The
piano is a
musical instrument which is played by
means of a
keyboard. Widely used
in
Western music for solo
performances, ensemble use,
chamber
music, and
accompaniment, the
piano is also very popular as an aid to
composing and
rehearsal. Although not portable and often
expensive, the piano's versatility and ubiquity have made it one of
the world's most familiar musical instruments.
Pressing a key on the piano's keyboard causes a
felt covered hammer to strike
steel strings. The hammers rebound, allowing the
strings to continue vibrating at their
resonant frequency. These vibrations are
transmitted through a
bridge to
a
sounding board that
couples the acoustic energy to the
air so that it can be heard as sound. When the key is released, a
damper stops the string's vibration. Pianos are sometimes
classified as both
percussion and
stringed instruments. According to the
Hornbostel-Sachs method of music
classification, they are grouped with
chordophones.
The word
piano is a shortened form of the word
pianoforte, which is derived from the original
Italian name for the instrument,
clavicembalo [or
gravicembalo]
col piano e
forte (literally
harpsichord
with soft and loud). This refers to the instrument's
responsiveness to keyboard touch, which allows the
pianist to produce notes at different dynamic levels
by controlling the speed with which the hammers hit the
strings.
History
Early history
Early piano replica by the modern
builder Paul McNulty, after Walter & Sohn, 1805
The piano is founded on earlier technological innovations. The
first
string instruments with
struck strings were the
hammered
dulcimers originating from the
Persian traditional musical
instrument
santur. During the
Middle Ages, there were several attempts at
creating stringed
keyboard
instruments with struck strings, the earliest being the
hurdy gurdy which has uncertain origins.
By the 17th century, the mechanisms of keyboard instruments such as
the
clavichord and the
harpsichord were well known. In a clavichord the
strings are struck by
tangents,
while in a
harpsichord they are plucked
by quills. Centuries of work on the mechanism of the harpsichord in
particular had shown the most effective ways to construct the case,
soundboard, bridge, and keyboard.
The
invention of the modern piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731) of
Padua
, Italy
, who was
employed by Prince Ferdinand de Medici as the
Keeper of the Instruments. He was an expert harpsichord
maker and was well acquainted with the previous body of knowledge
on stringed keyboard instruments. It is not known exactly when
Cristofori first built a piano. An inventory made by his employers,
the
Medici family, indicates the existence of
a piano by the year 1700; another document of doubtful authenticity
indicates a date of 1698. The three Cristofori pianos that survive
today date from the 1720s.
Cristofori's great success was in solving, without any prior
example, the fundamental mechanical problem of piano design: the
hammer must strike the string, but not remain in contact with it
(as a tangent remains in contact with a clavichord string) because
this would
damp the sound. Moreover, the
hammer must return to its rest position without bouncing violently,
and it must be possible to repeat a note rapidly. Cristofori's
piano
action served as a model for
the many different approaches to piano actions that followed. While
Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings and were
much quieter than the modern piano, compared to the clavichord (the
only previous keyboard instrument capable of minutely controlled
dynamic nuance through the keyboard) they were considerably louder
and had more sustaining power.
Cristofori's new instrument remained relatively unknown until an
Italian writer,
Scipione Maffei,
wrote an enthusiastic article about it (1711), including a diagram
of the mechanism. This article was widely distributed, and most of
the next generation of piano builders started their work because of
reading it. 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
damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from
the strings at once.
Silbermann showed
Johann Sebastian
Bach one of his early instruments in the 1730s, but Bach did
not like it at that time, claiming 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.
Bach did approve of a later instrument he saw in 1747, and even
served as an agent in selling Silbermann's pianos.
Piano
making flourished during the late 18th century in the Viennese school, which included
Johann Andreas Stein (who
worked in Augsburg
, Germany)
and the Viennese makers Nannette
Streicher (daughter of Stein) and Anton
Walter. Viennese-style pianos were built with wood
frames, two strings per note, and had leather-covered hammers. Some
of these Viennese pianos had the opposite coloring of modern-day
pianos; the natural keys were black and the accidental keys white.
It was for such instruments that
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his
concertos and
sonatas, and replicas of them are built today
for use in
authentic-instrument
performance of his music. The pianos of Mozart's day had a
softer, clearer tone than today's pianos or English pianos, with
less sustaining power. The term
fortepiano is nowadays often used to
distinguish the 18th-century instrument from later pianos.
The modern piano (the pianoforte) was developed from the
harpsichord around 1720, by Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy.
His new instrument had a delicate pianissimo (very soft sound), a
strong fortissimo (a very loud, forceful sound), and every level in
between.The first upright piano was made around 1780 by Johann
Schmidt of Salzburg, Austria. Thomas Loud of London developed an
upright piano whose strings ran diagonally (in 1802), saving even
more space.
