I know that you are busy. In order to save you time comparing sound quality and key weight on different keyboards all over town, I recommend:

At a middle of the road price, the CASIO CTK 3000 is the best beginning keyboard, appropriate for ages 5 – 7 for the first two years, 7-10 for the first year. It has no pedal function, but you really don’t need that until intermediate level. Its 9V AC Adapter goes for $25, which I recommend purchasing because it uses 6 AA batteries. Its User’s Manual can be found here (PDF).

A higher end keyboard is CASIO WK 225, appropriate for youngest beginners to intermediate young teens. It comes with AC adapter, but the pedal is sold separately for about $40. If you are ready for a long-term commitment or have many children who will learn to play, this is the best item for you. Its User’s Guide can be found here (PDF).

* The reason that Casio keyboards are listed an not any other brand such as Yamaha or Huntington is because Casio has heavier keys, meaning that they need more pressure to make a sound, which is more like an acoustic piano than the other brands. I am not compensated by Casio nor any company to promote their goods. This research is to help you and your family.

It’s the right time to begin piano lessons, but you find yourselves without piano (and wealthy relatives who will buy you one!) Spending thousands of dollars on a musical instrument that we are not sure will keep our children’s interest for many years is not an option.

I went around town and played as many electric keyboards that I could in one afternoon. Not all keyboards were good training tools. Most did not have the weight in the keys that is necessary to develop fine motor skills. Others had a small range in terms of pitch.

What you want in a keyboard:

1. Pretty tone.

This may not like seem an important piece of the puzzle, but you will be listening to that tone for months and years into the future; you want to listen to something you can tolerate. Lower quality keyboards don’t have a pretty tone. If you don’t like it, your child won’t like it, which means your child won’t play it nor practice it nor learn it.

2. Heavy keys

These are also known as weighted keys, but some keyboards have heavy keys that are not technically “weighted.” A weighted key produces a lower or higher volume depending on how hard you hit it. You want to put some pressure on the key before it makes a sound. Lower quality keyboards have very light keys. They produce a sound by mistake even if the finger only slightly presses it down. This is very frustrating for a child (especially the perfectionist). The difference is tenths, maybe hundredths, of a second, but it is a world of difference.

3. Large range.

Count the number of black keys on the keyboard. You’ll notice that they are in a pattern: group of two, group of three, group of two, group of three, etc. A useful keyboard has this pattern at least four times, meaning that its range is four octaves. Anything wider than that is gravy.

Avoid in a keyboard:

Avoid insufferable tone, light keys, and narrow range.

A keyboard that has keys that light up when they are played are usually a distraction to the child. They don’t offer much in auditory or musical notation learning.

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