Piano

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Piano
chordophone with keyboard sounded by hammers)
Inventor(s)Bartolomeo Cristofori
DevelopedEarly 18th century
Playing range

The piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when the keys are pressed. Most pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys: 52 white keys for the notes of the C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, and B) and 36 shorter and thinner black keys raised above the white keys and set further back, for sharps and flats. This means that the piano can play 88 different pitches (or "notes"), spanning a range of a bit over seven octaves. The black keys are for the "accidentals" (F/G, G/A, A/B, C/D, and D/E), which are needed to play in all twelve keys.

There are two main types of piano: the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano offers better sound and more precise key control, making it the preferred choice when space and budget allow. The grand piano is also considered a necessity in venues hosting skilled pianists. The upright piano is more commonly used due to its smaller length and lower cost.

When a key is pressed down, the tightened strings inside are struck by felt-coated wooden hammers. The vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies the sound by coupling the acoustic energy to the air. When the key is released, a damper stops the string's vibration, ending the sound. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass, which graduates from one to two. Notes can be sustained when the keys are released by the use of pedals at the base of the instrument, which hold the dampers off of the strings. The sustain pedal allows pianists to play movements, such as shifting hands from bass to treble range while sustaining a chord, enabling melodies and arpeggios on top.

In the nineteenth century, influenced by

simplified version
.

The piano is widely employed in

songwriting
and rehearsals. Despite its weight and cost, the piano's versatility, extensive training of musicians, and widespread availability in venues, schools, and rehearsal spaces have made it a familiar instrument in the Western world.

History

The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments. Pipe organs have been used since antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches. The first string instruments with struck strings were the hammered dulcimers,[1] which were introduced in the Middle Ages in Europe. During the Middle Ages, there were several attempts at creating stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings.[2] By the 17th century, the mechanisms of keyboard instruments such as the clavichord and the harpsichord were well developed. In a clavichord, the strings are struck by tangents, while in a harpsichord, they are mechanically plucked by quills when the performer depresses the key. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord in particular had shown instrument builders the most effective ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and mechanical action for a keyboard intended to sound strings.

The English word piano is a shortened form of the Italian pianoforte,[3] derived from clavicembalo col piano e forte ("key harpsichord with soft and loud").[4] Variations in volume (loudness) are produced in response to the pianist's touch (pressure on the keys): the greater the pressure, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the strings, and the louder the sound produced and the stronger the attack. Invented in the 1700s, the fortepiano was the first keyboard instrument to allow gradations of volume and tone according to how forcefully or softly the player presses or strikes the keys, unlike the pipe organ and harpsichord.[5]

Invention

Musikinstrumenten-Museum
in Leipzig

The invention of the piano is credited to

Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700. The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.[7][8] Cristofori named the instrument un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte ("a keyboard of cypress with soft and loud"), abbreviated over time as pianoforte, fortepiano, and later, simply, piano.[9]

Cristofori's great success was designing a stringed keyboard instrument in which the notes are struck by a hammer. The hammer must strike the string, but not remain in contact with it, because continued contact would damp the sound and stop the string from vibrating and making sound. This means that after striking the string, the hammer must quickly fall from (or rebound from) the strings. Moreover, the hammer must return to its rest position without bouncing violently (thus preventing notes from being re-played by accidental rebound), and it must return to a position in which it is ready to play again almost immediately after its key is depressed, so the player can repeat the same note rapidly when desired. Cristofori's piano action was a model for the many approaches to piano actions that followed in the next century.

Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings, and were much quieter than the modern piano, but they were much louder and with more

sustain
in comparison to the clavichord—the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic nuance responding to the player's touch, the velocity with which the keys are pressed. While the clavichord allows expressive control of volume and sustain, it is relatively quiet even at its loudest. The harpsichord produces a sufficiently loud sound, especially when a coupler joins each key to both manuals of a two-manual harpsichord, but it offers no dynamic or expressive control over individual notes. The piano in some sense offers the best of both of the older instruments, combining the ability to play at least as loudly as a harpsichord with the ability to continuously vary dynamics by touch.

Early fortepiano

Grand piano by Louis Bas of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, 1781. Earliest French grand piano known to survive; includes an inverted wrestplank and action derived from the work of Bartolomeo Cristofori (ca. 1700) with ornately decorated soundboard.

Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an Italian writer,

Scipione Maffei, wrote an enthusiastic article about it in 1711, including a diagram of the mechanism, that was translated into German and widely distributed.[8] Most of the next generation of piano builders started their work based on reading this article. One of these builders was Gottfried Silbermann, better known as an organ builder. Silbermann's pianos were virtually direct copies of Cristofori's, with one important addition: Silbermann invented the forerunner of the modern sustain pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings simultaneously.[10]
This innovation allows the pianist to sustain the notes that they have depressed even after their fingers are no longer pressing down the keys. As such, by holding a chord with the sustain pedal, pianists can relocate their hands to a different register of the keyboard in preparation for a subsequent section.

