You want to learn piano at home, and you need an instrument that suits your flat, your budget in rand and the power cuts. This page points you to the departments of musicinstruments.co.za that matter most to a home piano learner in South Africa.
Updated October 2026These are the departments of the South African Music Instruments store we recommend for home piano learners, ranked so the keyboards and pianos come first. Every product page shows the maker's facts, the price in rand is the full price at checkout, and delivery is tracked to your door. Returns run for 14 days and the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 covers you if something arrives faulty.
This is where a South African piano learner should start. The Kawai ES120 88-Key Digital Piano has 88 weighted keys with hammer action, so your fingers build the same strength they would on an acoustic piano, and it never needs tuning in Durban's humid air or the dry Highveld winter.
For a first taste, the Yamaha PSS-F30 37-Key Portable Keyboard weighs about 1.2 kg and runs on four AA batteries or USB, so practice carries on through load shedding. Prices are in rand and the price you see is the full price at checkout. Orders over R750 get free tracked delivery to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and beyond; under that it is R250.
Two keyboards here suit a first home piano lesson in South Africa. The Diodonica 61-Key Lighted Beginner Keyboard Piano lights up the keys to guide a first player, and the OMZZ Ryuusei 88 Foldable 88 Key Digital Piano Beginner Set folds in half, which is handy in a Cape Town flat or a shared Pretoria house.
The same department holds starter bundles for a second instrument: the OMZZ 41-Inch Acoustic Guitar Starter Bundle, the East Top 7-Key Diatonic Harmonica Set and a Drum Practice Pad Set with stand, sticks and carry bag. The price in rand is the full price at checkout, delivery is tracked, and orders over R750 ship free.
A small child in South Africa does not need 88 keys to start. The Tucraew 37-Key Kids Piano Keyboard comes with a microphone, stool and music stand, so a three year old can sit at their own little piano in a Pretoria or Cape Town home while you practise on yours.
Rhythm comes first for little ones, so the department also carries the Pyle 3-Piece Kids Drum Kit, the Egg Shakers 14 Piece Rainbow Set, the Kids Tambourine 6 Inch Birch Hand Drum and the Stoie 8-Note Rainbow Wooden Kids Xylophone. Prices are in rand, delivery is tracked across South Africa, and orders over R750 are free to ship.
Piano is a rhythm instrument as much as a melody one, and a South African learner who can hold a steady beat finds UNISA, Trinity and ABRSM pieces easier. The Donner DED-80 Electronic Drum Kit with mesh heads keeps the noise down in a Johannesburg townhouse, and the Meinl Jam Cajon Box Drum needs no power at all.
The Moozica 21-Key Solid Koa Kalimba Thumb Piano and the 8-Note Steel Tongue Drum are tuned instruments that feel familiar to a pianist. A Hand-Painted Mahogany Djembe Drum and EASTROCK wooden bongos are also here. Prices are in rand, delivery is tracked, and orders under R750 pay R250.
Many South African pianists pick up a guitar as a second instrument because the chords they already know on the keys transfer straight across. The Fender California Debut Redondo Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar is the full size option, and the Yamaha CGS102AII 1/2 Size Classical Guitar suits a child or a smaller adult.
The department also carries the Squier Sonic Stratocaster HT Electric Guitar and a Precision Style Electric Bass Guitar. A wooden guitar does mind the swing from Durban humidity to Highveld dryness, so keep it in its bag. Prices are in rand, delivery is tracked, and orders over R750 ship free.
A ukulele is the easiest second instrument for a South African piano learner. The Hricane Concert Ukulele 23 Inch Mahogany Starter Pack comes with what you need to start, and the four strings are gentle on fingers.
For something closer to a piano's layout, the AKLOT 16 String Mahogany Lyre Harp is tuned one note per string, like keys laid out in a row. The DIGERVY 4/4 Full Size Violin Kit, the Gold Tone AC-1 5 String Open Back Banjo and an A-Style 8-String Mandolin round out the department. Prices in rand, tracked delivery across South Africa, 14-day returns.
The EASTROCK 32-Key Melodica Set with hard case is the wind instrument made for a pianist. It has piano keys and you blow into it, so you learn to phrase a melody like a singer while using fingers you already trained.
The Yamaha YRS-24B Soprano Recorder is a simple, quiet first wind instrument for a South African school child, and the department also carries a GLORY Closed Hole C Flute, a GLORY Eb Alto Saxophone, a Bb Trumpet and a 17-Key Bb Clarinet. Prices in rand, tracked delivery, and the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 covers faults.
