the ones starting on a $3,000 upright, that prevents them to rise to the ranks of artist.

By the way, did you noticed the digital invasion? If you have not seen it, just visit a music store around you, or a piano dealer that also sells Fazioli

What is clear?
What strength you think they wanted to emphasize?
And what shortcoming they were trying to hide?

Maybe we should compromise and use a mediocre piano and mediocre teacher!

What percentage of piano students eventually graduate to a grand? I'd guess less than 1%.

Are the 99% who will not get to that classical artist level severely limited by using the digital?

What percentage of teachers teach on a grand? For traveling teachers, I'd guess that number approaches zero. <g> My teachers and my children's teachers taught on small acoustics, significantly worse than my digital.

If there are techniques that only work well on a grand, and we have a student that may develop a lifelong love for the piano but never own one, does it even make sense to teach them?

That would be a resounding "no", John. The student, no matter who they are or what they bring to the able, will be forced to limit their expression and technical abilities to whatever their "instrument" will allow. The limitations of these new hybrid keyboards are pronounced compared to an acoustic piano of any kind or condition. As such a student progresses through the literature, those limitations in technique and expression will become more and more apparent.

And having said that, I don't think there's anything wrong with a beginning student using an electronic keyboard for the first year or two of study. After that though, an acoustic instrument becomes essential to further technical development.

Legato and staccato are both techniques that are not suited to the electronic action on a keyboard. Should we not teach them, then?

This is only a good or desirable thing to people who don't know any better.

Sorry, I don't know where this argument leads to.

If a beginner cannot make a magnificent instrument sound great, do we need to give the magnificent instrument to the beginner or not?

It's not an argument, rather a statement of fact.

Seriously? So you didn't hear any staccato in the promotion video?
We are talking boards $800 and up, the ones with 3 pedals.

This is the key point I guess.

From the promotion video, sound quality aside, what was wrong with the digital? What essential techniques were not no shown and cannot be performed on the digital?