Keyboard, digital piano or acoustic piano?

The short answer up front, so it does not get lost: yes, you can start on a keyboard. Nobody has to put an expensive instrument in their home before the first lesson even begins. But the three instruments genuinely are different, and it is worth understanding how. Because as the musical journey continues, that difference does eventually start to matter.

Where the three actually come from

In the beginning was the piano, quite literally. Around 1700, an Italian named Bartolomeo Cristofori built the first working instrument in Florence in which small hammers strike the strings from within as soon as you press a key. The remarkable part: depending on how firmly you struck, the note became quieter or louder. Previously, on the harpsichord, every note sounded at the same volume. Cristofori therefore called his invention “gravicembalo col piano e forte” — harpsichord with soft and loud. “Piano e forte” later became simply the pianoforte, and from that the piano as we know it today.¹ That “soft and loud”, incidentally, is not a detail but the heart of the whole instrument. Keep it in mind for a moment; it will come up again.

For around two and a half centuries it stayed that way. Only in the middle of the twentieth century did electricity come into play. In the forties the American Harold Rhodes tinkered together a first electric piano, and from 1955 the Wurlitzer company built its famous electric pianos in series.² These instruments still produced the tone mechanically, via small metal reeds, and picked it up electrically, rather like an electric guitar. They sounded quite distinctive, warm and slightly bell-like, and shaped the sound of countless soul and pop records.

The last great leap came with digital technology. At the end of the seventies the first synthesizers with a keyboard appeared, and in 1983 Yamaha brought digital pianos into living rooms with the Clavinova range.³ From then on the sound was no longer produced mechanically but stored and played back. It is in exactly this family that the two devices live which the phone call is usually about: the digital piano and the keyboard.

The acoustic piano, the original

An acoustic piano remains the benchmark to this day, and for good reason. It has 88 keys, the full range that the piano literature actually calls for. Above all, though, it has a real action: behind every key sits a small mechanism with a hammer, and you feel that weight in your fingers. That is the famous touch sensitivity in its purest form. You can strike a note feather-light or with full force, and between the two lie infinitely many gradations. That is exactly where the music happens. Anyone playing a good upright or grand learns from the first lesson to work with that feeling.

The downside is practical. A piano is large, heavy and not cheap, and it needs tuning regularly. And it is loud. Anyone who wants to practise at ten in the evening or lives in a flat with thin walls does not have an easy time of it. A real piano is a wonderful instrument, but it is also a decision that requires space and consideration for others.

The digital piano, the shrewdly chosen compromise

When someone today says “electric piano”, they almost always mean a digital piano — the modern digital descendant, not the old Wurlitzer instruments. And this digital piano is a genuinely well-thought-out compromise. A good model has 88 keys like a real piano, and those keys are weighted. That means they have a perceptible resistance that imitates the hammer action of a real piano. The touch therefore feels almost like the original, and the touch sensitivity is fully there.

On top of that come the advantages of the digital world. You can plug in headphones and play in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone, which makes a digital piano the ideal instrument for a flat. It never needs tuning, it is lighter than a piano, and it usually has further sounds on board alongside the piano tone, from strings to organ. Even the best digital piano does not quite reach the physical experience of a real grand, where the whole body of the instrument resonates. But for daily practice at home it is an excellent solution.

The keyboard, the easy way in

And then there is the keyboard, which most families already have somewhere in a cupboard. A keyboard is light, inexpensive and packed with possibilities: hundreds of sounds, built-in rhythms, often a little auto-accompaniment. For trying things out and for the first steps that is marvellous, and it is exactly why I never say “that will not work” on the phone.

You should just know where the limits lie. Many keyboards have only 61 keys instead of 88, so the outermost high and low ranges are missing. The keys are usually not weighted; they feel lighter and a little plasticky. And the most important point: not every inexpensive keyboard has touch sensitivity. Without it, every note sounds at the same volume no matter how you press, and that removes precisely the “piano e forte” with which the whole history of the instrument began. So if you are using a keyboard to start, make sure it is touch sensitive. That is usually stated clearly in the description.

A keyboard is a fine place to start. It is rarely the place you stay.

So what should I start on?

Now to the actual question behind the phone call. And my answer is honestly in two parts. At the beginning it does not much matter what you play on. In the first weeks and months it is about getting to know the instrument, sorting out the fingers, playing the first melodies, getting a feel for notes and rhythm. A touch-sensitive keyboard is entirely sufficient for that. I do not want to talk anyone into a purchase before it is even clear whether the spark catches.

But the journey does continue, and that is the second part of the answer. As soon as the pieces become more demanding, the small keyboard makes itself known. Suddenly the keys are not enough at either end, because a piece needs the full range. Or a piece lives on the fine shift between loud and soft, and on unweighted keys that can hardly be realised. I also often find that children feel it themselves. They reach a point where they hear that their instrument is no longer quite keeping up with their ability, and then the wish for something better grows entirely of its own accord. That is not a setback — on the contrary, it is a lovely sign of progress.

For most families the digital piano is then the natural next step: 88 weighted keys, real touch sensitivity, quiet via headphones, affordable. Anyone with the space and the opportunity will of course go nowhere wrong with an acoustic piano. Both will carry you a very long way. A cheap mini keyboard, by contrast, is eventually simply exhausted. So if you are thinking of buying something straight away, a digital piano is in my experience the shrewdest investment, because it grows with you for a long time. If not, you start with whatever is there. Both are entirely fine. How practising then comes easily is a topic of its own; I have written something about it here.

Why we learn on a real piano at ARTIQ

There is one more point I want to get across, because it makes the decision easier for many people. Whatever stands in your home, in lessons at ARTIQ Music School in Mainz-Finthen you sit at a real piano. Teaching takes place in my recording studio, and there you learn on the original from the start, with everything that belongs to it: real action, real dynamics, real sound. So you get the right feeling into your fingers, even if at home you carry on practising on a keyboard for the time being.

That takes the weight out of the whole instrument question. You do not have to own the perfect instrument first in order to begin well. You start, find out whether it brings you joy, and then grow step by step into the instrument that suits you. Which one that turns out to be we will work out together, entirely calmly. And if beforehand you are still unsure whether the piano is right for you at all, you will find my thoughts on choosing an instrument here.