First of all, piano and electric keyboard are different. Piano emits sound owning to the system of keyboard, hammer, strings and resonator. Piano doesn’t have light keyboard and auto-accompaniment function like electronic keyboard. In contrast, electric keyboard emits sound from built-in speaker with oscillating tube and has a part to control volume. Most of electric keyboard versions have auto-accompaniment function and are characterized by unweighted keyboard. These are the basic differences between the two types of instruments.

Piano is evidently different from electric keyboard. Learning how to play the piano by using an electric keyboard requires flexible application of techniques. In fact, piano and electric keyboard are different in various aspects. For example, while piano can be played up to the 7th octave, the highest possible octave of electric keyboard is the 5th octave. This difference can be addressed. The differences between the two instruments in terms of sound generation mechanism and finger pressure on keyboard are more difficult to deal with. After times of upgradation, electric keyboard of modern style has had significant improvement in terms of sensitivity and ability to reflect changes in finger pressure to intensity. Despite this, electric keyboard has certain limitations that are part of its specifications.

Meanwhile, piano brings about endless subtle changes. New learners are not supposed to feel such changes. However, the differences between the two instruments have great influence on the perception, sensibility, and aesthetic thinking of learners. Learning how to play piano on an electric keyboard means learners have to struggle hard to get adapted. What worse is that it leads to many bad habits in playing the piano later. Each hand has five fingers. To overcome this asynchrony, learners have to group the fingers together so that they all lie on the keyboard surface.

To address unevenness of finger pressure, learners should practice the rhythms with different tones and speed. Fingers join together with tendons, blood vessels, nerves, etc. To train the independence of each finger, learners should pick up the finger that they’re going to use before pressing down any key. If you use electric keyboard as an alternative, try applying this principle on it. Yet, it may not reward you with subtle changes of sound and even makes you ignore rigorous requirements of piano. To be specific, with very light force on keyboard, sound can be created on electric keyboard and the intensity of sound is controlled by the volume part. As a result, practicing that way, learners may easily forget techniques and expressive requirements of the piano.

It’s not a big deal for professional artists to quickly get adapted to two different musical instruments. Yet, this is discouraging to fresh learners, not to mention the bad habits it may cause as mentioned above. Correcting mistakes is even harder than learning new knowledge. It’s a waste, too.

In short, learners shouldn’t learn how to play a musical instrument by using another type of instrument. Here, we’re taking about the case of piano and electric keyboard. It should be the last resort when there is a shortage of instructor and instrument.