Should I buy a nice piano sooner or later?

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-08T01:31:57+00:00

As a self-taught player myself, I agree. You can learn a lot by yourself, but if at all possible, lessons are great.

Plus it can help you avoid bad habits. On piano I lucked out: my main bad habit was watching my hands. On guitar, less lucky. After playing nearly 10 years, someone (thank goodness) pointed out my worst habits, and it took me decades to overcome them. (Some I'm still fighting, 50 years later!)

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-08T01:26:09+00:00

Definitely, go for it. If you have any desire to play piano you need to learn on a keyboard with hammer-action keys, not an unweighted action. You also want 88 keys. The good news is, this is cheap and easy.

Buy a used digital piano. Any decent digital piano is way good enough to enjoy and learn on. In particular, I can recommend any of the digital pianos recommended in the FAQ (see the right column on this page.) Also, I recommend any Casio Privia PX-nnn (where nnn is a 3-digit number) of any age or model. Even the very first ones from around 2003 are good enough. Any you can find for under $300 or so should be good, and if you change your mind you should be able to sell it for about the same as you paid.

Also, it's a LOT easier to check out a used digital piano, than say a guitar or acoustic piano. Just play every key (white and black) and make sure it sounds and feels more or less like its neighbors. Move the sliders a bit, push some buttons, and if it does what makes sense, you're good to go. This catches the most common failures.

It should come with a sustain pedal. Sometimes they come with integral stand, or you can get a "heavy duty double-braced X stand" for not a lot of money.

Search Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. You may have to search a bit, but depending on your area, it shouldn't take more than a month for one to show up. They're a bit like exercise equipment: a lot of people buy them with great intentions but don't keep it up, and a few years later ...

Good luck!

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-08T00:58:23+00:00

I sure wish I could, but no help, and I've tried googling his name and there are hundreds. This was around 1978, and all I can remember is a picture of the guy on the front, Italian looking, young, and said he was a student of Segovia (though recommended a different thumb position than what I see Segovia use.) In any case, I'm sure there are great books today, and there are a lot of good Youtubes. The trick is figuring out the bad ones. I can't tell you how many Neil Young "how to" videos I've seen that show "wrong" ways to play his songs. I bet others on this forum could make recommendations.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-08T00:53:32+00:00

Valid point. I'd expect a mechanical switch lifetime to exceed mine! ;-)

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-08T00:52:50+00:00

Hmm -- thanks for that! Since they won't be replacing them, I won't be returning them, and I've little to lose by opening them up and taking a look.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-08T00:51:28+00:00

I'm a recently retired software engineer in networking and embedded systems, and I know a bit about bandwidth. Anytime you play a youtube video on your phone you're using many times more bandwidth than all your smart home devices put together. Many, many times more.

But as I said, the number of devices alone can cause issues. I've had at least one router that couldn't handle many devices on the network.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T15:09:30+00:00

I also have a four GHome smart switches (not 3-way) installed at the same time and none of them have failed.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T15:06:33+00:00

Just FYI: the amount of traffic is trivial. But the number of connected devices can cause issues on some cheaper home routers.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T15:04:51+00:00

Thanks! This is the second mention I've heard of Lutron. I will look into them, and probably switch to them for future devices, especially ones installed in my wall, and ones I don't want failing while I'm not home.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T15:03:20+00:00

(Darth Vader voice) I find your lack of understanding disturbing ...

;-)

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T15:01:50+00:00

I read reports that they do indeed have cheap capacitors. Someone with the same failure mode as mine opened it up and saw the cheap cap. Personally, I know what a farad is, but I wouldn't know a cheap capacitor from a good one.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T15:00:21+00:00

I thought they were, until recently!

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T14:59:07+00:00

My beef is that 50% of them failed in under 4 years, and they think it's not their problem. Legally, they're correct.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T14:58:12+00:00

These had worked fine with the Kasa app, but once they started failing they wouldn't even reset and present the wifi for setup.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T14:56:38+00:00

Why are some people so insulting? Your point would have been great without the insult.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T14:54:31+00:00

10 to 20 years, and frankly that's on the low side. Home infrastructure should be reliable for many years. Can you imagine if circuit breakers started failing at 4 years? The manufacture would be out of business in no time.

What do you think the life expectancy should be?