If you plan to sit UNISA, Trinity or ABRSM exams, go straight to the Kawai ES120 with 88 weighted keys. If you only want to try piano before committing, the Yamaha PSS-F30 is light, runs on AA batteries and is sold at musicinstruments.co.za in rand. Either way, check the maker's facts on the product page before you buy.
For the first few months, no. A 61 key lighted keyboard will carry you through the first songs. Once you start grade pieces, or want to sit a UNISA exam, the weighted hammer action of the Kawai ES120 matters, because the exam piano is acoustic and your fingers need the same resistance.
It has 37 mini keys, so it is a taster, not a long term piano. It weighs about 1.2 kg, has 120 voices and a metronome, and runs on four AA batteries or USB. It suits a first month of lessons or a child, and its page at musicinstruments.co.za lists everything in the box.
Both have 88 keys, so both cover the full piano range. The OMZZ Ryuusei folds in half and stores in a cupboard, which suits a small flat. The Kawai ES120 has weighted hammer action and is the one to pick if you are serious about lessons and exams and have a spot to leave it set up.
It gives you the right number of keys and the right spacing, so your hands learn the geography of the piano. It is sold as a beginner set and does not claim the hammer action of the Kawai ES120. Read the maker's facts on its page at musicinstruments.co.za and decide what matters more to you, space or feel.
Yes, because it is digital. There are no strings, felt or soundboard to swell or crack, and it never needs a tuner to visit. An acoustic piano in Durban would need regular tuning as the humidity shifts, and one in Johannesburg suffers in the dry months.
The Tucraew 37-Key Kids Piano Keyboard in the Kids Instruments department. It comes with a stool, microphone and music stand, and it is for ages 3 and up. Pair it with the Egg Shakers 14 Piece Rainbow Set so the child learns a beat before a melody.
Not at first. A 61 key keyboard such as the Diodonica lighted model is plenty for the first year of school lessons. If the school enters them for a UNISA or Trinity grade, that is the moment to think about 88 weighted keys at home.
The Kids Percussion Set, the egg shakers and the birch tambourine are made for small hands from age 3. The store sells the instruments only, not lessons or activity plans. Each page lists materials and what is in the box, so you can check before you pay in rand.
UNISA music exams, Trinity College London and ABRSM are all sat in South Africa. The exam itself is played on the centre's piano, so what matters is that your home instrument trains the same finger strength. That is the case for 88 weighted keys like the Kawai ES120.
No. The South African store sells instruments only, not sheet music, lessons or exam entries. Get your syllabus and pieces from the exam board or your teacher, and use the store for the instrument you practise them on.
A keyboard with 88 weighted keys, because the Trinity exam will be on a piano and your hands must be ready for the resistance. The Kawai ES120 is the one for that at musicinstruments.co.za. Add headphones so you can practise late without disturbing the complex.
Buy an instrument that does not need the wall socket. The Yamaha PSS-F30 runs on four AA batteries or USB, so a power bank keeps it going. A cajon, djembe, kalimba or recorder needs no power at all, and a rhythm session by candlelight still counts as practice.
Check the power and connections section on its product page at musicinstruments.co.za, which lists what the maker says about its supply. Many South African homes already run small electronics from an inverter; ask whoever installed yours whether it can carry the piano's rated supply. For guaranteed practice in a cut, keep a battery keyboard as a backup.
Most of them. The cajon, djembe, bongos, steel tongue drum, kalimba and glockenspiel in Drums & Percussion, every guitar, ukulele, violin, lyre harp and banjo, and the whole Wind & Brass range including the melodica. Only the keyboards and the electronic drum kits need power.
Wood swells in damp coastal air and shrinks in dry air, so a guitar in Durban can feel different from one on the Highveld. Keep it in its bag when you are not playing and away from windows and air conditioners. A digital piano has none of these problems.
An acoustic piano can go out of tune as the air dries out and the wood moves. A digital piano such as the Kawai ES120 does not shift at all, which is one reason we point South African home learners to it. Wooden second instruments like a djembe or violin do appreciate a stable room.
Delivery is by tracked courier to your door, so you can be there to bring it in. Open the box when it arrives and check the instrument against the maker's list of what is in the box. If anything is damaged, raise it with the store straight away, and faults are put right at no cost under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008.
Orders are dispatched within 2 working days, then tracked courier delivery takes up to 7 working days. Gqeberha, the wider Eastern Cape and rural addresses sit at the longer end of that, and a little beyond it in some cases. You get tracking so you can follow the parcel.
It is free on orders over R750 to anywhere in South Africa the courier serves, including those cities. Under R750 the tracked delivery fee is R250. The fee is shown before you pay, so check your cart total first.
