My oldest boy is in the first grade is now taking piano lessons.  It was a trade off of him wanting to take karate, and I & my wife wanting him to have somthing else to go with it.

I am thinking about getting an electronic keyboard.  Any recomendations?

Thanks,

Badredfish

You own a piano, correct?

For that age, I would not recommend a keyboard, but if you must have a keyboard, get one with weighted keys and pedals (if possible) to help develop his muscle tone, strength, and technique.

Quoted: Choose a used, older PRO keyboard (Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Alesis, etc.) instead of a new "toy" Casio or other keyboard.  No one takes the latter seriously, even though the quality on some of them are decent.  Anyway, a pro keyboard will be usable now, but allows the ability to make and modify the sounds ("voices") that the keyboard makes and will have MIDI support.  It will be something that he will be able to grow into, and will also require him to study and learn to do so, so it will keep him interested. eBay is a good place to shop. -Troy

I'm in total agreement with Troy.  To give you some specific recommendations, I'd suggest you look seriously at either a Yamaha P90, or P120 piano.  The P120 is a somewhat nicer product, comes with a more funiture-like finish and sports built-in speakers.  Both are quality instruments that will give a lifetime of service.  Brand new you're probably looking at $800 and $1100 respectively.  Both instruments can be found on ebay for substantially less.

My children learned/are still learning to play piano on a Yamaha P200.


edited to add:  And if money is no object, buy him a Korg Triton Studio 88...  

I agree with mattja. If you do not currently own a piano, buy a real piano. There is no substitute for a real piano when learning to play the piano, obviously. A real piano has all 88 keys, a real piano has all three pedals, a real piano has that certain weighted feel when you press the keys, etc.

One of the problems I had when learning to play the piano was that my piano was old and kind of had weak keys. Whenever I went to a piano competition or a music test or anything like that, they usually had it at the music dept of a local university or something where they had pianos in good shape, and I had trouble pressing the keys hard enough, which caused me some problems. Learning to play the piano on an electronic keyboard probably will have the same issues.

Or you could buy a so-called "digital piano." These are full-sized electronic keyboards that actually look and feel sort of like real pianos (i.e. they have weighted keys, pedals, etc.) and they never need tuning. It might be a good compromise.

I'm just out of college now and am looking to buy a good digital piano. I want something that feels like a real piano but is light enough to move around because I won't be able to afford a house for a while... Yamaha makes about five dozen different models of good digital pianos; you might want to take a look at those.

Thanks for all of the replies,

Looks like I just need to go track down a good used upright piano.

The reason is two fold - one is for my oldest boy who is taking the lessons and his little brother that is two years behind him, and the second is myself - I kick myself each time that think that I quit after three plus years of lessons.  I wish I had never quit.

Later,

Badredfish

Quoted: Thanks for all of the replies, Looks like I just need to go track down a good used upright piano. The reason is two fold - one is for my oldest boy who is taking the lessons and his little brother that is two years behind him, and the second is myself - I kick myself each time that think that I quit after three plus years of lessons.  I wish I had never quit. Later, Badredfish

A cheap used upright or console piano shouldn't be hard to find. We got a console model(slightly smaller than an upright) when I started taking lessons in 2nd grade for cheap. It wasn't pretty, but it worked fine.

At your son's age, fundamentals and finger strength are the most important things to develop. I know lots of kids who have really weak fingers and awful form; it's terribly awkward for them to play anything remotely challenging.