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I have this toy at home (im using it when i travel and cannot reach piano for more weeks)
and i can assure you that one cannot learn technique on that ****

The only thing I get out of playing a 61 key keyboard is a hugely increased temptation to use very foul language.

Hi all,

This is my first post here and here it goes.

Before i started my piano lessons i bought a usb-midi keyboard and practiced on it a little. I didn't have much interest in playing the piano back then and i used it to input notes to the computer programs i was using. When i started my lessons i had to unlearn my bad habits because of the things i got used to back then. And i would probably be a year or so ahead of myself now if hadn't practiced at all.

But you should note that i was pretty much unsupervised so maybe it wouldn't harm your student but it ruined my hand shape and reaction to keys. It was like playing a nylon stringed guitar then switching to electric. (If i remember correctly e.guitar strings have like 4 times as much as tension on them)

BTW Bach probably used a harpsichord at home too (i remember reading an excerpt from a memoir of a family member or friend and it mentioned harpsichord at home too).

Boy Next Door,

I understand what you're saying. But, to be fair, if you had no keyboard experience prior to your lessons, you might have picked up some bad habits that would have to be unlearned even if you had had a good acoustic piano. When teaching oneself from scratch, that's always a risk.

Steven

p.s. Welcome to Piano World!

Supposedly Lincoln said:

"A man who represents himself has a fool for a client."

In most cases I would say the same thing about people who insist on trying to teach themselves how to play piano.

Okay, I really don't give two hoots right now about what instrument Bach played. Most accounts I read also said that he wrote for nothing specific, but the clavichord and harpsichord were often mentioned. Never having played a harpsichord, but knowing that the string is plucked, I imagine that volume control requires less sensitivity from the player, so I used the clavichord for my response; the sole purpose of which was to diminish Gyro's claims. (I'll concede, I let my worse half do the talking there with the better half keeping it civil.)


What do teachers of students with cheap 61-key keyboards do in regards to teaching technique? (as defined above)

Rocket88 said that he gives them Hanon and tells them to lift their fingers high in order to build strength.

Anything else?

None of the organs I play at church have more than 61 keys.

None of the keys are weighted.

Of course, it doesn't matter how hard I hit the keys, it doesn't play any louder. Unless I add a stop.

And stepping on the pedal doesn't help me sustain, it just adds another note, usually wrong.

this forum is pretty piano-centric. I wouldn't advise learning on an unweighted keyboard, but if someone had too, I might ask an organ teacher for advice on technique.

For students who don't have a real piano at home, I don't focus on technique. I focus more on note reading and sight reading. I also focus more on rhythm.

I agree with AZN. But it is sorrowful when a student does not have a decent quality piano at home because, bottom line, imo, techinique is the basis for becoming a good pianist. Obviously.

So I would probably drop a student where their keyboard is getting in the way of their training.

EDIT: After reading what I wrote, I'm sure I will have people tell me that I am denying those that cannot afford a decent piano a musical education. Well... still when it comes down to it, for me, beauty in music is having a beautiful tone and dynamics when playing, not just reading notes and learning rhythm.

Can you have your student practice on a real piano at a church perhaps?

TimR wrote: Really? Does this come as a surprise?

Moreover, this is a Piano Teachers' forum, which is why I am often perplexed when someone posts a topic which has, as a fairly obvious goal, avoiding the use of a teacher in learning to play the piano.

I agree this happens. But that doesn't appear to be the case this time, does it? The original poster self-described as a piano teacher, looking for a way to help a student with a less than ideal practice instrument.

While I don't know any organ teachers, it would seem likely they have at least thought about how to teach technique on an instrument without weighted keys. And as organs only have 61 keys per manual, they're even closer to a keyboard.

You can keep this student, find ways to help him/her learn, and hope the success hooks them, and they eventually buy something better. Or you can dump them and move on. I'd opt for choice 1, but as always YMMV.

But they are teaching technique for an instrument without weighted keys. As organ teachers teach organ technique on organs, not piano technique, I don't understand your point.

Steven

That is something that also makes me shake my head.

I will and do teach people with small keyboards, but I can't think of one person who has done well who has not at least switched to a full-size weighted DP, usually after a fairly short time.

I don't want to dump her; and even if I did, that isn't an option from how the program is set up.

Seems nobody has any brilliant ideas, so I guess I'll just continue as I said in the first post--address it in class, but not expect it to be practiced at home.

So many of my students have only 61-key keyboards as their practice instrument. I've said before, and I'll say again, when I start working for myself, I'm going to mandate at least an 88-key weighted keyboard. (Frankly, I couldn't care if it were shorter since songs that use everything don't come up until later in the game.. it's the weighted part I care about. Even then, can always just find songs that fit.)

Sal, we have to work with what we get. I just do the best job I can do with the circumstances I am forced to work with. I agree with you about weighted keys. The lack of the weight is much worse than having fewer keys.

Actually, Sal, I do have one idea, but was hesitant about putting it up.

