Portable keybord for a beginner

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yapasdairbag
Posts: 2

Post by yapasdairbag »

Hi everyone !

I have always wanted to play piano and i'd like to give a try with synthésia but i still have a little question : can i start playing with a MIDI keyboard like the Korg microKEY 61-Key or 37 key ?
My lack of space is a real problem and i don't know if those kind of keyboard are far away or not from a real synthé or piano ?
To sum up, i fear 2 things :
- Is there a minimum amount of key needed to play synthésia and learn to play ?
- does the size of the key can be a problem ?

Thanks in advance for reading my question.

Thomas
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

yapasdairbag wrote:Is there a minimum amount of key needed to play synthésia and learn to play ?
It will vary depending on the kinds of songs you're interested in playing and whether you want to use both hands.

With 37 keys, you'll "run out of keys" almost immediately in even the simplest songs with only one hand.

61 is a good place to start. One handed, you can play most anything. And even with both hands you've still got a fair amount of room.
yapasdairbag
Posts: 2

Post by yapasdairbag »

Thank you for the answer !

I will try to find a good 61 or+ key that fit in my room and avoid a 37 keys.
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

Also there's the question if the feeling of playing a piano with weighted keys is something of importance to you. If you want to play a synthesizer / organ in the future it is not an issue. If you want to start with something that is reasonably close to the touch of a piano you should be looking for weighted keys.

M-Audio have some and further tips on the topic here: http://www.wirerealm.com/guides/top-10- ... ontrollers

And this would be a starter for a search on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st_pric ... pldnSite=1
cmplays
Posts: 58

Post by cmplays »

I have a 61 key keyboard and I regret it. Even some songs built into Synthesia have keys to the left of where my keyboard ends. Most pop song arrangements off the internet that I've tried eventually stray into the octave I'm missing. You can transpose those keys an octave higher, of course, but it's annoying... If I had to buy my first keyboard again, I would definitely go for 88 keys.
happypiano
Posts: 1

Post by happypiano »

It's preferable to have at least 61 keys if learning piano is your main focus. And, yes, the keyboards you mentioned are very far from what a real piano would feel like.

For the most acoustic-like feel you would want to look at digital pianos with fully-weighted keys that try to emulate the hammer action system found in real pianos. This will help tremendously if you want to develop the right finger strength and technique.

If you don't feel like spending $500+ on a decent digital piano, you can opt for a more affordable beginner keyboard with 61 or 73 or 76 synth-type keys that are fine for complete beginners, though are also not very realistic in terms of feel, so it's vital that you upgrade as soon as you start making good progress with your piano practice.

As for the actual instrument recommendations , check out these articles:
https://www.pianodreamers.com/best-port ... under-300/
https://www.pianodreamers.com/best-digi ... under-500/

The Roland FP-10 seems like a solid entry-level digital piano. In the portable keyboard department, the NP-32 is winning in terms of piano sound, the action, however is way worse than on the FP-10...
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jimhenry
Posts: 1899

Post by jimhenry »

You have received a lot of good advice. Implicit in all of it is "get a keyboard with full sized keys." You can get by without the weighted piano action for quite a while, forever if you play organ or synth rather than piano. And it isn't too hard to adapt to weighted keys later on. But non-standard size keys will be a major issue both in playability and in learning the wrong hand movements that will be hard to unlearn.
Jim Henry
Author of the Miditzer, a free virtual theatre pipe organ
http://www.Miditzer.org/
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