A nice beginner piano for my daughter?

[vajerzy]

My daughter has a real interest in playing piano. We would like to buy a digital piano, due to space limitations and I heat my house with a wood stove in the winter which fluctuates the temperature and humidity. It has to have weighted keys and have a sustained petal.

There's a Yamaha digital p95 piano for sale locally for 400- however I don't know anything about pianos, and I'm not a musician.

Anyone care to commment or suggest different brands/models?

Thanks!!

[Big Wheel]

My daughter has a real interest in playing piano. We would like to buy a digital piano, due to space limitations and I heat my house with a wood stove in the winter which fluctuates the temperature and humidity. It has to have weighted keys and have a sustained petal.

There's a Yamaha digital p95 piano for sale locally for 400- however I don't know anything about pianos, and I'm not a musician.

Anyone care to commment or suggest different brands/models?

Thanks!!

How old is your daughter? That is, is she at the age where her interest in piano is likely to be a passing phase or does it look like she's going to stay interested in the instrument for years?

The Youtube clips of the p95 look pretty solid, but if you think she's going to be at all serious about it (especially if she is more interested in classical music) I would try to make a small upright piano work, because she's eventually going to need one anyway. It'll be hard to get through the door, but once it's in place it won't take up all that much bigger a footprint than a digital instrument and there are gadgets you can buy to mitigate some of the humidity issues.

The one big advantage of a digital instrument (besides the obvious, greater portability) is versatility. Virtually all keyboards these days can be used as MIDI controllers, which allows you to do all kinds of stuff with them if you hook them up to a PC.

[mjzee]

We bought a wonderful electric piano at Costco. It's a Behringer CDP2400USB. Very reasonably priced for its beauty (black glossy wood, comes with a bench), has pedals, a volume control, and even a headphone jack. I brought it home in my car (you do need two people; it's pretty heavy) and assembled it myself.

While searching for the image, I came across this message board, which may help. Someone pointed out that "Quick update on the Behringer: While it's labeled as "CDP2400USB" at Costco...it's actually the Eurogrand EG-2180."

Ars Technica forum

[Brownian Motion]

I'd try to find a decent rent-to-buy deal from a local music shop. That's what we did when my 5 year old decided she wanted to learn piano. After about 2 weeks she lost interest, but we were able to return the piano minus a months rent and the delivery charge.