Learn To Play Piano: A Digital Or An Acoustic Piano?

[Isabella Kelly]

If I have to choose between buying an acoustic piano or a digital
piano what is the best choice? let's take a look at the different
choices if you want to learn to play piano.
Personally I haven't been forced to make the decision between buying a
normal upright piano and a digital piano as I have both in my home. I
can see advantages in both types of pianos when practicing the art of
learning to play piano.
A normal upright piano produces sounds with hammers that strikes the
strings. A digital piano on the other hand tries to duplicate the
feeling of playing an acoustic piano.
Most people are familiar with the normal upright piano but what
advantages has a digital piano?
First let us describe a digital piano.
A digital piano consists of a keyboard with weighted key action,
sensors that detect the velocity when you play the keys and a set of
sounds you can choose from. To make it possible to listen to the piano
when you play you have an amplifier and loudspeakers and headphone
jacks.
Here are some advantages with a digital piano:
1. A digital piano doesn't need to be tuned. A normal acoustic piano
you should tune once or twice a year. If you can't tune a piano
yourself you have to turn to a piano tuner. It can be quite expensive
of course. Even a piano tuner has to pay his bills.
2. You can practice silently. A digital piano usually has a headphone
jack so by using headphones you can practise as much as you want
without disturbing neighbours or family members.
3. Midi interface. A digital piano usually has a midi interface which
makes it possible to connect your piano to a computer and use music
software like notation programs or a sequenser program or a software
synthesizer.
What then are the disadvantages of having a digital piano?
1. The sounds in an acoustic piano are produced by strings vibrating
and the different pitches interact in ways that you cannot copy on a
digital piano. The sound quality of the sounds produced by digital
pianos are becoming better and better but it is still a completely
different way of producing sounds.
2. A digital piano is limited when it comes to producing different
tone colors by different ways of playing. An accomplished pianist
might feel limited by the sampled sounds.
There are many more things to say about choosing a piano but this is a
beginning.
As you can see it is not so easy to decide what's best for you. If you
can't decide what type of piano to buy you can do as I have done. Have
both types of pianos and keep smiling.

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