88 Keys? 61?, What size keyboard is good for learning? Options

[xparrot]

I'm on the verge of purchasing a MIDI keyboard to learn how to play the piano.

My question is, how many keys do I need to learn? A piano has 88, so I lean towards that. But there are 76 key, 61 key and 49 key controllers.

Which would be a good one to learn on for someone who has never played before?

I found this software for OS X that will be available soon:
http://www.floridamusicco.com/pianokeyboard.htm

What other hardware will I need to connect the MIDI keyboard to my computer.

I have(or will have as soon as it delivers) a dual 2Ghz G5 with 2GB of RAM

Thanks in advance for the help with this.

-Kirk

[lync4495]

First I would tend to believe that if you are only going to be sequencing simple beats and riffs into your g5 a simple 61 or 76 key non-weighted keyboard is fine. But if you are planning on actually learning piano which is highly recommended in terms of writing music you will need an 88 weighted key keyboard. Without the weight I there is nothing to ease the abrupt stop the key gets when it hits the bottom and this can cause pretty severe carple tunnel syndrome (puts a quick stop to long practice sessions). I bought an Alesis QS8.1 off of ebay and I love it. Before I bought it though I spent a couple of months researching the wide world of keyboards. I settled on the Alesis because it seemed to fit into my setup and it has aftertouch sensitivity, but some other keyboards that seemed great are the Yamaha P80 (average of about $600 - $700 on ebay), the Roland RD series (averaged about $500 - $600 for the RD150 on ebay, higher for the RD600 and RD700). These two are digital weighted pianos with pretty much only piano sounds on board while the Alesis is more of a weighted synthesiser keyboard. In terms of the feel of the keys I haven't played the other two but the Alesis feels exactly like a real piano (of course i'm also not a classically trained pianist so don't take my word for it). One thing to note though: Almost all the weighted key systems in most popular keyboards are made by Fatar and as far as i know they don't do much to change the design from keyboard to keyboard. So basically if you were to take it apart there would be the same key system in almost any keyboard... therefore I don't put much stock into comments like "the P80 action is too heavy, or the Alesis too light" They're all the same.
One final note.
Your budget obviously isn't too tight. Get a Korg Triton. I has a whole bunch of stuff that you may or may not use being that you'll be doing most sequencing in the G5, but it's a wicked machine leaving limitless possibilities for live use.