<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> Not sure whether I should have started another thread with this, as it's going off-topic a bit.  But I wanted to say, interesting anecdote Ger. I was chatting to a client the week before last, who is a high school music teacher, and also an HMiE (Her Majesty's inspectorate for Education) for Music - a schools inspector for music. She was adamant that her electronic keyboard was just "a tool", useful for doing certain things, but that for playing pleasure, it would always be the old Bechstein.  Another client is the same; a music teaqcher and performer with an excellent reputation (and ability to match), he has a good quality 'digital piano' as well as a very high quality upright piano.  For  playing pleasure, it's always the piano.  The 'digital piano' is a useful addition, but not a substitute. The temptation for education departments to save money by buying keyboards for learning on, is unfortunate.  They are better than nothing, and can be a useful music tool, with headphones etc.  But just because they have 88 black and white keys that go up and down, that doesn't mean they're really as good as a piano! Best regards, David Boyce <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Here is an interesting fact. Last year, we purchased 25 brand new pianos for our college music department but, due to budget constraints, the college also purchased about (I didn't bother to count them, I could care less) 12-15 maybe, digital pianos. Every single time I am there tuning, which is often, 98 % to many times, 100 % of the digital pianos are NOT being used but, ALL of the real pianos ARE. </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>