The McCarthy Music 61-Key Illuminating Piano

My name is Wendy, I am 47 years old and a disabled police officer. I have 3 grown children and 1 three year old granddaughter. For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to play the piano. Over the years, including last Christmas, my wonderful husband has bought me many different types of keyboards, some even include a lesson feature. My husband and son are both self taught drummers, my son even belonged to a very well known and loved local band. I saw the ad for the McCarthy keyboard and showed my husband. He purchased it that night. A few days later I was plugging it in and hooking my iPad and Bose speakers up to it via Bluetooth. I began to slowly play some of the music. The lighted keyboard helped me finally get through a song! With practice, I am getting better at my timing and am enjoying this keyboard very much. Do I expect to become a concert pianist? Absolutely not. What I am doing, is enjoying a hobby, one that I've always wanted. The app features accomplishments achieved. The music plays to sheet music and it displays what key your playing. It features right/left hand playing or you can have fun and just play along with both hands. With some YouTube videos and a little time, I'm pretty confident that I'll progress much farther with this keyboard than any other that I own. It makes my hobby fun!

The keyboard arrived with a large dent on the left side and the far left key doesn't work. As other reviewers noted, there were no power or usb cables provided. I used a printer cable and a charger for a similar watt device. The keyboard is fun but I'm giving it one star because it's huge, arrived damaged and I can't bring it to be returned since I live 5 flights up. I'm stuck with the defective unit and paid $50 more for songs on top of everything else. I think I would go with One Piano keyboard next time.

Amazing piano with a lot of bells and whistles: Bluetooth, associative sheet music tutorials through an app, and ways to personalize it. One of the only downfalls is no speakers, nor a headphone jack (unless you have an iPad, then its jack can be used). I was able to hookup my bose portable speaker to use via bluetooth, as well as my computer with speakers plugged in on another occasion. It's a great practice piano, but not one to play for others. The promo video is a little misleading by not showing any speakers. The sound is transmitted through the iPad, which is quite limited. Otherwise, it's a very nice piano with an insurmountable value for practicing. The last downside is the limited sheet music tutorials that are a little expensive...for each one. It says over a thousand or so tutorials, but most are repeats of the same song but vary in difficulty.

I pre-ordered this piano directly from McCarthy. I'm in my mid 20s and have had no musical training, but I was determined to learn piano. I enrolled in a course at my local college, and while helpful, I found the learning process too slow and therefore discouraging. The most difficult aspect in learning for me was reading the sheet music, and I often found myself watching YouTube guides so that I could play some of the current pop hits. At the time, the current light-up pianos that I found did not offer large libraries of sheet music, and so I decided to wait it out. When I saw McCarthy was developing this piano, I knew it was the one that was right for me.I've used this a handful of times since getting it, and I'm very happy with it. It connected with my iPad without any difficulty. The connection to the iPad makes this incredible. You can play an entire song without knowing anything about how to read music - it even tracks your tempo.I rated this four stars for the following reasons, even though I am very happy with the purhcase:1) The first keyboard I received had a couple keys that were not responsive to touch. I had to press them extremely hard to get them to respond. I e-mail McCarthy and they sent out a replacement immediately. They also paid for shipping costs of the return and replacement piano. They handled this in the best way possible, and my new keyboard is perfect.2) The keyboard does not come with a stand, nor do they have one recommended on their website. I wish they at least recommended a stand for the piano, so I wouldn't have to guess as to which one might be suitable for its weight and size.3) Sound. It doesn't come with internal speakers, and the iPad speaker is not very loud. I will buy a set of speakers to go with the piano, but I hope that sound will come from the speakers, even with the iPad connected (I'm not sure if sound will continue, or only come from the iPad when it is connected).

The media could not be loaded. My husband and I have taken a week before we finally checked this out from our amazon cart. We have read every product review we found for this keyboard even the ones outside of amazon because because we did not want to have any regret at all purchasing this for $599.00. We have bought this for our 4 years old daughter who is a special child and she loves it so much. She used to have the casio lighting piano when we were in the Philippines but this one is definitely more interesting for her because of the different colors. The keyboard itself however does not make any sound by itself. It has to be connected through a cable to your laptop or via bluetooth when you use it with an ipad. We prefer connecting it directly to the laptop because it gets very timely sound compared when it runs via bluetooth. When we want the sound to be turned up further we use a speaker that is also connected to the laptop. The keyboard has no audio output hardware because it operates on a software. It is heavy in terms of weight but it has really been done in good materials. It was delivered timely and in good packaging. No regrets buying it.

Do not waste your money. What a piece of garbage! I cannot get a refund because it was opened after a month and a half from delivery. This keyboard is made worse than most toys my children own. In addition, will not connect via Bluetooth as advertised. I think that all good ratings come from the company that makes it or from their families.