Development of the modern piano
In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the
Mozart-era piano underwent
tremendous changes that led to the modern form of the instrument.
This revolution was in response to a consistent preference by
composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound,
and made possible by the ongoing
Industrial Revolution with
technological resources such as high-quality steel, called
piano wire, for
string, and precision
casting for the production of
iron frame. Over time, the tonal range of
the piano was also increased from the five
octaves of Mozart's day to the 7¼ or more octaves
found on modern pianos.
Broadwood square action
Early technological progress 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". They achieved this in about
1777. They quickly gained a reputation for the splendour and
powerful tone of their instruments, with Broadwood constructing
ones 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 were more robust, Viennese
instruments were more sensitive.
Erard square action
By the
1820s, the center of innovation had shifted to Paris
, where the
Pleyel firm manufactured pianos used by Frédéric Chopin and the Érard firm
manufactured those used by Franz
Liszt. In 1821,
Sébastien Érard invented the
double escapement
action, which
permitted a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen
to its maximum vertical position. This facilitated rapid playing of
repeated notes, and this musical device was pioneered by Liszt.
When the invention became public, as revised by
Henri Herz, the double escapement action
gradually became standard in grand pianos, and is still
incorporated into all grand pianos currently produced.
One of the major technical innovations that helped to create the
sound of the modern piano was the use of a strong iron frame. Also
called the "plate", the iron frame sits atop the
soundboard, and serves as the primary bulwark
against the force of string
tension. The increased structural
integrity of the iron frame allowed the use of thicker, tenser, and
more numerous strings. In a modern grand the total string tension
can exceed 20 tons.
The single piece cast iron frame was patented in 1825 in Boston
by Alpheus Babcock,
combining the metal hitch pin plate (1821, claimed by Broadwood on
behalf of Samuel Hervé) and resisting bars (Thom and Allen, 1820,
but also claimed by Broadwood and Érard). Babcock later
worked for the
Chickering &
Mackays firm who patented the first full iron frame for grand
pianos in 1843. Composite forged metal frames were preferred by
many European makers until the American system was fully adopted by
the early 20th century.
Other innovations for the mechanism included the use of felt hammer
coverings instead of layered leather hammers. Felt hammers, which
were first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826, were a more consistent
material, permitting wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and
string tension increased.
The sostenuto pedal
(see below), invented in 1844 by Jean Louis Boisselot and improved by
the Steinway
firm in 1874, allowed a wider range of
effects.
Other important technical innovations of this era included changes
to the way the piano was strung, such as the use of a "choir" of
three strings rather than two for all but the lower notes, and the
use of different stringing methods. With the
over strung scale, also called "
cross-stringing", the strings are placed in
a vertically overlapping slanted arrangement, with two heights of
bridge on the soundboard instead
of just one. This permits larger, but not necessarily longer,
strings to fit within the case of the piano.
Over stringing was
invented by Jean-Henri Pape during
the 1820s, and first patented for use in grand pianos in the
United
States
by Henry Steinway, Jr. in 1859.
With duplexes or
aliquot scales,
which was patented in 1872 by Theodore Steinway, the different
components of string vibrations are controlled by tuning their
secondary parts in octave relationships with the sounding lengths.
Similar systems developed by
Blüthner
(1872), as well as
Taskin (1788), and
Collard (1821) used more distinctly
ringing undamped vibrations to modify tone.
Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use.
The
square piano had horizontal strings
arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers
and with the keyboard set in the long side. This design is
attributed to Gottfried Silbermann or Christian Ernst Friderici on
the continent, and
Johannes Zumpe or
Harman Vietor in England and it was improved by changes first
introduced by
Guillaume-Lebrecht Petzold in
France and
Alpheus Babcock in the
United States.
Square pianos were built in great numbers
through the 1840s in Europe and the 1890s in America, and saw the
most visible changes of any type of piano: the celebrated 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 performance and tone were often limited by
simple actions and closely spaced strings.
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. The term was later revived by many
manufacturers for advertising purposes. Giraffe, pyramid and lyre
pianos were arranged in a somewhat similar fashion in 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. Pianinos
were distinguished from the oblique, or diagonally strung upright
made popular in France by Roller & Blanchet during the late
1820s. 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 forms by the
end of the 19th century. Improvements have been made in
manufacturing processes, and many individual details of the
instrument continue to receive attention.
History and musical performance
Much of the most widely admired
piano
repertoire, for example, that of
Haydn,
Mozart, and
Beethoven, was composed for a type of
instrument that is rather different from the modern instruments on
which this music is normally performed today. Even the music of the
Romantics, including
Liszt,
Chopin,
Robert Schumann,
Felix Mendelssohn and
Johannes Brahms, was written for pianos
substantially different from ours.
