Missed our second seminar in person? We got you 👀🎹

Hey everyone, this is Glenn Shrivets for Hollywood Piano and another one of our seminars from our Roland Celebration Month. Now these seminars were all given live except for one which we did specifically to a video and is being broadcast live. This one is one that I gave last week and the subject is, is a big box store keyboard good enough to get started with? And the answer to that is, maybe. You know, we found industry-wide that statistics are people who start to play on a keyboard from a big box store, be it a Walmart, a Target, a Best Buy. I mean, these are not the most professional keyboards in the world and it lacks the inspiration factor. You know, if you have $100 keyboard and you're playing it, you're not gonna be all that inspired with the sound that it produces. I mean, there's a reason why there are $100 keyboards and there are $10,000 keyboards and they all plug in but they're all very different. So the difference is what you're getting back. So yeah, I mean, you can learn the basics, you can learn the notes, you know, the scale is the scale whether it's on a $100 keyboard or whether it's on a $10,000 keyboard but the difference is, will you continue to play it? Because the whole idea of learning to play is continuing, getting enjoyment and enrichment in your life from learning to play the piano. So learning to play a keyboard is a different, different story. So I have my notes in front of me here every now and then, you'll see me looking down referring because I don't wanna miss anything but what those keyboards do well is they let you have an understanding of the key. So tonight I'm gonna show you what these keyboards do well, where they fall short and why most people who start there don't continue. So what are big box keyboards good for? They're affordable. It's an affordable way to start with an instrument. They're easy to bring home. You can just carry the box under your arm when you're not at home. It's good maybe for a young child to kind of get them interested in banging keys and getting the response of they play the keys, they make a sound and maybe for a very young child, not necessarily for lessons, just for playing. If somebody just wants to experiment casually, they're good for that too. Short-term curiosity where you already know I'm not gonna stick with anything like this. Yeah, it serves that kind of purpose. There's nothing wrong with somebody getting a keyboard. The problem is most people don't realize what they're missing and that's why they stop playing after a very short time. So the biggest problem on these things is the feel. They have lightweight keys. Like I said earlier, like an organ, it's a piano. No matter how you play a piano, you get different sound. You play it soft, you play it hard, you get hard sound. Many keyboards are just fixed at one sound. Now there are keyboards, of course, which are touch sensitive, but that again is not a real piano because it's not infinite touch sensitivity. It's just controlling a recording and you're playing back that recording when you hit the keys and those recordings could be loud, they could be soft, but it's not infinite. So you're not really getting the experience of playing the piano and controlling a piano keyboard. There's no resistance on these inexpensive keyboards. So a piano isn't just easy to push down the keys as an organ would be. You have to give a little exertion to get the keys to move. And the last point is you don't really have control of the sound. If you have a piano that does not, or a keyboard that does not have touch sensitivity, you have no control. If you have touch sensitivity, well, you have a little bit of control. You can go loud to soft, but you're not getting much control and it's really lacking in storage. A piano really is not just about pressing notes, it's about controlling them. And that's the difference between a keyboard and a piano. If the instrument doesn't respond to you, you can't develop what we call technique and technique is we build up the muscles in the hand to control. We have the muscle memory. So all of that, if you invest in a keyboard, you're not really developing that at all. So let's talk about the inspiration factor because a lot of people don't take that into account when they say, oh, just the cheapest thing we'll do and that'll get me started or that'll get little Johnny or Mary started. The thing is, these inexpensive keyboards have very thin sound. It's not a sound that's gonna inspire anybody. I mean, imagine if you're listening to your best CDs, your favorite band, your favorite orchestra, and it's coming out of little speakers and that's what you get on a keyboard. It's not gonna move anybody to do anything. There's no depth, there's no resonance. You don't experience anything. It's just there. You're pressing the keys like you can do on your computer keyboard. But instead of the computer keyboard and making things happen on the screen, you're pressing the keyboard and you're hearing a response, but it's a thin, not necessarily inspirational response. When you play a great piano, acoustic or high-end digital, you don't just hear the sound. You feel it, you feel it in here. And that's something you don't get when you buy a big box keyboard. You can't pull inspiration from a sound that doesn't move you. So that's an important thing to keep in your mind. So the experience gap between an acoustic piano and a keyboard, no dynamic range, no nuances, no connection to sound, no inspiration. A real piano responds differently depending on how you play. Most keyboards don't. The real reason people quit, our industry has done survey after survey on this. The majority of big box keyboard buyers stop within three or four months and never develop consistency. People don't quit because they lack talent. They quit because the instrument doesn't reward them. There's something magical about playing an instrument that you get the feedback from. You hear