As the keyboard she is playing on is very similar in touch to the early keyboards you mentioned, you might limited her to Baroque and early classical music. She can learn scales, chords, etc., and what we generally refer to as "high finger" playing, which is why I mentioned the Baroque and Classical stuff.

Any idea yet when you'll be arriving in Tacoma?

Tim, just to answer your query in a very general way, you know that the organ is a non-decaying instrument and lacks a sustain mechanism, so fingering for legato sound has to be substantially different than on a piano. You can almost always spot an organist at a piano keyboard as some of the necessary technique for the organ spills over into their piano playing.

To take the organ idea one step further, it also seems to me that repeated notes often do sound legato when they are ALMOST legato AND played in the kind of environment we associate with large churches. There may also be other factors, such as how quickly notes cut off. I'm thinking of large pipe organs.

In contrast, harpsichords seem to cut off rather quickly, so the contrast between two different notes, played legato, and the same note repeated with the ATTEMPT to lesson the non-legato effect is greater. The weight of the keys and the sustain pedal to me are central to what makes the piano different from all those other instruments, and why it is necessary to get experience easly on something satisfactory for the student TO the teacher.

I had nine yrs. of classical lessons as
a child from reputable teachers, one of
them of nominally concert pianist caliber.
And I played on acoustic pianos only back then,
an upright at home, and uprights and grands
in the teachers' studios or at recitals.
There were no electric instruments back then.
At the end of those nine yrs., I was a basket-
case pianistically: I could not sight-read
even a beginner's piece; I hated the piano
and everything associated with it; I could
make no progress beyond the easier preludes
and nocturnes that I was playing--even
something like one of the easier Clementi
sonatas would have been too much to handle.
I was essentially written off by the
piano community as a washed up player
who would never be able to play anything
significant. I therefore quit in disgust
and didn't play a note for 20 yrs.

When I restarted as an adult, instructing
myself (I have had no further instruction),
almost predictably, the first piano I
bought was an expensive acoustic
upright (a similar model today would
be in the ~$20,000 price range).
I wanted to make a better showing the
second time around and so I reasoned that
I should get the best piano available.
I soon realized that this was a big mistake.
I was still the same piano basketcase, and
the expensive piano made no difference at
all--in retrospect, I think a 61-key portable
would have been a vastly better choice.

I quit again in frustration, and then
I later moved into an apt. building that
had piano-hating tenants; when I first
moved in a tenant with an upright was
literally run out of the building. By
this time I was thinking of starting
again, but the conditions in the building
made an acoustic impractical. I began
to search for alternatives, and here is
where I started to see that an acoustic
piano might not be the last word in
a keyboard instrument. My research
uncovered silent keyboards. These are
unknown today; indeed, the very mention
of a piano that makes no sound drives
the piano community today berserk. People
today simply cannot grasp the idea of
a piano that makes no sound, and what
they can't grasp they strike out in fury
at. But these used to be very popular
with concert pianists in the 1930's, and
Arrau used one all his life. I could not
find one however; they've apparently
been thrown out over the yrs. by people
who thought they were broken pianos.

This was in 1989, and at that time digital
pianos were already available, but with
my long classical background I never
considered them for a moment. Then I
happened to wander into a store one day,
and I was literally stunned by the
digital pianos they had. Here were
electric instruments that played just
like an acoustic piano. I immediately saw
their potential and bought one on the
spot, an 88-key console with semi-weighted
keys, not much different from those
on a 61-key portable. Weighted keys
were a very expensive option in those
days, and I refused to shell out the
extra money for them. Having been burned
by that expensive upright I've ever since
been wary of spending a lot on a piano.

With that first digital I was able to
take the first steps toward piano
rehabilitation. I taught myself the
Fantasie Impromptu and the Butterfly
Etude and the Trois Nouvelles
Etudes no. 1--the notes, at least--
pieces that I could have only dreamed
of playing as a teenager. The unweighted
keys were not a major handicap to learning,
which is why I regard statements condemning
61-key portables as completely invalid.

I am now on my third digital piano. My
current one has weighted keys, which
are an improvement over unweighted ones,
but not by a whole lot. I have gone
from a piano basketcase to playing
big-time pieces, for example, the Chopin
op. 14, the mazurka in A min. op. post.
(the one with the r.h. triplets), and
the Trois Nouvelles Etudes no. 1 (I've
been working on this for a long time).
I give all the credit for that to digital
pianos. Without them I would not even
have been able to play in the hostile,
musical instrument-hating environment
I live in. I see digitals as carrying
on from where the old silent keyboards
left off. They enable you to play anytime
and anywhere and not disturb anyone with
your playing. And with the volume control
you can save your ears and nerves. Thus,
like the old silent keyboards, they
allow a pianist to develop better technique.
In my case they've allowed me to become
the pianist I could never be on an
acoustic piano.

Gyro- it's going take examples of digitally trained pianists who are as good or better than acoustic trained pianists- and I'm talking about at a high level and playing musically, for anyone to listen to you. No one is going to take your word for it-show the results and people will take notice.