• Access to a Piano, an Electric Piano, or an Electric Keyboard (see below for differences)
• A metronome (I recommend the Yamaha QT-1)
• A three ring notebook with line paper for taking down notes and lesson assignments and keeping hand-outs in
  
  
  

How do I go about obtaining a piano?

Here are some thoughts about renting, borrowing, and buying used and new instruments.

I’m going to buy a new instrument, what do you recommend?

Piano students have three options: A regular piano, an electric piano, or an electric keyboard. A regular upright piano takes up about the floor space of a love seat and weights several hundred pounds, making it moveable for one person rolling it on a hard floor or firm tight carpeted floor, or moveable by a few strong people on deeper carpeting.  A regular piano is a fairly immobile thing and won’t be moving about the home much, which is why pianists have the mixed luxury of never having to worry about bringing their instruments to rehearsals, and using the instrument already at the rehearsal space. 

An electric or digital piano is a full size keyboard (88 keys) with weights in the keys and sensors that detect how quickly the keys are pushed down to make these pianos look and feel and sound more like real pianos. These electric pianos can come with built in legs, which make them take up as much space as a real piano (though they are much more moveable), or without legs which means the instrument has to be on a stand to be played, but it can be stored on its end and more easily transported in a car.

An electric keyboard is different from an electric piano in that the keys aren’t full size and that they aren’t weighted, and the actual length of the keyboard is usual shorter as well so it doesn’t have as many keys as a piano normally would.

A regular upright piano new would cost around $5,000 dollars – again, definitely consider buying used or renting if this option is pursued. An electric piano of quality usually costs between $1000 to $2000 dollars.  It is a lot harder to rent or find one of these used, but they can be worth money and space saved. An electric keyboard, for $50, is not a practical substitute for a piano in the long run, but these ‘toys’ from Casio and Kawasaki aren’t worthless. If a student wants piano lessons but parents aren’t sure about looking in to renting or buying a piano, its okay to use one of these keyboards for the first month of lessons just to see that the student is interested in learning more.