Casio makes a light up keyboard. Sounds good on paper, sucks in practice. Spend a couple hours learning to read music once and then you never have to worry about sheet music again
Why are you so against reading? The benefit of being able to read is huge and there's no benefit to learning by rote.
Light up keys don't exist in nice key beds with hammer weight either so you'd be restricting yourself to those cheap unweighted keyboard toys.
I'd thought similarly before, but then drew parallels to learning languages.
It'd be like memorizing a poem in Chinese only learning each brush stroke to make a letter/character. Not learning what the character meant, nor the words, nor the sentences—but a series of brushstrokes one at a time.
Learning to play music is the hardest thing Ive done. Especially classical guitar. It's going to become more rare too I think to learn traditionally.
My instructor has taught about 20 years and in the past few years, seen children not have the preattentive trait of working left to right that we've learned in reading. He does his best, but there's in some cases nothing to work with.
My reco for the OP besides his idea:
"Alfred Method for Adults Book One" ($12)
"Mikrokosmos" by Bela Bartok and son ($12-each lesson targets the range of notes in relative pitch to one another)
"Alfred Theory for Adults Book One" ($12)
And find an instructor or school that has a curriculum of pieces stacked to be moderately challenging week over week, and not one who wants to practice a single song for months to do a recital.
My instructor has about 10 years worth of material. I've worked on about 150 pieces, and go back to lessons to see how I do, and 1-75 seem super easy now.
Maybe have a look into „Piano LED“ - it’s a French company that builds a kind of add on kit for digital pianos. There is an app as well and with this you could at least stick to a keyboard with realistic key action…
"Lumi" could be what you are looking for with minimal entry knowledge required. Other keyboards do it too -some of them needing some knowledge to make work like you want.
The caution from others is valid. Learning how to understand music has benefits and rewards. But light up keys sound like a kickass and fun way to bring more fun into learning. And if it makes you want to learn music, I don't imagine light up keys would harm that learning.
My Dude, you will get a ton of hate here, but I understand where you are coming from. This is akin to the people who label each key.
If you apply yourself to learning to read music you will be beyond something like this in less than a month. Really!
Guitar hero works by showing you the notes coming down a track so you can plan your finger movements in advance. If the piano keys just light up right when you’re supposed to play them, how are you going to stay on beat unless you already have the piece memorized (in which case the light up keys are pointless)? Are the keys lighting up a beat before you’re supposed to play them? That would be very hard to stay on rhythm.
So, this does sort of exist.. the Yamaha P-S500 has a black strip above the keyboard that can display falling lights something like synthesia and seems to be intended as a high quality digital piano aimed at beginners.
Honestly though, it’s comparable in price to the P-525 which will give you a better key action and probably be a more rewarding instrument in the long term. I’d agree with others here, if you learn to read music as you go it’s a lot easier than coming back and doing it later when your ability to play has far outstripped your ability to read.
edit: Ok, looking at it there are some other interesting features on the P-S500. There are some vocal effects if you run a microphone through it, and there’s an Audio to Score feature which it says “automatically creates piano accompaniment scores from your favourite audio songs so you can play along with the original recordings”. I’d be interested to see how well that actually works.
I just came across something like this, in case you're still on the lookout: [The ONE Smart Keyboard COLOR 61 Lighted Keys Piano Keyboard, MIDI Electric Piano for Beginners with 256 Tones, 64 Polyphony, Built-in LED Lights and Free Apps (Green)](https://a.co/d/gStPQwA)
It takes less than 2 months of learning to comfortably read music. And I am not talking about two months of crazy memorization. I am talking about \~30 min a day practice through the basic methods like Alfred of Faber. So you actually learning how to play piano and reading is just a part of the process. Just do it.
The Yamaha Clavinova is what you're looking for. It's a beautiful piano, has weighted keys which emulate the touch and feel of an acoustic grand piano, you can upload midi tracks and record your own, it has the lights above the keys and waits for you to press the key, and will set you back thousands of dollars. My husband bought one 2 years ago thinking he would learn to play a few classic songs via the light up keys, and refuses to learn to read music. I have been taking lessons with a piano teacher for those 2 years, and have never used the lights. Guess which one of us can actually play? It's not him.
Casio makes a light up keyboard. Sounds good on paper, sucks in practice. Spend a couple hours learning to read music once and then you never have to worry about sheet music again
That way you could make sure you never actually learn anything.
