The ONE Question to Ask When Buying a Piano
Knowing this key VITAL answer will bring the best value
Every year piano buyers spend vast sums of unnecessary money because they simply don’t know how to properly buy the right piano for their personal needs. I’d love to help you with this, despite the likelihood of offending those with a vested interest in their own wallets and/or opinions.
“Value” is quite a bit different than price and thus some very pricey items have little value for many folks. The determining factor is YOU and the question I referred to in the title is asking YOURSELF what is important to YOU about owning a keyboard instrument and thus what would make that instrument valuable. It should be clear that two adults might have completely different wants, interests, and needs musically – and therefore have entirely different values when it comes to keyboards.
I’m sure you’ve noticed I said “piano” in the opening and “keyboards” farther down. Yes, it’s a change I admit, but a welcome one that could very possibly be critical to you getting VALUE from your purchase of a keyboarded instrument.
I’ve been through a lot with keyboards. I’ve played organ professionally, piano professionally, keyboards of all sorts pr0fessionally, and thus I’ve no particular type of keyboard that is my “main keyboard.” This is highly untrue of many, perhaps most, pianists. It’s been my experience, a wide experience, that such pianists have little to zero understanding of the proper use and operation of anything other than the acoustic piano. This leads all too often to a sort of elitist mentality in which only their particular instrument is worth playing. The words they use reveal their bias: “toy” “real piano” etc. Additionally, this too often blame instruments for troubles actually due to poor music educating by less than competent piano instructors.
Such piano “purists” are simply thoughtless of the needs, wants, and interests of other learners. What is important for them may or may not be important for you, the person whose hard-earned money should be spend as frugally as possible. That’s why I say, as earlier wise men and women have said so often:
Know thyself
In this particular case, know (as well as possible) what is going to bring YOU the most return for your investment. In the other essays in this section I’ve spelled out in detail the differences between keyboard instruments. I also discuss in detail the features and aspects that are either key to your musical enrichment or simply expensive bells and whistles. You really do need to read up on the huge variety of instruments out there before spending a dime.
The purpose of your reading is to discover what keyboarded instrument will best fulfill your own musical needs. Naturally, you would have to know what those needs are!
To wrap up, sure, this is all my opinion. However, I do believe I have your best interest at heart and much, much wider experiential base to draw from than many other writers. For more advanced coverage of this topic and many others see the ebook “Dan Starr’s Big Book of Adult Piano” available here.
Tags: buying piano, Piano, Piano Buyers, question, right piano
