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Spannish Buddha said: From my experience it's the defects of most family acoustic pianos, the keys and tuning, that inspire most children to play guitar

Ha! Yes, that too. But to put it in context - my experience, which was probably quite typical, was that the piano was common place, old fashioned, boring and faintly comical. The guitar, on the other hand, was exotic, extremely attractive & sexy, and of course, ultimately a stepping stone to the new music: rock.

But at about 13, I did make a recording using our old clapped out piano (which my parents had tuned once a year, by the way - middle A was always the first to go out of tune, but the tuner was too lazy to sort it out, I suppose). And this recording used the knocking keys, the lack of bushing around the pins and other short-comings to produce a piece of what John Cage called 'prepared piano'. But to me, it was just the available material. This is what kids will always do. It is only we old farts who worry about such things.

So I'm not sure who's being more conservative here - certainly for straight adventure, the acoustic is the one you want.

My experience is that most kids don't care that much about things like non-piano sounds. It's fun for a few minutes when I show them the possibilites, but they quickly lose interest. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but most of them seem to prefer to just play.

Actually I think that's true of almost all of us. Certainly it's true of me. I only ever use exactly one piano sound in any one period--whichever acoustic piano sound is my favorite at the time.

I strain to imagine who uses trumpet and voice sounds. Not anyone very similar to me.

That sounded pretty black and white.

First off - thanks to all for feedback on choosing the keyboard itself, I'll take her to the store and get her to try both units. Once that is done, we'll get the plastic out and install that in the basement in a jiffy.

I think that the "feel" which will be like her teacher's piano has significant value, if one of the two is too alien then it becomes somewhat counterproductive.

Secondly, if you wish to voice options / troll / hijack conversations, even if your intents are helpful, please don't. It's very annoying. The topic was to choose between two slabs, nothing more. If you want to debate, please start your own thread. Thanks for understanding.

Haha, it would have worked better to have said this about 40 posts ago. If you want to control the direction of a thread you have to participate in it a little more.

In answer to your question you got a few Yamaha votes, a few more Rolands, and everyone agrees that she should try both out and choose and that you won't go wrong either way.

I'm not sure I'd let built-in USB connectivity dictate the choice! Anything with MIDI out can act as a MIDI controller for Garageband. Anything with line out can feed audio to a sound card for recording. How about (e.g.) the P155, which has built-in speakers and optional matching legs, making it a pretty practical home piano?

And of course, the P155 also has USB connectivity. Sounds are not as high quality, though, I would expect.

Very true indeed! But that's why I spend more time here than in teachers section . Travelling along with fast moving technology is not always easy

My 10 year old daughter learnt only on digital pianos, started on very cheap Casio PX130, then moved to Roland FP-7F. She has no problems in switching between Acoustic Grand at Teachers / Exams / audition places. She got into Grade 7 (UK ABRSM) level and taking the exam in another 2 months.

Here is what she is at the moment

http://soundcloud.com/gayatrinair/sets/piano-recitals/

Got the Roland this weekend - my monkey tried both and she found the keys to be closer to a real piano than the Yamaha - thanks all for your input!

Mistakes were made. Sometimes the main conversation sparks a more interesting / contentious sidebar.


From one monkey owner to another: congrats!