Silbermann showed Johann Sebastian Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but Bach did not like the instrument at that time, saying that the higher notes were too soft to allow a full dynamic range. Although this earned him some animosity from Silbermann, the criticism was apparently heeded.[10] Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even served as an agent in selling Silbermann's pianos. "Instrument: piano et forte genandt"—a reference to the instrument's ability to play soft and loud—was an expression that Bach used to help sell the instrument when he was acting as Silbermann's agent in 1749.[11]

Piano making flourished during the late 18th century in the

authentic-instrument performance of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a softer tone than 21st century pianos or English pianos, with less sustaining power. The term fortepiano
now distinguishes these early instruments (and modern re-creations) from later pianos.

Modern piano

In the period from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes that led to the modern structure of the instrument. This revolution was in response to a preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound, and made possible by the ongoing

casting for the production of massive iron frames that could withstand the tremendous tension of the strings.[13] Over time, the tonal range of the piano was also increased from the five octaves
of Mozart's day to the seven octave (or more) range found on today's pianos.

Early technological progress in the late 1700s owed much to the firm of

Broadwood. John Broadwood joined with another Scot, Robert Stodart, and a Dutchman, Americus Backers, to design a piano in the harpsichord case—the origin of the "grand". This was achieved by about 1777. They quickly gained a reputation for the splendour and powerful tone of their instruments, with Broadwood constructing pianos that were progressively larger, louder, and more robustly constructed. They sent pianos to both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, and were the first firm to build pianos with a range of more than five octaves: five octaves and a fifth during the 1790s, six octaves by 1810 (Beethoven used the extra notes in his later works), and seven octaves by 1820. The Viennese
makers similarly followed these trends; however the two schools used different piano actions: Broadwoods used a more robust action, whereas Viennese instruments were more sensitive.

By the 1820s, the center of piano innovation had shifted to Paris, where the

sostenuto pedal (see below), invented in 1844 by Jean-Louis Boisselot and copied by the Steinway
firm in 1874, allowed a wider range of effects.

  • Broadwood square action
    Broadwood square action
  • Erard square action
    Erard square action

One innovation that helped create the powerful sound of the modern piano was the use of a massive, strong,

cast steel; it was "so superior to the iron wire that the English firm soon had a monopoly."[15] But a better steel wire was soon created in 1840 by the Viennese firm of Martin Miller,[15] and a period of innovation and intense competition ensued, with rival brands of piano wire being tested against one another at international competitions, leading ultimately to the modern form of piano wire.[16]

Several important advances included changes to the way the piano was strung. The use of a "choir" of three strings, rather than two for all but the lowest notes, enhanced the richness and complexity of the treble. The use of a Capo d’Astro bar instead of agraffes in the uppermost treble allowed the hammers to strike the strings in their optimal position, greatly increasing that area's power. The implementation of over-stringing (also called cross-stringing), in which the strings are placed in two separate planes, each with its own bridge height, allowed greater length to the bass strings and optimized the transition from unwound tenor strings to the iron or copper-wound bass strings. Over-stringing was invented by Pape during the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the United States by Henry Steinway Jr. in 1859.

Duplex scaling of an 1883 Steinway Model 'A'. From lower left to upper right: main sounding length of strings, treble bridge, duplex string length, duplex bar (nickel-plated bar parallel to bridge), hitchpins, plate strut with bearing bolt, plate hole

Some piano makers added variations to enhance the tone of each note, such as

Collard & Collard (1821), and Julius Blüthner, who developed Aliquot stringing in 1893. These systems were used to strengthen the tone of the highest register of notes on the piano, which up until this time were viewed as being too weak-sounding. Each used more distinctly ringing, undamped vibrations of sympathetically vibrating strings to add to the tone, except the Blüthner Aliquot stringing
, which uses an additional fourth string in the upper two treble sections. While the hitchpins of these separately suspended Aliquot strings are raised slightly above the level of the usual tri-choir strings, they are not struck by the hammers but rather are damped by attachments of the usual dampers. Eager to copy these effects, Theodore Steinway invented duplex scaling, which used short lengths of non-speaking wire bridged by the "aliquot" throughout much of the upper range of the piano, always in locations that caused them to vibrate sympathetically in conformity with their respective overtones—typically in doubled octaves and twelfths.

Variations in shape and design

Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use. The

Christian Ernst Friderici, a pupil of Gottfried Silbermann, in Germany, and Johannes Zumpe in England,[18] and it was improved by changes first introduced by Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold in France and Alpheus Babcock in the United States.[19]
Square pianos were built in great numbers through the 1840s in Europe and the 1890s in the United States, and saw the most visible change of any type of piano: the iron-framed, over-strung squares manufactured by Steinway & Sons were more than two-and-a-half times the size of Zumpe's wood-framed instruments from a century before. Their overwhelming popularity was due to inexpensive construction and price, although their tone and performance were limited by narrow soundboards, simple actions and string spacing that made proper hammer alignment difficult.

The mechanism and strings in upright pianos are perpendicular to the keys. The cover for the strings is removed for this photo.