this sound, whether it's a light tinkling sound or a thunderous bass, and you feel it, you feel it in here. You not only feel it in here, you feel it in your fingers because the keys vibrate. And the best digital pianos, in addition to acoustic pianos, do that. They let you feel it, they let you feel the vibrations in the keyboard, and that's something you don't get with a big box keyboard. So if every note feels the same and sounds the same, there's nothing pulling you back to play again. So when you're playing, and you're playing very, very, very slow, and you're playing something magical and real to you, and you feel it in your chest, and it's almost to the point of making you tear up because it's so beautiful. Well, you don't have that experience when you're hearing that thin sound through a couple of small speakers on a keyboard. And that is really what keeps someone playing, is that emotional connection, that connection between you and the instrument. You feel the vibrations in the air. You feel the keys vibrating beneath your fingers. You are in control of that instrument, and you're getting feedback from it. That's what keeps people coming back and back and back, the inspiration, the connection. So the important thing in a keyboard versus a piano is the keyboard doesn't have proper key acting. It doesn't have the rich sound that creates the emotional response. Better instruments encourage people to sit at them more. If you're getting some pleasure from practicing on something that sounds great and does something to you inside, you're gonna go back again and again. But if you're sitting at something where it's just a lackluster sound, it's not inspirational, you're not going back there again. You're like, I don't need to do that. I can do something else. I look at my computer. I look at my iPad, watch YouTube. So it's about inspiration. It's about encouraging to sit down. It's the reward of improving at a piano. And you create momentum as you practice and enjoy it more and more. So the right instrument doesn't just make music. It makes us want to play. That's why a keyboard that you get from a big box store is not necessarily doing you a service. The advantage of coming to a piano store is expert guidance. You know, in most piano stores, you have people who really know pianos. In our store here at Hollywood Piano, everybody here is a pianist, is an expert. I'm a composer. I'm a pianist. One of our staff here just finished a classical piano concerto for 60 piece orchestra. Another one is a fantastic jazz player. Another one has been playing piano all of his 70 years. I mean, we've got experts here who really know pianos inside and out. Someone like myself, I've been doing this all my life. I love piano. Pianos are my life. I go to every trade show, every event, whether it's worldwide. I was in Acoustica, the European trade show. Last year I was in Shanghai, the Chinese trade show. Now this year I was at the NAM, the American trade show. I keep up on these things and I really know these things. So does our staff, the trade information. So we're your experts. Come here, pick our brains. We can help you find the right instrument. We can also help you avoid maybe a mistake of spending $200 that you're actually throwing away in the end. We have things here you can't get in a big box store like trade up options. You can start at a lower level and then we allow 100% trade off to a bigger one and you can keep doing that. We have people who have done this literally for decades, moving up and up and up because you know, we're a rare piano store here with 600 pianos, 25,000 square feet of pianos. We have something for every price point, no matter what you're looking at, whether it's something for a half a million dollars or for $500. We have it. No other store has that diversity of product. So we can help you grow as you grow. And then we provide, of course, long-term support. On our digital instruments, we give you lifetime support. So if you don't know how to do something on your instrument, we're there for you. We'll show you how to do it. We'll say, come on in, sit with and we'll show you how to play certain things. Or on the phone, we'll give you support for as long as you own that instrument. We'll give you advice. And we have community events where you can meet other people who are into digital pianos, electronic instruments, and we have events with manufacturers and performers from the manufacturers. So there's a sense of community as well. And you don't get that in a big box store. When you buy a piano from a dedicated piano store, you're not just buying a piano. You're entering a system designed to help you succeed. Because if you succeed, we succeed, and we're gonna succeed more as you succeed more. So to recap this, can you start on a big box keyboard? Yes, you can. Will it give you the best chance of success? The simple answer is no. And historically, it's been that. The goal is just to not start playing. It's to keep playing once you start. So the right instrument doesn't make sound, just make sound, it creates a connection. And that connection is what causes people to keep coming back to a piano. You feel it, you experience it, and it makes you feel good. I encourage you to check keyboards all around, and then go to professional piano stores, come to Hollywood Piano. We'll be happy to advise you, show you what things you need to look at. Cheap instruments don't create great habits. It's not inspiring, it's not working. Most people don't quit piano, they quit their instruments. A keyboard is a device, a piano is an experience. If you have questions about anything at all I've covered in this video or the other videos, please don't hesitate to contact us. Our number is very easy. It's 1-800-MY-PIANO. That's 1-800-MY-PIANO for your piano. And that in numerical is 1-800-697-4266. Hollywood Piano. This is Glenn Tribetz for Hollywood Piano saying, there's no life without music, and there's no music without life. Bye for now.