My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Find advice on the best extra curricular activities in secondary schools and primary schools here.

Extra-curricular activities

Dd desperately wants a piano!

23 replies

janji · 17/10/2012 01:56

Dd aged6 desperately wants a piano having begun lessons and doing really well with them. Income is reduced at the moment due to my own ill health and despite trying freecycle etc I just don't seem able to get anywhere near to buying one. Any ideas I lovely mumsnetters?

OP posts:
Report
NatashaBee · 17/10/2012 02:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

janji · 17/10/2012 02:02

I thought that but when I asked on another thread a piano teacher said that these were no real replacement for a piano. I'm about as musical as a chocolate teapot so no real insight into what's best to be honest.

OP posts:
Report
NatashaBee · 17/10/2012 02:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JoJoCK · 17/10/2012 13:54

The British Heart foundation furniture charity shops in our area regularly have pianos for sale. Last one I saw was £100 and they deliver for a reasonable charge. Maybe piano teacher could advise re quality or come with you to shop?

Report
pianomama · 17/10/2012 15:30

You can hire a secon-hand piano for about £35 - £40 a month from a piano shop.You would still have to pay for delivery. If this is still too much, keep trying local adds, ebay, ask piano teacher to ask around. So many people have unwanted pianos..Good luck. Your teacher is right - no real replacement for a piano.

Report
YokoUhOh · 17/10/2012 15:33

Also, you could ask school if she could practise using a school piano during the odd breaktime; I'm sure this wouldn't be a problem.

Report
pianomama · 17/10/2012 15:35

Try www.marksonpianos.com/hire/ - they say from £25 a month..You will still need to pay both way delivery in advance though..

Report
Cloudminnow · 23/10/2012 18:53

Natasha - is there a particular digital one you'd recommend? I'm hoping to get one as living in a terraced house a real piano might be too noisy, plus I could only afford an out of tune acoustic! Thanks

Report
Leafmould · 23/10/2012 19:30

I bought a piano at auction for £20. It cost £30 to get it home and in situ and I haven't had it tuned yet, but I've been quoted about £50 for that.

Even if you buy a nice 2nd hand piano, the process of moving it would probably knock it out of tune, so I think you need to budget for tuning whatever you do. There's no reason to assume that just because somebody is free cycling something it will be awful.

Good luck!

Report
mamij · 23/10/2012 19:32

We managed to get a decent (about 20 years old) digital piano on gumtree a few months ago for £150. Great condition, well looked after and even came with the stool. Had to pick it up ourselves though.

Report
picturesinthefirelight · 23/10/2012 19:40

Dh is a music teacher (not piano though) and we have a digital piano, it's Yamaha. Both he & dd & dds teachet are perfectly happy with it and it is infinitely better than having nothing to practise on.

Report
picturesinthefirelight · 23/10/2012 19:41

However we bought it because of space issues. Proper pianos would actually have been cheaper.

Report
b1uesky · 25/10/2012 22:53

You can buy a digital yamaha for about £400 but they're not weighted, to get one that's weighted would probably cost the same as an old piano. Of course delivery will be very expensive and getting it tune will cost another £30 to £40 and you do need to have it tune at least once a year. I think Yokouhoh suggestion is a good one, can you ask the school to let your DD practice on the piano after school ? twice a week, 30 to 45 mins a time would be more than enough for a 6 yr old.

Report
CURIOUSMIND · 25/10/2012 23:32

My children started on a piano from a charity shop, at that time, we had a brand new yamaha keyboard with weighted keys as well(cost a lot more than the old piano), BUT it was the old wooden piano inspired them that much.The keyboard was soon left usused.
We worked on the old piano up to pass grade 5.
I would say a piano is a piano, keyboard is a keyboard.

Report
eedgefield · 27/11/2012 16:32

I have a piano for free. It is an upright Franz Liehr piano and plays well but needs tuning. The problem is that it has an iron frame and is very heavy to move. If you are in the Linolnshire Area or are interested anyway let me know.

