Casio LK-73ADBKS Lighted Touch Sensitive Keyboard

 Casio lk73 - Great for all ages
I am a mother of 4 ranging in age from 4 years to 14. I have piano experience (as I took piano and organ lessons from age 7 until college). I wanted something that would peak my girls interest rather than me teaching them and it being a battle. I think I have done it. All 4 love it!!! My 8 year old as learned half of the right hand of "Fur Elise". I got her the "Usborne Piano Course Book" one and two. I have helped her and she has also done several lessons on her own. She is half way through the book in 3 weeks. We are already playing a duet from the book together. My 14 year old isn't has also learned the entire right hand of "Fur Elise" by herself (it is quite long) and is now working on the left hand. The lighting of the keys allow the kids to memorize the songs on their own. The 14 year old is quite challenged by it (as I hoped she would be). The 4 year old is on it as much as I allow her to be. This has been a great product for us!!! I have been nothing but pleased.

 Great product, but some issues
In general this is a fun, high-quality product. It is certainly easier to learn a piece of music by having the keys that you need to play lit up for you instead of trying to read sheet music. Great value for the dollar and the sound quality of the digital instruments and speakers is comparable to other keyboards in this price range. Really great product for beginners and intermediates who want to learn to play the piano but have trouble reading sheet music or are in need of lots of repitition of left or right hand parts in order to master a piece.

However, there are a few criticisms:

The keys light up at the end of the keys, which is where your fingertips would normally be, so it is more difficult (but still fairly easy) to tell which keys are lit because your fingertip covers the light. Maybe if the light was 1-2 inches from the edge of the key it would be better.

The keyboard has a function where it lights the first note of a piece, and then after you play that note, it lights up the next note, and then you play that, and it lights the next, and so on. This is great for learning the notes, since the keyboard guides you and you control the pace of the piece, since the next note is not shown until you played the previous note. However, the keyboard only lights up one hand at a time with this teaching function. It does not light up both hand parts simultaneously. So the only way to practice with both hands simultaneously is to have the keyboard play the piece in real time, in which case it is very difficult to follow the notes, even when you slow down the tempo. Plus, it seems that you can only use this function with the pieces that are already pre-supplied on the keyboard. It doesn't seem to work for midi pieces downloaded from the internet.

Also, the ability to import midi pieces from a computer to the lk-73 keyboard via a MIDI cable seems to me to be overrated. I haven't been able to figure out how to make the lk-73 record a midi piece from the computer connected to it. Even if I could, apparently the keyboard will only record two pieces total. It also has a total memory of only 5,200 notes, which is not much, maybe about as much as two Chopin preludes (I haven't calculated exactly). The keyboard also will not retain recorded pieces in memory if the power has been cut off. It also does not seem possible to use the teaching function described above with pieces downloaded from the internet. I haven't figured out how to do this and the instruction manual doesn't say anything about it.

However, you can hook up your computer to the keyboard so that you can play a midi piece from the computer to the keyboard in real time, so that the notes in both hands light up on the keyboard. It seems easier to learn a piece this way instead of learning it from reading sheet music. However, even when the tempo is slowed down greatly this is still not nearly as easy as if the keyboard just lit the first key, then had you play it, then lit the next only after you played the previous one, and not
only showed the left and right parts by themselves, but also showed both parts together in this teaching mode.

 How to learn two-handed pieces on this keyboard
I agree with the review above regarding the problem with the transition to two-handed play using this keyboard. I spent a lot of time practicing two-handed songs one hand at a time and I couldn't figure out how to begin playing both hands at the same time. I've since figured it out and can now play both Beethoven's Pathetique (#76 on keyboard) and Chopin's Chanson (#82 on keyboard). It took around two months of practice in my spare time to learn each of the two songs (4 months total) and I have never had any piano lessons. Here's how:

Spend a few days or a week -- depending on how much experience you have with music in general -- playing the entire piece one hand at a time. You may have to just listen to the piece sometimes to get a feel for it.

Once you are thoroughly familiar with the song, memorize how to play the just the first measure in your right hand (using "Step 2", right hand). Be sure to pay attention to the fingering guide on screen -- it'll make things a lot easier in the long run if you are playing the correct fingerings and doing the correct sustains, not just blindly following the key lighting. Then switch it "Step 2", left hand, and play the right hand from memory while watching the keyboard to play the left hand as well. The keyboard will also be playing the right hand, but will not advance unless the left-hand keys have been hit correctly. If you hit left-handed keys without playing the corresponding right-hand part, you'll hear it being played anyway -- and know that you didn't do it right. You can then go back and try again. It usually just takes a few minutes until you get it right through trial and error -- but definitely longer if it is a really difficult measure. If you take a look at the sheet music to see when the left and hand keys are playing relative to each other, it often makes it easier to learn the measure.

Once you have really learned the measure, learn the next one and a so on. To make learning easier, I continue to practice in "Step 2", left hand mode even after I have learned to play the entire song, and then wean myself off the the left-hand lighted guide only after I have the song down cold. At a certain point you know the left-hand part just by feel and you only need to learn where to jump to in parts where the left hand moves a long way on the keyboard.

This method really works and I recommend this keyboard to anyone who would like to quickly learn complex two-handed classical pieces without knowing how to read music. Everyone is shocked that I am suddenly able to play difficult classical pieces that would normally require 5-10 years of piano lessons.