Help!! Where To Begin, where do I start and what do I need Options

[dtyler]

Hello all

This is my first post and I need some help. I have always loved music, but have mostly been a listener. I play a little guitar, but have always wanted to play the piano. After watching Steve's keynote last week I have decided that the time is now for me to finely learn. I am looking in to getting a nice 88 key midi keyboard that will interface with a DP 500 G4 with 768 mb of ram and OS 10.3.2. I honesty do not know where to begin. I think that I am going to start taking some private lessons for the piano, but was also interested in some software that may compliment the private instruction. They keyboard that I have been looking @ is the Fatar SL880 pro. I have founf this online for about $600. As far as connecting it to my mac, I really have no idea. I was just thinking that I would get one of those simple boxes that connects to usb and gives you a couple midi inputs, do I need something better? As far as software, I was thinking that I would start with garage band. Again I am just getting started and am on a budget. please give me feedback as to weather his sounds like a solution that may work. Is this the correct way of connecting a midi keyboard to my mac? Will it sound ok? How about latency, USB should suffice right? Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thank you all so much in advance and have a wonderful day!

[dtyler]

thank you so much for the recommendations. As far as the keyboard, I was looking at that model in particular because it is supposed to feel like a real piano. Do you, or does anybody have any experience with this midi keyboard, or any others that they would recommend for a traditional piano feel within the given price range?

again thank you so very much.