The tall, vertically strung upright grand was arranged like a grand set on end, with the soundboard and bridges above the keys, and tuning pins below them. "

lyre pianos" were arranged in a somewhat similar fashion, using evocatively shaped cases. The very tall cabinet piano was introduced about 1805 and was built through the 1840s. It had strings arranged vertically on a continuous frame with bridges extended nearly to the floor, behind the keyboard and very large sticker action. The short cottage upright or pianino with vertical stringing, made popular by Robert Wornum around 1815, was built into the 20th century. They are informally called birdcage pianos because of their prominent damper mechanism. The oblique upright, popularized in France by Roller & Blanchet during the late 1820s, was diagonally strung throughout its compass. The tiny spinet upright was manufactured from the mid-1930s until recent times. The low position of the hammers required the use of a "drop action" to preserve a reasonable keyboard height. Modern upright and grand pianos attained their present, 2000-era forms by the end of the 19th century. While improvements have been made in manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the instrument continue to receive attention, and a small number of acoustic pianos in the 2010s are produced with MIDI recording and digital sound module
-triggering capabilities, the 19th century was the era of the most dramatic innovations and modifications of the instrument.

Types

Modern pianos have two basic configurations, the grand piano and the upright piano, with various styles of each. There are also specialized and novelty pianos,

digital samples
of acoustic piano sounds.

Grand

Steinway & Sons grand piano in the White House

In grand pianos, the frame and strings are horizontal, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. The action lies beneath the strings and uses gravity as its means of return to a state of rest. Grand pianos range in length from approximately 1.5–3 m (4 ft 11 in – 9 ft 10 in). Some of the lengths have been given more-or-less customary names, which vary from time to time and place to place, but might include:

  • Baby grand – around 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)
  • Parlor grand or boudoir grand – 1.7 to 2.2 m (5 ft 7 in – 7 ft 3 in)
  • Concert grand – between 2.2 and 3 m (7 ft 3 in – 9 ft 10 in))

All else being equal, longer pianos with longer strings have larger, richer sound and lower inharmonicity of the strings. Inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones (known as partials or harmonics) sound sharp relative to whole multiples of the fundamental frequency. This results from the piano's considerable string stiffness; as a struck string decays its harmonics vibrate, not from their termination, but from a point very slightly toward the center (or more flexible part) of the string. The higher the partial, the further sharp it runs. Pianos with shorter and thicker string (i.e., small pianos with short string scales) have more inharmonicity. The greater the inharmonicity, the more the ear perceives it as harshness of tone.

The inharmonicity of piano strings requires that octaves be stretched, or tuned to a lower octave's corresponding sharp overtone rather than to a theoretically correct octave. If octaves are not stretched, single octaves sound in tune, but double—and notably triple—octaves are unacceptably narrow. Stretching a small piano's octaves to match its inherent inharmonicity level creates an imbalance among all the instrument's intervallic relationships. In a concert grand, however, the octave "stretch" retains harmonic balance, even when aligning treble notes to a harmonic produced from three octaves below. This lets close and widespread octaves sound pure, and produces virtually beatless perfect fifths. This gives the concert grand a brilliant, singing and sustaining tone quality—one of the principal reasons that full-size grands are used in the concert hall. Smaller grands satisfy the space and cost needs of domestic use; as well, they are used in some small teaching studios and smaller performance venues.

Upright

August Förster upright piano

Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact due to the vertical structure of the frame and strings. The mechanical action structure of the upright piano was invented in London, England in 1826 by

community centers
, schools, music conservatories and university music programs as rehearsal and practice instruments, and they are popular models for in-home purchase.

  • The top of a spinet model barely rises above the keyboard. Unlike all other pianos, the spinet action is located below the keys, operated by vertical wires that are attached to the backs of the keys.
  • Console pianos, which have a compact action (shorter hammers than a large upright has), but because the console's action is above the keys rather than below them as in a spinet, a console almost always plays better than a spinet does. Console pianos are a few inches shorter than studio models.
  • Studio pianos are around 107 to 114 cm (42–45 in) tall. This is the shortest cabinet that can accommodate a full-sized action located above the keyboard.
  • Anything taller than a studio piano is called an upright. (Technically, any piano with a vertically oriented soundboard could be called an upright, but that word is often reserved for the full-size models.)

Specialized

Player piano from 1920 (
Steinway
)

The toy piano, introduced in the 19th century, is a small piano-like instrument, that generally uses round metal rods to produce sound, rather than strings. The US Library of Congress recognizes the toy piano as a unique instrument with the subject designation, Toy Piano Scores: M175 T69.[21]

In 1863, Henri Fourneaux invented the player piano, which plays itself from a piano roll. A machine perforates a performance recording into rolls of paper, and the player piano replays the performance using pneumatic devices. Modern equivalents of the player piano include the Bösendorfer CEUS, Yamaha Disklavier and QRS Pianomation,[22] using solenoids and MIDI rather than pneumatics and rolls.

A silent piano is an acoustic piano having an option to silence the strings by means of an interposing hammer bar. They are designed for private silent practice, to avoid disturbing others.

Edward Ryley invented the transposing piano in 1801. This rare instrument has a lever under the keyboard to move the keyboard relative to the strings, so a pianist can play in a familiar key while the music sounds in a different key.

The minipiano 'Pianette' model viewed with its original matching stool: the wooden flap at the front of the instrument has been dropped revealing the tuning pins at the front.

The minipiano is an instrument patented by the Brasted brothers of the Eavestaff Ltd. piano company in 1934.[23] This instrument has a braceless back and a soundboard positioned below the keys—long metal rods pull on the levers to make the hammers strike the strings. The first model, known as the Pianette, was unique in that the tuning pins extended through the instrument, so it could be tuned at the front.

