Keyboard accessories you actually need

A keyboard is unusual among instruments in arriving almost complete. There is nothing to tune, no strings to replace and no consumables. What it does need is a small number of items that decide the two things a beginner cannot easily assess: whether their body is in a sensible position, and whether they can practice at the times they actually have.

1. A stand, because the table is the wrong height

The default place a new keyboard ends up is a dining table, and a dining table is roughly four inches too high for playing.

The consequence is not comfort, it is mechanics. To reach keys that are too high, the wrists bend upward and the shoulders lift. Held for twenty minutes at a stretch, several times a week, that is how a beginner acquires wrist ache and concludes that the piano hurts — when the actual problem is furniture.

A folding X-stand is inexpensive, adjusts through the range you need and packs flat. A Z or table stand is sturdier and less portable. Either is fine; the height being adjustable is what matters. The detail is in our stand and bench guide.

2. An adjustable bench, for the same reason

Seat height and keyboard height are one problem, not two. The target is forearms roughly parallel to the floor with the hands over the keys, and thighs roughly level.

A dining chair is typically too low, which makes the player reach upward and rotates the whole arm into a worse position. A chair with arms is worse still, because the elbows cannot sit where they need to.

Adjustable is the word doing the work here. Fixed-height benches are only correct for the person they happen to fit, which is a poor bet in a household where a child and an adult both play. This is the cheapest item on this page that measurably changes how playing feels.

3. A sustain pedal, sooner than you think

The sustain pedal is not an effect. On an acoustic piano it lifts the dampers off every string, so notes continue after the key is released and the whole instrument resonates sympathetically. Digital pianos model that behavior, and written piano music assumes it exists.

Beginners often skip it for months and hit a specific problem when they stop: pieces have pedal markings, and without a pedal the only way to sustain a chord while the hand moves is to hold the keys, which teaches a hand position that has to be undone.

Two practical notes. Buy a piano-style pedal rather than the small plastic footswitch that ships with some boards — the footswitch slides across the floor and gives no feel. And check the polarity switch: if the pedal behaves backwards, sustaining when released, the switch on the pedal is set for a different manufacturer. That is not a fault, and it catches nearly everyone once.

Half-pedalling, where partial depression gives partial sustain, needs a continuous pedal rather than a switch. That is an intermediate concern rather than a beginner one.

4. Headphones, which decide when you can practice

The keyboard is the only instrument in this whole category that can be made genuinely silent to everyone else. Plugging headphones in cuts the internal speakers — not quieter, off.

That converts “I can practice when the house is empty” into “I can practice,” which for most adult beginners is the difference between progress and a stalled year.

The Audio-Technica ATH-M20x#ad is a closed-back monitoring headphone with a fixed 3 meter cable. Closed-back matters because an open design leaks sound back into the room, which defeats the point. The cable length matters more than it sounds: the short cable on consumer headphones tethers you to the board in a way that makes reaching for music awkward.

Two cautions. Check whether your board has a full-size quarter-inch socket or a 3.5mm one, because an adapter is a trivially cheap item that is deeply annoying to discover you need at 10pm. And keep the volume moderate — headphone practice makes it easy to sit at a level you would never tolerate from a speaker. Alternatives are in headphones for a digital piano.

Worth having, not essential

A music stand or tablet holder. Many keyboards have a slot for a music rest. If yours does not, reading from a surface below eye level pulls the head down and produces neck ache that gets blamed on practice length.

A dust cover. Genuinely useful if the board lives out permanently, because dust in the key mechanism is one of the few things that goes wrong with a digital instrument.

A padded case. Only if the board travels. A portable keyboard that gets carried without one accumulates damage at the corners and around the sockets, which are exactly the parts that fail.

What to skip

The plastic footswitch pedal. Covered above — it slides and it teaches nothing about pedal control.

Fixed-height benches. The adjustment is the feature.

Key stickers. They work for two weeks and then become the thing the player reads instead of the keyboard. Learning where middle C is takes an hour; learning to stop looking at stickers takes months.

Expensive cables and power conditioners. A keyboard is a digital instrument with a low-current supply. The cable that came with it is fine.

If you are still assembling the whole setup, the room-level version of this list is in setting up a practice space, and the instrument-level version is in what you actually need to start piano.