I enjoy my weekly lessons on a Yamaha grand and practicing in the meantime on my Kawai ES3 keyboard. I do not aspire to be a concert pianist (unless, perhaps, there's a concert stage beyond the pearly gates!). And I do want to go beyond my digital keyboard to an acoustic piano, an upright such as Kawai, Yamaha, Petrof or Schimmel.

One of the things I've been told by a technician/dealer is that learning on an upright is deficient from that on a grand in terms of technique, unless the upright has some kind of high-repetition action which the ones I've named do not have.

If, after say five years, I go from such an upright to a related grand, what might be the difficulties and set-backs in the transition?

Personally, (being 44), I have no delusions that I'll become good enough to reach the point where an upright would "limit" my technique. So, IMO, I don't think that should have much bearing on your purchase. You'll do just as fine on a quality upright as you would on a grand.

The reason I like the grand more is that I love not having to face a wall every time I play the piano.

Bob,
Thanks for the input.
Tom

That's one of my reasons for wanting to switch to a grand as well (even though I have a nice, large framed photo above the piano). I also wanted to have that extra sensitivity that a grand has, so I can really play "pp", and have a better repetition rate.

The Fandrich uprights have that grand vertical action and I've heard such positive things about them.