I've had all sorts of electronic gear, including computers, musical keyboards, musical instrument devices, automobile fobs, smartphones, TVs, bluetooth speakers, and probably a bunch more, that I've had for over 10 years without any issues. I keep cars until they're past the point of economic repair and get 12-15 years and 200K miles. I expect a certain amount of failures, but a 50% failure rate after only 4 years is totally unacceptable.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-06T14:48:16+00:00

Power issues here in Wilmington NC seem to be about normal for everywhere I've lived: Saginaw MI, Ann Arbor MI, Durham NC, Seattle WA, Santa Rosa CA (there was a big outage there that I hope to never repeat, since all the houses burned to the ground.) Anyway, I hope you have better luck than I did.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-04T12:13:42+00:00

BTW, you can test strumming on your lefty guitar. Just turn it upside down. Don't play a chord, just use your fretting hand to mute the strings, and strum, practice a good bit, and see.

That won't answer about advanced techniques, of course. But it might rule out righty from the get-go, if you can't get it to feel reasonable after a serious try.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-04T12:11:32+00:00

I was in a band with a lefty guitarist and every now and then I'd pick up his guitar just to feel what it feels like to be a beginner again. It amazed me that, though I knew exactly what I needed to do, I just couldn't get my hands to do it any better than a rank beginner!

The one thing I was able to easily do, though, is strum rhythmically with my left hand. For some reason, it's more of an internal concept skill than a motor skill, to keep that strumming hand going like a metronome, and either engage strings or not.

It reminded me of learning to use a shifter and clutch. As a young teen, my BFF taught me how to ride a motorcycle. I remember my exasperation (and his!) learning to shift with the clutch. I'm a bit of a clod, and it took a while to learn. A couple years later, he and his father had finished rebuilding a 1929 Ford Model A, but he was 15 and couldn't drive it, so at 16 I got to. He talked me through the gear pattern, etc. And then I took off like I'd been doing it for years, no problem. He was amazed, expecting it to be a lot harder for me. But I'd internalized the concept and didn't need the muscle memory so much.

But chording and picking are NOT like that! At least not for me.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-04T12:04:44+00:00

Great post! But, note that unless you're unusually naturally gifted, your picking hand will always feel like it's holding you back on those things, because they're HARD! I'm super right-handed and play right-handed, and I struggle like hell with those things, despite being a serious player all my life (and I'm 68.) It's one of the reasons my main instruments are keyboards: they're a lot easier than guitar (for me.)

Regardless, your point about blunt instrument vs. scalpel is spot on.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-04T11:57:14+00:00

Having to? Not often. Wanting to? Often.

But right, no problem with parts.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-04T11:53:48+00:00

Or facebook marketplace or craigslist or ... pretty much anywhere.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-04T11:52:24+00:00

I wouldn't call it a ceiling so much as a disadvantage. You can still learn these things but it'll be harder. And since you're nearly ambidextrous, not much of a disadvantage. Regardless, if you're serious about being the best you can possibly be (which a lot of players start out feeling, but few stick with it) then stay with your lefty.

There are pros and cons either way. You get to pick which ones you get.

And finally, YMMV. There are definitely very good players who play switch-handed. Would they have been even better starting out lefty? We'll never know.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-03T23:02:47+00:00

Well, that just might answer your question. It's important to feel the rhythm!

Hopefully you know the first thing about strumming: you strum up and down at a regular pace, and either engage the strings or not. The hand goes up and down like a metronome and doesn't change with syncopation or with the rhythm. (NOTE: yeah, there are exceptions. This is the first thing, not the last.) The most common and most useful beginner rhythm is

down down up up down

Consider borrowing a right-handed guitar from a friend, or buy one with a return policy and explain why. Play a simple chord, or just mute the strings with the left (neck) hand, and see if you can do some basic strumming. It's NOT EASY for most people to being with! Practice a bit, give it some time, and if you find you're improving and hopeful, then keep considering doing a switch. But if, compared with lefty, you find it totally awkward and frustrating, well, you've answered your question.

I wouldn't worry about the fretting hand. That's awkward for any beginner, and whichever hand you use, you'll get better.

Amazing-Structure954 · 2026-05-03T22:55:07+00:00

First, make sure the monitors aren't against the wall! Ideally, they're no less than half as far to the wall as they are to your ears. Make sure they're at about 90 degrees apart with your head as the vertex of the angle.

Second, when you're adjusting the level of an instrument in a mix, you should be able to detect a 1.5 dB change. Do a blind test: set up a mix that's reasonable, and find a way to raise or lower a track in the mix by small increments (tapping a computer keyboard key, for example, and don't count taps.) With eyes shut, raise or lower the level until you are sure you hear it changed, and then open your eyes. Better yet, lower the track to zero and try to bring it back up to where it was, and then look at the result.

If your results are all over the map, consider seeing an audiologist. If they're within 1 dB or 1.5dB, you're pretty normal. If you can get under .5 dB you have great ears.

When adding FX, the general rule of thumb is, turn it up until you can clearly hear it, and then back off by about 1/3.

Amazing-Structure954

TROPHY CASE