Digital piano

Draft

A digital piano is a kind of electronic keyboard designed to feel and sound like a traditional piano. In addition, a digital piano can include many features that are found in various other electronic instruments such as:

• a MIDI interface and act as a so-called Midi controller;
• many sounds (including other types of keyboards, strings, guitars, horns, etc.);
• metronome and auto accompaniment with various levels of fingering (chord recognition) support;
• demonstration play-along features, recording, sequencing and play-back.

Features and kinds of digital pianos

A good digital piano should at least include the following function:

• A few good piano sounds either obtained by carefully sampling a real piano or by modeling a piano sound (like the Roland-V
• Connectivity: MIDI, USB, iPAD, CD
• Multi-track squencing in various formats (including MIDI and WAV/MP3)
• Piano-like action, i.e. a weighted keyboard, some kind of grader hammer action and ivory-feel keys.

There exist several kinds of digital pianos, in particular:

• Simple e-pianos: implement a variety of keyboard sounds
• Stage pianos: are like simple e-pianos but weight much less. They usually do not include accompaniment (rhythms), some don't have speakers, i.e. need an amplifier.
• "Ensemble" pianos add relatively sophisticated auto-accompaniment.

In this article we particularly will examine some of the features that can are interesting for piano and more general music education.

Educational features

Some of these features are not just educational, but can Many mid- and high-end ePianos will implement at least some of these functions.

Twin Piano Mode

Allows to split the keyboard into two equal sections, so that teacher and pupil can play along.

Built-in metronome

Should be adjustable

Recorder

Multi-track recorder for recording one's own play

MP3/CD player

Be able to play music in the background for playing along

Links

• Digital piano (Wikipedia)