At last!! Really, finally! After decades of daydreaming about owning a regular-sized key piano, I finally have one! I really did not plan of buying one at the end of the year. Well I included in my Christmas wishlist but I never really planned of buying one soon. I just suddenly thought of it when I received my bonus (from work) and downloaded and read Piano for Dummies book. It dawned to me that I could actually buy a decent one now.

So I started looking online for shops that sell pianos and keyboards. I knew I needed to get a Yamaha. After days of searching and contacting target sellers, I landed on the Yupangco site and discovered their Christmas Sale promo.

I got myself a Yamaha PSR-E423 portable keyboard.

I have a music buddy at last! d=(´▽｀)=b

It only has 61 keys, and this is a major drawback if I'm aiming to play some classical pieces. Also the keys are non-weighted. Actually, my choice of this keyboard defied most of the tips that this guy in youtube (unfortunately I can't find the video again) advised when purchasing pianos/keyboards. He said in searching for the best piano to start learning, consider the following factors in order of most significant to the least:

Factors to Consider in Purchasing a Piano/Keyboard

• Number of keys - Find the model with the most number of keys that you can afford.
• Action - See if the keys are weighted. It's okay to purchase even a piano with keys that are partially-weighted rather than one that is not weighted at all. Learning to play the piano is all about muscle memory. It would be great to train your fingers to improve your playing performance even on a grand piano.
• Voices - This is the least factor because if you are aiming to play classical pieces on the piano, then you don't really need those other voices (unless you play in a band).

 After watching that youtube clip, I reconsidered buying this keyboard. But I thought, between my old Casio keyboard and this one, I'd definitely choose the latter because the major disadvantage of my old keyboard is the baby-sized keys. I have played on that for years and because of that, I'm registering wrong muscle memories in my hands. So finally, I decided to buy this Yamaha keyboard. I'm just self-studying by the way. If I improve in the future, I'd just upgrade to a better piano to accommodate my developing skills.

So far, I'm fairly happy with this piano. I love its touch-sensitivity feature. I get to control the gentleness of the sound of the keys as I play it. 

So far, I'm learning to play Canon (Pachelbel) and still polishing playing Maybe (Yiruma). 

Here's how I'm currently playing Yiruma's piece:



I know it still needs A LOT of polishing and practicing for my playing to get better. I'm up for the challenge. d(-_^)

At least now, I have a good piano to practice with. I'm now getting the hang of playing on a regular-sized key piano, because since childhood, I was used to playing that mini keyboard. I have lots of piano pieces that I want to learn playing, like those from the Phantom of the Opera musical and more of Yiruma's works.

This is one step closer towards reaching my dreams. ヾ(´▽｀;)ゝ