The prepared piano, present in some contemporary art music from the 20th and 21st century is a piano which has objects placed inside it to alter its sound, or has had its mechanism changed in some other way. The scores for music for prepared piano specify the modifications, for example, instructing the pianist to insert pieces of rubber, paper, metal screws, or washers in between the strings. These objects mute the strings or alter their timbre.

The pedal piano is a rare type of piano that has a pedal keyboard at the base, designed to be played by the feet. The pedals may play the existing bass strings on the piano, or rarely, the pedals may have their own set of bass strings and hammer mechanisms. While the typical intended use for pedal pianos is to enable a keyboardist to practice pipe organ music at home, a few players of pedal piano use it as a performance instrument.

Hofmann.[25][26]

Electric, electronic, and digital

Wurlitzer 210 electric piano

With

Fender Rhodes, became important instruments in 1970s funk and jazz fusion and in some rock music
genres.

headphones
in quieter settings.

sympathetic vibration
of the other strings (such as when the sustain pedal is depressed) and full pedal sets can now be replicated. The processing power of digital pianos has enabled highly realistic pianos using multi-gigabyte piano sample sets with as many as ninety recordings, each lasting many seconds, for each key under different conditions (e.g., there are samples of each note being struck softly, loudly, with a sharp attack, etc.). Additional samples emulate sympathetic resonance of the strings when the sustain pedal is depressed, key release, the drop of the dampers, and simulations of techniques such as re-pedalling.

Digital, MIDI-equipped pianos can output a stream of MIDI data, or record and play MIDI format files on digital storage media (previously

CD ROMs, now often USB flash drives), similar in concept to a pianola. The MIDI file records the physics of a note rather than its resulting sound and recreates the sounds from its physical properties (e.g., which note was struck and with what velocity). Computer based software, such as Modartt's 2006 Pianoteq
, can be used to manipulate the MIDI stream in real time or subsequently to edit it. This type of software may use no samples but synthesize a sound based on aspects of the physics that went into the creation of a played note.

Hybrid instruments

The Yamaha Disklavier player piano. The unit mounted under the keyboard of the piano can play MIDI or audio software on its CD.

In the 2000s, some pianos include an acoustic grand piano or upright piano combined with MIDI electronic features. Such a piano can be played acoustically, or the keyboard can be used as a

SMPTE input/output (I/O), and Internet connectivity. Disklaviers have been manufactured in the form of upright, baby grand, and grand piano styles (including a nine-foot concert grand). Reproducing systems have ranged from relatively simple, playback-only models to professional models that can record performance data at resolutions that exceed the limits of normal MIDI data. The unit mounted under the keyboard of the piano can play MIDI or audio software on its CD.[28]

Construction and components

(1) frame (2) lid, front part (3) capo bar (4) damper (5) lid, back part (6) damper mechanism (7) sostenuto rail (8) pedal mechanism, rods (9, 10, 11) pedals: right (sustain/damper), middle (sostenuto), left (soft/una-corda) (12) bridge (13) hitch pin (14) frame (15) sound board (16) string

Pianos can have over 12,000 individual parts,[29] supporting six functional features: keyboard, hammers, dampers, bridge, soundboard, and strings.[30] Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for strength and longevity. This is especially true of the outer rim. It is most commonly made of hardwood, typically hard maple or beech, and its massiveness serves as an essentially immobile object from which the flexible soundboard can best vibrate. According to Harold A. Conklin,[31] the purpose of a sturdy rim is so that, "... the vibrational energy will stay as much as possible in the soundboard instead of dissipating uselessly in the case parts, which are inefficient radiators of sound."

Hardwood rims are commonly made by laminating thin, hence flexible, strips of hardwood, bending them to the desired shape immediately after the application of glue.

C.F. Theodore Steinway in 1880 to reduce manufacturing time and costs. Previously, the rim was constructed from several pieces of solid wood, joined and veneered, and European makers used this method well into the 20th century.[33] A modern exception, Bösendorfer, the Austrian manufacturer of high-quality pianos, constructs their inner rims from solid spruce,[34] the same wood that the soundboard is made from, which is notched to allow it to bend; rather than isolating the rim from vibration, their "resonance case principle" allows the framework to resonate more freely with the soundboard, creating additional coloration and complexity of the overall sound.[35]

The thick wooden posts on the underside (grands) or back (uprights) of the piano stabilize the rim structure, and are made of softwood for stability. The requirement of structural strength, fulfilled by stout hardwood and thick metal, makes a piano heavy. Even a small upright can weigh 136 kg (300 lb), and the Steinway concert grand (Model D) weighs 480 kg (1,060 lb). The largest piano available on the general market, the Fazioli F308, weighs 570 kg (1,260 lb).[36][37]

The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood (typically hard maple or beech), and is laminated for strength, stability and longevity. Piano strings (also called piano wire), which must endure years of extreme tension and hard blows, are made of high carbon steel. They are manufactured to vary as little as possible in diameter, since all deviations from uniformity introduce tonal distortion. The bass strings of a piano are made of a steel core wrapped with copper wire, to increase their mass whilst retaining flexibility. If all strings throughout the piano's compass were individual (monochord), the massive bass strings would overpower the upper ranges. Makers compensate for this with the use of double (bichord) strings in the tenor and triple (trichord) strings throughout the treble.

