i have heard that pianist tend to be rigid and can't improvise and can't play beyond the sheet music. and that they can't improvise. is that true? i want to sing songs and play keyboard/piano as accompaniment. so which should i learn piano or keyboard?
What you learn and how your play is affected far more by your teacher than what instrument you've got in front of you. If the instrument is used in jazz, then it can be improvised on. There are lots of jazz pianists out there.
IF you live in Great Britain, you might want to look for a teacher who supports the jazz curriculum of the ABRSM (
www.abrsm.org). That's one way to improvise on a piano. If you've got money -- LOTS OF MONEY -- you might want to look at Berklee Online for courses and certificates in jazz, although you probably should know how to play first.
But the instrument is far less important for improvisation than your mindset.
Be that as it may, you probably still want to know what keyboard to buy. And THAT'S a difficult question to answer. Keyboards fall in several categories.
Pianos: These keyboards include both acoustic pianos as well as electric instruments with 88 weighted keys and internal speakers that create a decent piano sound.
Synthesizers: These keyboards can have keyboards of almost any size, but are primarily oriented towards creating and producing new sounds.
ROMplers: These keyboards can have keyboards of almost any size, but primarily create sounds by playing back recordings of existing sounds.
Workstations: These keyboards can have keyboards of almost any size, but are primarily known for being able to play multiple sounds simultaneously, usually with an internal multi-track MIDI recorder.
Arrangers: These keyboards have keyboards of either 61 or 73 keys. They are primarily known for the ability to perform a live accompaniment to your music. Your left hand determines the chord, while your right hand plays the melody.
Keyboards can fit into multiple categories. My Kronos is a synthesizer and a ROMpler and a Workstation. (It records and plays both MIDI and audio on sixteen tracks for each.) My Tyros is a ROMpler, a Workstation, and an Arranger. On the other hand, my upright piano is just a piano.
IF you want to play traditional "classical" piano as well as rock and roll, etc., I strongly recommend getting something with weighted keys to learn on. There are snotty music teachers who will insist on you having an 88 note one, but unless you really want that teacher, I'd recommend looking elsewhere. On the other hand, it's generally difficult to get a good weighted keyboard with only sixty one keys.
In terms of budget, you can get a new decent electric piano for a couple hundred dollars, or you can get a grand piano with over a hundred keys imported from Australia for about a quarter of a million. All the price points in between are also available. Generally, new electronic keyboards will top off around five thousand, although if you look hard you can probably go higher. The bottom is in the several hundred range. In general, you get what you pay for, but the increase in price is not linear, it's exponential. An instrument twice as good may cost four times as much. Or more. Near the top of the price range, the difference between instruments may be insignificant.
As a beginner, you don't need to worry about the top end. You DO need to consider what you want the keyboard to do. (So far, no one has made an instrument that you can plug directly into your brain. Yet.)
This is just brushing the surface. If you have more questions (and you probably will), feel free to ask. We'll all give your our two cents worth, and occasionally we'll even agree. (If we don't, remember that I'm right and they're not.)