A few instruments travel to the South African store from an overseas warehouse before the courier brings them to you, and those pages say so. Allow extra time on top of the usual 2 day dispatch and 7 working day delivery. The price in rand you see is still the full price at checkout.
No. The South African store takes card payment only. Have your bank card ready at checkout, and if your bank asks you to approve the payment in its app, follow its steps and the order goes through.
Yes, prices are shown in rand and the price shown is the full price at checkout. Delivery is either free over R750 or R250 under that, and that is shown before you pay. There are no surprise charges in a second currency.
Because musicinstruments.co.za prices in rand, delivers by tracked courier within South Africa, and works under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008. Ordering from an overseas store would mean paying in a foreign currency. The seven stores carry the same 43 products, so you lose nothing by buying local.
You have 14 days from delivery to return it in resaleable condition with its packaging and accessories. On a change of mind you pay the return postage. Pack it carefully, because the condition on arrival back at the store is what counts.
Not you. Faulty goods are put right at no cost under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008. Contact the store through musicinstruments.co.za with your order details and photos if you can, and keep the box until it is sorted.
The EASTROCK 32-Key Melodica, because it has piano keys. After that, the Hricane Concert Ukulele or the Moozica 21-Key Kalimba, both of which need no power and travel well. A cajon is the pick if you want to tighten your sense of rhythm for exam pieces.
Because rhythm is the half of piano that most self taught learners skip. Ten minutes a day on a cajon, a practice pad or even the egg shakers steadies your pulse, and it costs nothing in electricity during load shedding. Your scales and exam pieces get tighter as a result.
Music Instruments is a brand of Caruso Consulting Co Ltd, a Christian-led family business whose CEO, Renoo Caruso, preaches in Thailand. The brand hub is musicinstruments.company, and you can leave a review at trustpilot.com/evaluate/musicinstruments.company. The South African store sells instruments only.
No. musicinstruments.co.za sells instruments and nothing else, so no lessons, no sheet music and no pro audio gear. This directory exists to point a home learner in South Africa to the right department, and you find your own teacher or online course.
Learning piano at home in South Africa comes with a few things nobody tells you when you sign up for an online course. The power goes off. The Durban air is wet and the Johannesburg air is dry. The exam you want to sit is run by UNISA, Trinity College London or ABRSM, and the piano in the exam room is acoustic. And the parcel with your new keyboard may take a week to reach Gqeberha. This guide walks through each of those, and points you to the right department at musicinstruments.co.za for the instrument that fits.
One thing first. We recommend the South African Music Instruments store because every product page lists the maker's facts, prices are in rand, delivery is tracked, returns run for 14 days and the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 stands behind faults. That is the whole reason this directory exists.
The first question is not which keyboard. It is how many keys and whether they are weighted. A piano has 88 keys with hammer action, which means each key pushes back against your finger because a small hammer is swinging inside. Your fingers get stronger because of that resistance.
If you plan to sit a UNISA, Trinity or ABRSM grade in South Africa, you will play the exam on an acoustic piano in the exam centre. Practising at home on light, unweighted keys and then meeting a real piano on the day is like training on a bicycle and racing on a motorbike. The Kawai ES120 88-Key Digital Piano in the Keyboards & Pianos department has 88 weighted keys with hammer action, and it is the one we point serious South African learners to.
If you are not sure piano is for you yet, do not buy 88 keys. The Yamaha PSS-F30 37-Key Portable Keyboard has mini keys, 120 voices, 114 styles and a metronome, and it weighs about 1.2 kg. It is a taster. The Diodonica 61-Key Lighted Beginner Keyboard Piano in Beginner Packs sits in between: enough keys for the first year, and the keys light up to show you where to go.
Space is the other half of the decision. A Cape Town flat or a shared house in Pretoria may not have room for a full digital piano on a stand. The OMZZ Ryuusei 88 Foldable 88 Key Digital Piano Beginner Set folds in half and goes in a cupboard. You keep the full range of 88 keys without giving up the lounge.
Every South African home learner has had the same moment. You sit down to practise, the lights die, and the keyboard goes silent with them. If your practice time is the evening, and the evening is when the schedule hits your suburb, a mains only keyboard can cost you half your week.
The simplest fix is an instrument that does not care. The Yamaha PSS-F30 runs on four AA batteries or on USB, so a small power bank keeps it alive through any slot. Keep the power bank charged on the shelf next to the keyboard and you never lose a session. For a child, this is the difference between a habit and a hobby that fizzles out by June.