Cast iron plate of a grand piano

The plate (harp), or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. A massive plate is advantageous. Since the strings vibrate from the plate at both ends, an insufficiently massive plate would absorb too much of the vibrational energy that should go through the bridge to the soundboard. While some manufacturers use cast steel in their plates, most prefer cast iron. Cast iron is easy to cast and machine, has flexibility sufficient for piano use, is much more resistant to deformation than steel, and is especially tolerant of compression. Plate casting is an art, since dimensions are crucial and the iron shrinks about one percent during cooling. Including an extremely large piece of metal in a piano is potentially an aesthetic handicap. Piano makers overcome this by polishing, painting, and decorating the plate. Plates often include the manufacturer's ornamental medallion.

In an effort to make pianos lighter, Alcoa worked with Winter and Company piano manufacturers to make pianos using an aluminum plate during the 1940s. Aluminum piano plates were not widely accepted, and were discontinued. Prior to this a piano made almost entirely of aluminum was placed aboard the airship Hindenburg.[38]

The numerous parts of a piano action are generally made from

carbon fiber reinforced plastic
, and the piano parts manufacturer Wessell, Nickel and Gross has launched a new line of carefully engineered composite parts. Thus far these parts have performed reasonably, but it will take decades to know if they equal the longevity of wood.

Strings of a grand piano

In all but the lowest quality pianos the soundboard is made of solid spruce (that is, spruce boards glued together along the side grain). Spruce's high ratio of strength to weight minimizes acoustic impedance while offering strength sufficient to withstand the downward force of the strings. The best piano makers use quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce of close annular grain, carefully seasoning it over a long period before fabricating the soundboards. This is the identical material that is used in quality acoustic guitar soundboards. Cheap pianos often have plywood soundboards.[39]

The design of the piano hammers requires having the hammer felt be soft enough so that it will not create loud, very high harmonics that a hard hammer will cause. The hammer must be lightweight enough to move swiftly when a key is pressed; yet at the same time, it must be strong enough so that it can hit strings hard when the player strikes the keys forcefully for fortissimo playing or

sforzando
accents.

Keyboard

Keyboard of a grand piano

In the early years of piano construction, keys were commonly made from sugar pine. In the 2010s, they are usually made of spruce or

basswood. Spruce is typically used in high-quality pianos. Black keys were traditionally made of ebony, and the white keys were covered with strips of ivory. However, since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected by treaty, or are illegal in some countries, makers use plastics almost exclusively. Also, ivory tends to chip more easily than plastic. Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. Yamaha
developed a plastic called Ivorite intended to mimic the look and feel of ivory; other manufacturers have done likewise.

Almost every modern piano has 52 white keys and 36 black keys for a total of 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A0 to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A0 to A7). Some piano manufacturers have extended the range further in one or both directions. For example, the Imperial Bösendorfer has nine extra keys at the bass end, giving a total of 97 keys and an eight octave range. These extra keys are sometimes hidden under a small hinged lid that can cover the keys to prevent visual disorientation for pianists unfamiliar with the extra keys, or the colours of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white). More recently, Australian manufacturer Stuart & Sons created a piano with 108 keys, going from C0 to B8, covering nine full octaves.[40] The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.

The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance from the associated strings; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed and thus give a fuller tone. Only a very small number of works composed for piano actually use these notes.

Toy piano company Schoenhut manufactures grands and uprights with only 44 or 49 keys and a shorter distance between the keyboard and the pedals. These are true pianos with working mechanisms and strings.

Emánuel Moór Pianoforte

A rare variant of the piano called the Emánuel Moór Pianoforte has double keyboards, one lying above the other. It was invented by Hungarian composer and pianist,

Bechstein, Chickering, and Steinway & Sons, also manufactured a few.[41]

Pianos have been built with alternative keyboard systems, e.g., the Jankó keyboard.

Pedals

sostenuto and sustain pedal

Pianos have had pedals, or some close equivalent, since the earliest days. (In the 18th century, some pianos used levers pressed upward by the player's knee instead of pedals.) Most grand pianos in the US have three pedals: the soft pedal (una corda), sostenuto, and sustain pedal (from left to right, respectively), while in Europe, the standard is two pedals: the soft pedal and the sustain pedal.[citation needed] Most modern upright pianos also have three pedals: soft pedal, practice pedal and sustain pedal, though older or cheaper models may lack the practice pedal. In Europe the standard for upright pianos is two pedals: the soft and the sustain pedals.

The sustain pedal (or, damper pedal) is often simply called "the pedal", since it is the most frequently used. It is placed as the rightmost pedal in the group. It lifts the dampers from all keys, sustaining all played notes. In addition, it alters the overall tone by allowing all strings, including those not directly played, to reverberate. When all of the other strings on the piano can vibrate, this allows

sympathetic vibration
of strings that are harmonically related to the sounded pitches. For example, if the pianist plays the 440 Hz "A" note, the higher octave "A" notes will also sound sympathetically.