Modern piano
A schematic depiction of the
construction of a pianoforte (Part names are listed in the
illustration's file)
Types
Modern pianos come in two basic configurations (with
subcategories): the grand piano and the upright piano.
Grand
In grand pianos, the frame and strings are horizontal, with the
strings extending away from the keyboard. There are several sizes
of grand piano. A rough generalization distinguishes the "concert
grand" (between about and long) from the "parlor grand" or "boudoir
grand" (about to ) and the smaller "baby grand".
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, partial
tones, or
harmonics) depart from
whole multiples of the fundamental frequency.
Pianos with shorter, thicker, and stiffer strings (e.g., baby
grands) have more inharmonicity. The longer strings on a concert
grand can vibrate more freely than the shorter, thicker strings on
a baby grand, which means that a concert grand's strings will have
truer overtones. This allows the strings to be tuned closer to
equal temperament in relation to
the standard pitch with less "stretching" in the
piano tuning. Full-size grands are usually used
for public concerts, whereas smaller grands, introduced by
Sohmer & Co. in 1884, are often chosen
for domestic use where space and cost are considerations.
A grand piano action has a repetition lever for each key. If the
key is pressed repeatedly and fairly quickly this repetition lever
catches the hammer close to the strings, which assists the speed
and control of repeated notes and
trill.
Upright
Vertical Piano Action
Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact
because the frame and strings are vertical. The hammers move
horizontally, and are returned to their resting position by springs
which are prone to wear and tear.
Upright pianos with unusually tall frames and long strings are
sometimes called "upright grand" pianos.
Some authors classify modern pianos according to their height and
to modifications of the action that are necessary to accommodate
the height.
- Studio pianos are around 42 to 45 inches tall.
This is the shortest cabinet that can accommodate a 'full-sized'
action located above the keyboard.
- Console pianos have a compact action (shorter
hammers), and are a few inches shorter than studio models.
- The top of a Spinet
model barely rises above the keyboard. The action is located below,
operated by vertical wires that are attached to the backs of the
keys.
- Anything taller than a studio piano is called an
upright.
Other types
Player piano
Toy pianos began to be manufactured in the
19th century.
In 1863,
Henri Fourneaux invented
the
player piano, which "plays itself"
from a
piano roll without the need for a
pianist. A performance is "recorded" onto rolls of paper with
perforations, and the player piano replays the performance using
pneumatic devices. Modern equivalents of the player piano include
the
Bösendorfer CEUS and the Yamaha
Disklavier, 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.
The
transposing piano was invented
in 1801 by Edward Ryley. It has a lever under the keyboard used to
move the keyboard relative to the strings so that a pianist can
play in a familiar key while the music sounds in a different
key.
The
prepared piano, encountered in
some contemporary art music, is a grand piano which has objects
placed inside it to alter its sound, or which 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, or paper, or metal screws or washers, in
between the strings. These either mute the strings or alter their
timbre.
Available since the 1980s,
digital
pianos use
digital
sampling technology to reproduce the sound of each piano note.
Digital pianos can be sophisticated, with features including
working pedals, weighted keys, multiple voices, and
MIDI interfaces. However, when the damper pedal (see
below) is depressed on such an instrument, there are no strings to
vibrate sympathetically.
Physical models of
sympathetic vibration are incorporated into the synthesis software
of some higher end digital pianos, such as the
Yamaha Clavinova series, or the
KAWAI MP8 series.
With the advent of powerful desktop computers, highly realistic
pianos have become available as affordable software modules. Some
of these modules, such as Synthogy's Ivory released in 2004, use
multi-gigabyte piano sample sets with as many as 90 recordings,
each lasting many seconds, for each of the 88 (some have 81) keys
under different conditions, augmented by additional samples to
emulate sympathetic resonance, key release, the drop of the
dampers, and simulations of piano techniques like re-pedaling. Some
other software modules, such as Modartt's
Pianoteq released in 2006, use no samples
whatsoever and are a pure synthesis of all aspects of the
physicalities which go into the creation of a real piano's
sound.
In recent times, piano manufactures have superseded the old
fashioned pianola or player piano with new innovative pianos which
play themselves via a CD or MP3 Player. Similar in concept to a
player piano, the PianoDisc or iQ systems installed in select
pianos will 'play themselves' when prompted by a certain file
format designed to be interpreted by software installed and
connected to the piano. Such additions are quite expensive, often
doubling the cost of a piano and are available in both upright and
grand pianos.
Keyboard
Keyboard
Almost every modern piano has 36 black keys and 52 white keys for a
total of 88 keys (seven
octaves plus a minor
third, from A
0 to C
8). Many older pianos only
have 85 keys (seven octaves from A
0 to A
7),
while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both
directions.