Report
ByTheWay1 · 27/11/2012 16:52

We have a Yamaha digital piano - with weighted keys - cost about £600 - but have seen the same model since on Gumtree for £150. Our piano teacher teaches the girls on it at our house and says it will be fine to grade 5.

It is fab and has seen my 2 DDs to ABRSM Grade 3 so far .. It is not the same as a real piano - but has one BIG advantage - you can plug headphones in and practise whenever you like without disturbing anyone. (also you can put it in the car to transport it, not pay £50+ for delivery!) The extra practise time - because it doesn't get on anyone's nerves .. really helps

Report
MoreBeta · 27/11/2012 16:58

We have an electronic Roland piano. Piano teacher told us full keyboard sized and properly weighted is very important when learning.

A music shop I went in told me that after Xmas a lot of serious musicians in bands sell electronic keyboards because they run out of cash so definitely worth waiting until after Xmas for that and also for sales.

Report
YDdraigGoch · 27/11/2012 16:58

If you hunt round and make it known you are on the look out, you should be able to get a piano very cheap, if not for free. It will be on old banger, but perfectly adequate until your DC decides whether to take it seriously.
Check your local music shop, and ask them if you can put a note up on their board.

Report
MoreBeta · 27/11/2012 16:59

Electronic piano keyboards also have the virtue of being able to be used with headphones for silent practice and never need tuning.

Report
FastLoris · 27/11/2012 18:05

I'm a piano teacher and I agree with Natasha.

Yes, it's true that "there's no replacement for a real piano", IF and only if you have the budget from a properly decent real piano, and that means a minimum of 2-3K new, or having the knowledge, luck or contacts to be able to tell what is good second hand (and probably still spend about a grand).

The thing that is often overlooked by people pushing the real piano route is tuning. If you buy an old banger for next to nothing, it may not only be out of tune (which doesn't matter), but be incapable of getting into tune or of holding its tuning (which does!). This is terrible for the ears and enjoyment of those learning on it. OTOH, an electronic piano around the £500 mark wil be perfectly in tune and stay that way with no trouble whatsoever, while also having an action close enough to a real piano that it will make no appreciable difference to someone in the early years of learning. You could even get one cheaper than that second hand, and whatever problems it may have (probably just cosmetic), tuning won't be one of them. It'll either switch on and play, or it won't.

Learning to play music is about training the ear as much as training the fingers. The first is at least as important as the second in the early years, and can't be done properly with a piano that sounds like a metalworking factory.

Just get something with a proper weighted action. Yamaha P series (not sure what number they're up to now) or similar are good. Korg SP250 - slightly less natural sound than the Yamahas but decent action. Avoid being taken in by loads of bells and whistles - lots of different sounds, auto-accompaniment features etc. These will only be distracting, and mean that the investment into the instrument for its price point has been into those rather than the important things: piano sound and action.

Report
wannaBe · 27/11/2012 18:16

I have a friend who is a musician and who has a korg (actually he has more than one but that's by the by) digital piano. He paid about £600 for them.

He has a real piano too which needs a serious overhall. The problem with buying an old piano is that it would probably cost you £££ to get it back into mint working condition. friend reckons it would cost upwards of £1000 to overhall his piano. He will pay it one day but not atm...

And you can plug headphones into a digital piano...

Report
ByTheWay1 · 28/11/2012 08:37

They reckon the life of a bog standard cheap upright piano is around 70 years before a massive overhaul is needed. The heyday of piano music was 1920s to 50s - hence a lot of "free to collector" pianos available on freecycle/gumtree - these will need £500-£1500 of work on them to make them suitable for beyond beginner. (and even for a beginner they may sound crappy).

If you can't afford a decent piano I would go down the route of electric piano until you KNOW your child is going to stick with it - 90% don't go beyond grade 1.... or rent - renting a piano is quite cheap for the quality £20-£40 a month round here - less than the cost of the actual piano lessons... and you can send it back if the child is no longer interested.

Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

DeWe · 30/11/2012 12:13

We have a digital piano. Dh is more than happy with it-he's grade 8 level.

When dd1 was starting we had a basic keyboard for the first year. Just make sure the keys are full sized. The piano teacher was happy for them to start with that.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.