Notations used for the sustain pedal in sheet music

The soft pedal or una corda pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. In grand pianos it shifts the entire action/keyboard assembly to the right (a very few instruments have shifted left) so that the hammers hit two of the three strings for each note. In the earliest pianos whose unisons were bichords rather than trichords, the action shifted so that hammers hit a single string, hence the name una corda, or 'one string'. The effect is to soften the note as well as change the tone. In uprights this action is not possible; instead the pedal moves the hammers closer to the strings, allowing the hammers to strike with less kinetic energy. This produces a slightly softer sound, but no change in timbre.

On grand pianos, the middle pedal is a

sostenuto pedal. This pedal keeps raised any damper already raised at the moment the pedal is depressed. This makes it possible to sustain selected notes (by depressing the sostenuto pedal before those notes are released) while the player's hands are free to play additional notes (which don't sustain). This can be useful for musical passages with low bass pedal points
, in which a bass note is sustained while a series of chords changes over top of it, and other otherwise tricky parts. On many upright pianos, the middle pedal is called the "practice" or celeste pedal. This drops a piece of felt between the hammers and strings, greatly muting the sounds. This pedal can be shifted while depressed, into a "locking" position.

There are also non-standard variants. On some pianos (grands and verticals), the middle pedal can be a bass sustain pedal: that is, when it is depressed, the dampers lift off the strings only in the bass section. Players use this pedal to sustain a single bass note or chord over many measures, while playing the melody in the treble section.

An upright pedal piano by Challen

The rare transposing piano (an example of which was owned by Irving Berlin) has a middle pedal that functions as a clutch that disengages the keyboard from the mechanism, so the player can move the keyboard to the left or right with a lever. This shifts the entire piano action so the pianist can play music written in one key so that it sounds in a different key.

Some piano companies have included extra pedals other than the standard two or three. On the Stuart and Sons pianos as well as the largest Fazioli piano, there is a fourth pedal to the left of the principal three. This fourth pedal works in the same way as the soft pedal of an upright piano, moving the hammers closer to the strings.[42] The Crown and Schubert Piano Company also produced a four-pedal piano.

Wing and Son of New York offered a five-pedal piano from approximately 1893 through the 1920s. There is no mention of the company past the 1930s. Labeled left to right, the pedals are Mandolin, Orchestra, Expression, Soft, and Forte (Sustain). The Orchestral pedal produced a sound similar to a tremolo feel by bouncing a set of small beads dangling against the strings, enabling the piano to mimic a mandolin, guitar, banjo, zither and harp, thus the name Orchestral. The Mandolin pedal used a similar approach, lowering a set of felt strips with metal rings in between the hammers and the strings (aka rinky-tink effect). This extended the life of the hammers when the Orch pedal was used, a good idea for practicing, and created an echo-like sound that mimicked playing in an orchestral hall.[43][44]

The pedalier piano, or pedal piano, is a rare type of piano that includes a pedalboard so players can use their feet to play bass register notes, as on an organ. There are two types of pedal piano. On one, the pedal board is an integral part of the instrument, using the same strings and mechanism as the manual keyboard. The other, rarer type, consists of two independent pianos (each with separate mechanics and strings) placed one above the other—one for the hands and one for the feet. This was developed primarily as a practice instrument for organists, though there is a small repertoire written specifically for the instrument.

Mechanics

A pianist playing Prelude and Fugue No. 23 in B major (BWV 868) from Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier on a grand piano

When the key is struck, a chain reaction occurs to produce the sound. First, the key raises the "wippen" mechanism, which forces the jack against the hammer roller (or knuckle). The hammer roller then lifts the lever carrying the hammer. The key also raises the damper; and immediately after the hammer strikes the wire it falls back, allowing the wire to resonate and thus produce sound. When the key is released the damper falls back onto the strings, stopping the wire from vibrating, and thus stopping the sound.[45] The vibrating piano strings themselves are not very loud, but their vibrations are transmitted to a large soundboard that moves air and thus converts the energy to sound. The irregular shape and off-center placement of the bridge ensure that the soundboard vibrates strongly at all frequencies.[46] The raised damper allows the note to sound until the key (or sustain pedal) is released.

There are three factors that influence the pitch of a vibrating wire.

  • Length: All other factors the same, the shorter the wire, the higher the pitch.
  • Mass per unit length: All other factors the same, the thinner the wire, the higher the pitch.
  • Tension: All other factors the same, the tighter the wire, the higher the pitch.

A vibrating wire subdivides itself into many parts vibrating at the same time. Each part produces a pitch of its own, called a partial. A vibrating string has one fundamental and a series of partials. The purest combination of two pitches is when one is double the frequency of the other.[47]

For a repeating wave, the velocity v equals the wavelength λ times the frequency f,

v = λf

On the piano string, waves reflect from both ends. The superposition of reflecting waves results in a standing wave pattern, but only for wavelengths λ = 2L, L, 2L/3, L/2, ... = 2L/n, where L is the length of the string. Therefore, the only frequencies produced on a single string are f = nv/2L. Timbre is largely determined by the content of these harmonics. Different instruments have different harmonic content for the same pitch. A real string vibrates at harmonics that are not perfect multiples of the fundamental. This results in a little inharmonicity, which gives richness to the tone but causes significant tuning challenges throughout the compass of the instrument.[46]