The larger digital pianos are mains instruments. Check the power and connections section on the product page for the maker's supply details, and if your home runs an inverter, ask whoever installed it whether it can carry that load. Many South African families practise on the big piano when the power is on and switch to a battery keyboard or an acoustic instrument when it is not.
That second option is worth taking seriously. The Drums & Percussion department at musicinstruments.co.za is full of instruments that have never needed a plug: the Meinl Jam Cajon Box Drum, the Hand-Painted Mahogany Djembe Drum, the Moozica 21-Key Solid Koa Kalimba Thumb Piano and the 8-Note Steel Tongue Drum. A pianist who spends dark evenings tapping out rhythms on a cajon comes back to the keyboard with a steadier pulse. Rhythm is the part of piano most self taught learners neglect, and load shedding hands you the time to fix it.
South Africa is not one climate. Durban and the coast around it are humid for much of the year. Johannesburg, Pretoria and the rest of the Highveld are dry, especially in winter. Cape Town swings between wet winters and dry, windy summers.
Wood moves with all of that. An acoustic piano in Durban swells in the wet months and the tuning drifts. The same piano in Johannesburg dries out and the tuning drifts the other way. Either way you pay a tuner to visit a few times a year. A digital piano like the Kawai ES120 has no strings, no soundboard and no felt. It sounds the same in July as it does in January, in Durban or in Pretoria, and it never needs tuning. That alone is a strong reason for a South African home learner to go digital.
Your second instrument is a different story. Guitars, ukuleles, violins, djembes and the lyre harp are wooden. They will not fall apart, but they do want a stable spot. Keep them in the bag or case they came with, away from windows, direct sun and the air conditioner. In Durban a guitar left out all summer will feel different from one kept in its bag. Every product page at musicinstruments.co.za lists the materials, so you know what you are looking after.
Three exam boards are sat in South Africa for piano: UNISA music exams, Trinity College London and ABRSM. Your teacher will have a preference, and the syllabus will come from the board, not from the instrument store. musicinstruments.co.za sells instruments only, so you get your pieces, scales and theory books elsewhere.
What the store can do is make sure the instrument is honest with you. If you practise scales on light keys, your fingers never learn how much work a real piano asks for. Then on exam day in Johannesburg or Cape Town you sit at an acoustic piano and your runs fall apart. The Kawai ES120 and its 88 weighted keys close that gap. The foldable 88 key set at least gives you the right spacing, so your hands learn where everything is.
A metronome matters too. The Yamaha PSS-F30 has one built in, and a Drum Practice Pad Set or a cajon trains the same skill a different way. A steady pulse is the first thing anyone hears in a performance.
Prices at the South African store are in rand, and the price you see is the full price at checkout. Delivery is by tracked courier. Orders over R750 ship free; under that, the fee is R250 and it shows before you pay. Payment is by card only. The South African store does not take PayPal, so have your bank card ready.
Orders are dispatched within 2 working days, and the courier then takes up to 7 working days. Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban sit at the quick end. Gqeberha, the wider Eastern Cape, small towns and farms sit at the slow end. You get a tracking number, so you can see where the box is instead of guessing. A few instruments travel to the store from an overseas warehouse first, and their product pages say so.
If the instrument is not right, you have 14 days from delivery to send it back in resaleable condition with its packaging and accessories. On a change of mind you pay the return postage, so keep the box until you are sure. If it arrives faulty, that is a different matter. The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 applies, and the fault is put right at no cost to you.
If the learner is a small child, start in the Kids Instruments department. The Tucraew 37-Key Kids Piano Keyboard comes with its own stool, microphone and music stand and is for ages 3 and up. Add the Egg Shakers 14 Piece Rainbow Set or the Kids Tambourine 6 Inch Birch Hand Drum and let the child find a beat before a melody. A school child in Durban or Pretoria who has started lessons does well on the 61 key lighted keyboard for the first year.
If you already play piano and want something else, the EASTROCK 32-Key Melodica Set in Wind & Brass has piano keys, so you can play it the day it arrives. The Hricane Concert Ukulele 23 Inch Mahogany Starter Pack in String Instruments is the gentlest second instrument on the fingers. The EASTROCK 27-Note Glockenspiel and the 21 key kalimba are both laid out like a keyboard. And a guitar from Guitars & Basses, such as the Yamaha CGS102AII half size classical, turns the chords you already know into something you can carry to a braai.
Whatever you choose, the pattern is the same. Pick the department from the directory above, open the product page at musicinstruments.co.za, read the maker's facts on keys, power, materials and what is in the box, and check the price in rand against the R750 free delivery line. Then keep practising, lights or no lights.