Originally Posted by Mana
Originally Posted by TripleB
For the past 2 months my son has said that he would love to learn to play the piano. So I started researching it and many people said that unless your child has a piano at home to practice (they said a keyboard isn't the same thing) then piano lessons aren't really a good idea. I don't want to crush his want to play music (I played saxophone for 7 years growing up)...but can't afford a piano. What instrument(s) is your child playing? Any advice you can give?


TripleB

My DD4 started as a string student when she was 3 but piano is her passion these days. We do not own a piano either but we did get her a starter digital piano.

A piano teacher published a series of blog entires on this subject:

http://fundamentalkeys.com/discovering-digital/
http://fundamentalkeys.com/digital-pros/
http://fundamentalkeys.com/grand-piano/
http://fundamentalkeys.com/further-thoughts/

Of course, it's only one person's opinion and she was already an accomplished pianist when she discovered digital pianos. My DD on the other hand started on an inexpensive digital and I can see that it's starting to impede her progress and we might soon have to upgrade to a higher-end digital soon.

Ideally, every piano student has a well-maintained grand piano at home with no neighbors in the vicinity but life doesn't work that way or at least it doesn't work that way for us. So we're doing the best we can with what we have.

I wouldn't let a lack of an acoustic piano at home deter your DS from learning piano. However, you might want to calculate how much piano lessons and related expenses are going to add up if he were to continue until college. We went in thinking that it's keep her for a year or two and I didn't really consider about the long-term financial consequences. We're really feeling them now.
As a one-time serious pianist, I am biased toward good acoustic pianos for children, as the ideal, but I also think that a decent digital piano is not going to introduce irretrievable technical flaws into a young child in a short time (at least, not any more than a poor piano teacher will). Given the staying power of even a GT child for interests, I wouldn't make a big investment in a piano until you have some sense that this is the real deal.

Also, you can buy a decent digital piano with weighted keys for less than a good acoustic. And it saves you a few hundred a year on tuning, which I think is a consideration for young children comparably important as touch. Especially in children with really good memories, and thus some potential for absolute or near-absolute pitch. (Though a really good digital piano/keyboard can run into multiple thousands--right up there with a passable upright--as I know all too well from SO's keyboard habit!)

...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...