Striking the piano key with greater velocity increases the amplitude of the waves and therefore the volume. From pianissimo (pp) to fortissimo (ff) the hammer velocity changes by almost a factor of a hundred. The hammer contact time with the string shortens from 4 milliseconds at pp to less than 2 ms at ff.[46] If two wires adjusted to the same pitch are struck at the same time, the sound produced by one reinforces the other, and a louder combined sound of shorter duration is produced. If one wire vibrates out of synchronization with the other, they subtract from each other and produce a softer tone of longer duration.[48]

Maintenance

A piano tuner

Pianos are heavy and powerful, yet delicate instruments. Over the years, professional piano movers have developed special techniques for transporting both grands and uprights, which prevent damage to the case and to the piano's mechanical elements. Pianos need regular tuning to keep them on correct pitch. The hammers of pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening of the felt, and other parts also need periodic regulation. Pianos need regular maintenance to ensure the felt hammers and key mechanisms are functioning properly. Aged and worn pianos can be rebuilt or reconditioned by piano rebuilders. Strings eventually must be replaced. Often, by replacing a great number of their parts, and adjusting them, old instruments can perform as well as new pianos.

middle C). The term A440
refers to a widely accepted frequency of this pitch – 440 Hz.

The relationship between two pitches, called an interval, is the ratio of their absolute frequencies. Two different intervals are perceived as the same when the pairs of pitches involved share the same frequency ratio. The easiest intervals to identify, and the easiest intervals to tune, are those that are just, meaning they have a simple whole-number ratio. The term temperament refers to a tuning system that tempers the just intervals (usually the perfect fifth, which has the ratio 3:2) to satisfy another mathematical property; in equal temperament, a fifth is tempered by narrowing it slightly, achieved by flattening its upper pitch slightly, or raising its lower pitch slightly. A temperament system is also known as a set of "bearings". Tempering an interval causes it to beat, which is a fluctuation in perceived sound intensity due to interference between close (but unequal) pitches. The rate of beating is equal to the frequency differences of any harmonics that are present for both pitches and that coincide or nearly coincide. Piano tuners have to use their ear to "stretch" the tuning of a piano to make it sound in tune. This involves tuning the highest-pitched strings slightly higher and the lowest-pitched strings slightly lower than what a mathematical frequency table (in which octaves are derived by doubling the frequency) would suggest.

Playing and technique

A Prague piano player.

As with any other musical instrument, the piano may be played from

M.Mus. to the Doctor of Musical Arts in piano. Piano technique evolved during the transition from harpsichord and clavichord to fortepiano playing, and continued through the development of the modern piano. Changes in musical styles and audience preferences over the 19th and 20th century, as well as the emergence of virtuoso performers, contributed to this evolution and to the growth of distinct approaches or schools of piano playing. Although technique is often viewed as only the physical execution of a musical idea, many pedagogues and performers stress the interrelatedness of the physical and mental or emotional aspects of piano playing.[49][50][51][52][53] Well-known approaches to piano technique include those by Dorothy Taubman, Edna Golandsky, Fred Karpoff, Charles-Louis Hanon and Otto Ortmann
.

Performance styles

Many

performance practice
.

Birthday party honoring French pianist Maurice Ravel in 1928. From left to right: conductor Oskar Fried, singer Éva Gauthier, Ravel (at piano), composer-conductor Manoah Leide-Tedesco, and composer George Gershwin.

Starting in Beethoven's later career, the fortepiano evolved into an instrument more like the modern piano of the 2000s. Modern pianos were in wide use by the late 19th century. They featured an octave range larger than the earlier fortepiano instrument, adding around 30 more keys to the instrument, which extended the deep bass range and the high treble range. Factory mass production of upright pianos made them more affordable for a larger number of middle-class people. They appeared in music halls and pubs during the 19th century, providing entertainment through a piano soloist, or in combination with a small dance band. Just as harpsichordists had accompanied singers or dancers performing on stage, or playing for dances, pianists took up this role in the late 1700s and in the following centuries.

During the 19th century, American musicians playing for working-class audiences in small pubs and bars, particularly

jazz-rock
.

Yamaha grand piano

Pianos have also been used prominently in rock and roll and rock music by performers such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Elton John, Ben Folds, Billy Joel, Nicky Hopkins, Rick Wakeman, Freddie Mercury and Tori Amos, to name a few. At a 2023 auction in Sotheby's in London, Mercury's Yamaha baby grand piano, which he used to compose "Bohemian Rhapsody" among other Queen songs, sold for £1.7 million ($2.1 million), which Sotheby's state is a record for a composer's piano.[54] Modernist styles of music have also appealed to composers writing for the modern grand piano, including John Cage and Philip Glass.

Traditional Burmese style

The piano, called sandaya (Burmese: စန္ဒရား), was introduced to the Burmese musical repertoire during the mid-19th century Konbaung dynasty, first as a gift by the Italian ambassador to King Mindon Min.[55] The instrument was quickly indigenized by court musicians and uses a novel playing technique adapted to play Mahāgīta compositions.[55][56] Burmese musicians use a "technique of interlocked fingering with both hands extending a single melodic line allowed for agogic embellishment, fleeting grace notes in syncopated spirals around a steady underlying beat found in the bell and clapper time keepers."[55] This playing technique is based on the two-mallet technique of the pattala, a bamboo xylophone, and the two-hand technique of the pat waing, a drum circle.[57] By contrast, Western playing styles feature melody with the right hand, and supporting harmonies with the left hand.[56] The Burmese technique allows for very rapid playing, enabling musicians to layer complex and distinct ornamentations, which evoke the expressive techniques used in traditional Burmese singing.[56][55] The Burmese style is characterized by prominent use of virtuosity and ornamentation, with alternating sections of free and fixed, but flexible, rhythm.[57] Prominent Burmese pianists often prefix their name with the honorific 'Sandaya' (e.g., Sandayar Hla Htut and Sandayar Chit Swe).

