Music lessons are important. Children who learn to play piano experience all kinds of benefits which will stay with them for the whole of their life. There is a great deal of evidence which supports the thought that learning a musical instrument is good for your children.

It helps in the development of language and reading skills, motor skills, problem solving, maths and general accelerated learning for all other subjects. Better memory, better concentration and focus, team building, improved social skills, the list goes on and on. It is also good fun!!

So, how good should your first piano be? Surely a new player won’t know the difference between a good or bad instrument and you may as well get the cheapest piano? Sounds like a good plan?

A new piano pupil and pupils right through the early stages really should have the best piano that you can afford. The reason for this is that a new player doesn’t as yet have the necessary skills to properly control the instrument and so using a piano that doesn’t function properly will actually instill bad habits.

Don’t forget children have very elastic brains and adapt to situations more easily than us adults. If a piano has a keyboard that is uneven in touch, some keys working more slowly than others, some sticking down, some not even working at all, will contribute to the development of poor technique.

Added to that if the tone is uneven, or the piano won’t stay in tune, or the sound is of poor quality due to a cracked sound board, the pupil will not be able to develop a good ‘ear.’

I still remember the first two piano pianos we had at home. My parents were innocent to the requirements that were really needed for learning piano and information wasn’t so easily available in rural Worcestershire in the 1970’s. Our early pianos were forever suffering from keys that didn’t work efficiently, hammers would break and one piano just couldn’t hold its tuning.

I grew out of our local piano teacher and we eventually found a much better teacher  who, fortunately was great at advising us on what piano we should get. When we finally had a decent piano installed, I realised that much of the way I played didn’t work and had to spend a great deal of time figuring out how to use a piano that actually worked well. With the help of my teacher I had to rewire much of the way I played and hear the piano. This took a great chunk of time, effort and patience (for me, my teacher and long suffering parents)

A decent piano that works as it should will encourage your children to keep practising and they will then learn much more quickly. Think of a piano in the same way you would when purchasing a car. Very old pianos and poorly maintained pianos can have sluggish mechanisms which is a bit like learning to drive a car that has worn brakes or an engine that isn’t firing properly.

I do feel it is my mission to help as many families as I can, find the best piano they can afford and help young pianists grow into excellent and happy musicians.

Elsewhere on the Pianolobby website is our Used Piano Guide and our Easy To Buy Guide which is free to download and I hope of some help to you.

Thank you for reading.