Purchasing a Yamaha keyboard as a beginner makes sense for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, these keyboards cost considerably less than a piano both at the outset and in the long term. New keyboards or even digital pianos cost just a fraction of the price of a new upright or grand piano. As a beginner, you may not be entirely sure yet if the piano is for you. A keyboard allows you to try out this new instrument to decide if playing the piano is a passing fancy or a lifelong commitment.
You will also save money because keyboards do not require regular tuning like pianos do. Pianos should be tuned twice a year by a registered piano technician. Beginners may not want to incur this biannual cost at so early a stage in their musical path.
Another reason Yamaha keyboards suit beginners is their size. Pianos, while lovely, take up a lot of space. You have to commit a room or a large portion of your living area to a piano, which beginners might feel reluctant to do. A keyboard, on the other hand, is relatively compact. It is also portable allowing you to move it from room to room or out of the way when company arrives.
Beginners can also learn a lot from using a keyboard. Yamaha keyboards have built in features like recording capacity, preset melodies to learn on your own and even teaching abilities. As technology progresses, so do the wide variety of extras that keyboards come with. For example, most keyboards today come with USB input so you can plug a flash drive directly into your keyboard. Coupled with piano instruction, these features can take a new pianist from the beginner to intermediate.
It might not be the right time to buy a piano when you first start out learning this instrument. A Yamaha keyboard is a great way to find out, though, if playing the piano will become as large a part of your life as it is for ours. How do you plan to use a keyboard to expand your musical knowledge?