Role

The piano was the centrepiece of social life in the 19th-century upper-middle-class home (Moritz von Schwind, 1868). The man at the piano is composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828).

The piano is a crucial instrument in Western

film
and television scoring, as the large range permits composers to try out melodies and bass lines, even if the music will be orchestrated for other instruments.

piano reduction or doing a reduction from the full score), so that they can develop their interpretation. The piano is an essential tool in music education in elementary and secondary schools, and universities and colleges. Most music classrooms and many practice rooms have a piano. Pianos are used to help teach music theory, music history and music appreciation
classes, and even non-pianist music professors or instructors may have a piano in their office.

See also

Notes

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  2. ^ Pollens (1995, Ch.1)
  3. .
  4. ^ Pollens (1995, 238)
  5. S2CID 191481821
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  8. ^ a b Powers, Wendy (2003). "The Piano: The Pianofortes of Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art". New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  9. ^ Isacoff (2012, 23)
  10. ^
    JSTOR 41640462
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  11. .. "Instrument: piano et forte genandt" [was] an expression Bach also used when acting as Silbermann's agent in 1749."
  12. ^ "The Viennese Piano". Archived from the original on 11 October 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2007.
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  14. ^ Isacoff (2012, 74)
  15. ^ a b Dolge (1911, 124)
  16. ^ Dolge (1911, 125–126)
  17. ^ "Piano à queue" (in French). Médiathèque de la Cité de la musique. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
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  21. ^ Library of Congress Subject Headings. Library of Congress. 2003.
  22. ^ "PNOmation II". QRS Music Technologies. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  23. ^ "History of the Eavestaff Pianette Minipiano". Piano-tuners.org. Archived from the original on 1 October 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  24. ^ Les Cahiers de l'Oronte. 1969. p. 82.
  25. ^ "Stéphane Tsapis, le piano oriental" (in French). 13 October 2019.
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  27. ^ Davies, Hugh (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Second ed.). London: Macmillan.
  28. ^ "Disklavier Pianos - Yamaha - United States". usa.yamaha.com.
  29. ^ "161 Facts About Steinway & Sons and the Pianos They Build". Steinway & Sons. Archived from the original on 16 November 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
  30. ^ Nave, Carl R. "The Piano". HyperPhysics. Archived from the original on 24 November 2014. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
  31. ^ "The Piano Case". Five Lectures on the Acoustics of the Piano. Royal Swedish Academy of Music. 1990. Archived from the original on 19 July 2010. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
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  33. ^ p. 65
  34. .
  35. ^ The "resonance case principle" is described by Bösendorfer in terms of manufacturing technique Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine and description of effect Archived 2015-04-11 at the Wayback Machine.
  36. ^ "Fazioli, Paolo", Grove Music Online, 2009. Accessed 12 April 2009.
  37. ^ "Model F308" Archived 2015-03-16 at the Wayback Machine, Official Fazioli Website. Accessed 6 March 2015.
  38. ^ "The Hindenburg's Aluminum Piano". AIRSHIPS.NET.
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  40. ^ King, Rosie (14 September 2018). "World's first 108-key concert grand piano built by Australia's only piano maker". ABC. Archived from the original on 15 September 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
  41. ^ Baron, James (15 July 2007). "Let's Play Two: Singular Piano". New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 June 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  42. ^ "Fourth pedal". Fazioli. Archived from the original on 16 April 2008. Retrieved 21 April 2008.
  43. ^ "Piano with instrumental attachments". Musica Viva. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
  44. ^ "Wing & Son". Antique Piano Shop. Archived from the original on 1 October 2010. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
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  46. ^ a b c "Physics of the Piano : Piano Tuners Guild, June 5, 2000". 9 March 2003. Archived from the original on 9 March 2003. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  47. pp. 203–215.
  48. pp. 203–215.
  49. ^ Edwin M. Ripin; et al. "Pianoforte". Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press). Retrieved 17 November 2014.
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  51. ^ Harrison, Sidney (1953). Piano Technique. London: I. Pitman. p. 57.
  52. ^ Fielden, Thomas (1934). The Science of Pianoforte Technique. London: Macmillan. p. 162.
  53. ^ Boulanger, Nadia. "Sayings of Great Teachers". The Piano Quarterly. Winter 1958–1959: 26.
  54. ^ "Freddie Mercury: Queen star's piano and other items fetch high prices at auction". BBC News. 6 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  55. ^ a b c d Young, Kit. "The Strange, The Familiar: Foreign Musical Instruments in Myanmar/Burma". Asia Society. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
  56. ^ a b c Webster, Jonathan (13 July 2013). "Solitude and Sandaya: The Strange History of Pianos in Burma—The Appendix". The Appendix. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
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References

Further reading

External links