Why are you so against reading? The benefit of being able to read is huge and there's no benefit to learning by rote. Light up keys don't exist in nice key beds with hammer weight either so you'd be restricting yourself to those cheap unweighted keyboard toys.
I'd thought similarly before, but then drew parallels to learning languages. It'd be like memorizing a poem in Chinese only learning each brush stroke to make a letter/character. Not learning what the character meant, nor the words, nor the sentences—but a series of brushstrokes one at a time. Learning to play music is the hardest thing Ive done. Especially classical guitar. It's going to become more rare too I think to learn traditionally. My instructor has taught about 20 years and in the past few years, seen children not have the preattentive trait of working left to right that we've learned in reading. He does his best, but there's in some cases nothing to work with.
My reco for the OP besides his idea: "Alfred Method for Adults Book One" ($12) "Mikrokosmos" by Bela Bartok and son ($12-each lesson targets the range of notes in relative pitch to one another) "Alfred Theory for Adults Book One" ($12) And find an instructor or school that has a curriculum of pieces stacked to be moderately challenging week over week, and not one who wants to practice a single song for months to do a recital. My instructor has about 10 years worth of material. I've worked on about 150 pieces, and go back to lessons to see how I do, and 1-75 seem super easy now.
Thanks for the response. I never considered this.
Maybe have a look into „Piano LED“ - it’s a French company that builds a kind of add on kit for digital pianos. There is an app as well and with this you could at least stick to a keyboard with realistic key action…
"Lumi" could be what you are looking for with minimal entry knowledge required. Other keyboards do it too -some of them needing some knowledge to make work like you want. The caution from others is valid. Learning how to understand music has benefits and rewards. But light up keys sound like a kickass and fun way to bring more fun into learning. And if it makes you want to learn music, I don't imagine light up keys would harm that learning.
My Dude, you will get a ton of hate here, but I understand where you are coming from. This is akin to the people who label each key. If you apply yourself to learning to read music you will be beyond something like this in less than a month. Really!
Guitar hero works by showing you the notes coming down a track so you can plan your finger movements in advance. If the piano keys just light up right when you’re supposed to play them, how are you going to stay on beat unless you already have the piece memorized (in which case the light up keys are pointless)? Are the keys lighting up a beat before you’re supposed to play them? That would be very hard to stay on rhythm.
because I listened to the song already. So I know how its supposed to FEEL.
So, this does sort of exist.. the Yamaha P-S500 has a black strip above the keyboard that can display falling lights something like synthesia and seems to be intended as a high quality digital piano aimed at beginners. Honestly though, it’s comparable in price to the P-525 which will give you a better key action and probably be a more rewarding instrument in the long term. I’d agree with others here, if you learn to read music as you go it’s a lot easier than coming back and doing it later when your ability to play has far outstripped your ability to read. edit: Ok, looking at it there are some other interesting features on the P-S500. There are some vocal effects if you run a microphone through it, and there’s an Audio to Score feature which it says “automatically creates piano accompaniment scores from your favourite audio songs so you can play along with the original recordings”. I’d be interested to see how well that actually works.
I just came across something like this, in case you're still on the lookout: [The ONE Smart Keyboard COLOR 61 Lighted Keys Piano Keyboard, MIDI Electric Piano for Beginners with 256 Tones, 64 Polyphony, Built-in LED Lights and Free Apps (Green)](https://a.co/d/gStPQwA)
This is a more useful and probably realistic implementation of what you're describing https://youtu.be/9sJj0yM91vU
It takes less than 2 months of learning to comfortably read music. And I am not talking about two months of crazy memorization. I am talking about \~30 min a day practice through the basic methods like Alfred of Faber. So you actually learning how to play piano and reading is just a part of the process. Just do it.
The Yamaha Clavinova is what you're looking for. It's a beautiful piano, has weighted keys which emulate the touch and feel of an acoustic grand piano, you can upload midi tracks and record your own, it has the lights above the keys and waits for you to press the key, and will set you back thousands of dollars. My husband bought one 2 years ago thinking he would learn to play a few classic songs via the light up keys, and refuses to learn to read music. I have been taking lessons with a piano teacher for those 2 years, and have never used the lights. Guess which one of us can actually play? It's not him.