Piano Buying Guide Discussion

[Zhen Zeng]

Did your child just start the first piano lesson? Do you feel completely no clues in how to buy a piano? Or do you have any buying experience that you want to share? Let's discuss it in this thread.

[Zhen Zeng]

I find these information useful:
Piano Buying Guide
Electronic Keyboard Buying Guide

[Zhen Zeng]

My son Phillip has been taking group piano lesson for a couple of weeks now. He was willing to do any homework from the piano class except practicing on his toy piano. When I asked him why, he told me he wanted a keyboard just like the one his friend Ethan had. Ethan has a fancy Casio electronic keyboard with all kinds of musical effects and demos. We had to search for a keyboard for Phillip to practice his homework. We had no idea where to start. It happened that we had a piano sales event in the local university. We even made an appointment for the private sale. And then I went online to search for the piano brand that's for sale for that event, Steinway & Sons. Gosh, we really don't have any idea about piano! It turned out Steinway & Sons was the best piano brand in the US. Its average price on eBay was above $20,000! We just wanted a replacement for our son's $20 toy piano. We had to cancel this appointment.
We then went to Yahoo Local to search for musical instrument store nearby. And it turned out to be a smart move. We found a good store named Allegro Music in Fremont. It has very nice and informative staff working there. And their prices were competitive too. One of the staff even brought up the Internet browser and showed me the prices of the same models on Musician's Friends web site. Their prices were pretty much the same as the online stores. If you want to save the tax, you might want to just pick a reliable online store (like B&H Photo - yes, they sell musical keyboard － and Musician's Friend), and many of them don't charge shipping fee. But if you don't want the hassle in case you need to return or exchange, going through the local store such as Allegro would be a best bet. Those big-box store might have cheaper stuff, but they definitely wouldn't be able to give you an as informative sale experience.

[Lili Wu]

It would also be helpful if you can have a piano teacher to go with you to pick a piano. That's how my brother got her daughter the piano.