Some
Bösendorfer pianos extend the
normal range downwards to F
0, with one other model going
as far as a bottom C
0, making a full eight octave range.
These extra keys are sometimes hidden under a small hinged lid that
can be flipped down to cover the keys in order to avoid visual
disorientation in a pianist unfamiliar with the extended keyboard.
On others, the colors of the extra white keys are reversed (black
instead of white).
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. More recently, the
Stuart and Sons company has also
manufactured extended-range pianos, with the first 102 key piano.
On their instruments, the frequency range extends from
C
0 to F
8 which is the widest practical range
for the acoustic piano. The extra keys are the same as the other
keys in appearance.
Small studio upright acoustical pianos with only 65 keys have been
manufactured for use by roving pianists. Known as "gig" pianos and
still containing a cast iron harp, these are comparatively
lightweight and can be easily transported to and from engagements
by only two people. As their harp is longer than that of a spinet
or console piano, they have a stronger bass sound that to some
pianists is well worth the trade-off in range that a reduced
key-set offers.
The
Toy piano manufacturer
Schoenhut started manufacturing both grands and
uprights with only 44 or 49 keys, and shorter distance between the
keyboard and the pedals. These pianos are true pianos with action
and strings. The pianos were introduced to their product line in
response to numerous requests in favor of it.
Pedals
Standard pedals
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 have three pedals: the soft pedal (una corda), sostenuto,
and sustain pedal (from left to right, respectively). 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.
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, even
the ones not directly played, to reverberate.
The
soft pedal or
una corda
pedal is placed leftmost in the row of pedals. In grand pianos, it
shifts the entire action, including the keyboard, to the right, so
that the hammers hit only one of the three strings for each note
(hence the name
una corda, or 'one string'). The effect is
to soften the note as well as to change the tone. In uprights, this
action is not possible, and so the pedal moves the hammers closer
to the strings, allowing the hammers to hit the strings with less
kinetic energy to produce a softer sound, but with no change in
timbre.
On grand pianos, the middle pedal is a
sostenuto pedal. This pedal keeps raised any
damper that was already raised at the moment the pedal is
depressed. This makes it possible to sustain some notes (by
depressing the sostenuto pedal before notes to be sustained are
released) while the player's hands are free to play other notes.
This can be useful for musical passages with
pedal points and other otherwise tricky or
impossible situations.
On many upright pianos, there is a middle pedal called the
'practice' or
celeste pedal. This drops a piece of felt
between the hammers and strings, greatly muting the sounds.
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. This pedal would be used only when a pianist needs to
sustain a single bass note or chord over many measures, while
playing the melody in the treble section. On the
Stuart and Sons piano 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.
Unusual pedals
The rare
transposing piano, of
which
Irving Berlin possessed an
example, had a middle pedal that functioned as a
clutch which disengages the keyboard from the
mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to the left or right
with a lever. The entire action of the piano is thus shifted to
allow the pianist to play music written in one key so that it
sounds in a different key. The
pedalier piano, or
pedal piano, is a rare type of piano that
includes a
pedalboard, enabling bass
register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the
organ. There are two types of pedal
piano: the pedal board may be an integral part of the instrument,
using the same strings and mechanism as the manual keyboard, or,
less frequently, it may consist of two independent pianos (each
with its separate mechanics and strings) which are placed one above
the other, a regular piano played by the hands and a bass-register
piano played by the feet.
Construction
Many parts of a piano are made of materials selected for
sturdiness. In quality pianos, the outer rim of the piano is made
of a hardwood, normally maple or beech. According to
Harold A. Conklin, 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."
The rim is normally made by laminating flexible strips of hardwood
to the desired shape, a system that was developed by Theodore
Steinway in 1880. The thick wooden braces at the bottom (grands) or
back (uprights) of the piano are not as acoustically important as
the rim, and are often made of a softwood, even in top-quality
pianos, in order to save weight.
The requirement of structural strength,
fulfilled with 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
(990 lb). The largest piano built, the
Fazioli F308, weighs 691 kg
(1520 lb).
The pinblock, which holds the tuning pins in place, is another area
of the piano where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood,
(often
maple) and generally is laminated
(built of multiple layers) for additional strength and gripping
power. Piano strings (also called
piano
wire), which must endure years of extreme tension and hard
blows, are made of high quality 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.
The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of
cast iron. It is advantageous for the plate to be
quite massive. Since the strings are attached to the plate at one
end, any vibrations transmitted to the plate will result in loss of
energy to the desired (efficient) channel of sound transmission,
namely the bridge and the soundboard. Some manufacturers now use
cast steel in their plates, for greater strength. The casting of
the plate is a delicate art, since the dimensions are crucial and
the iron shrinks by about one percent during cooling.
The inclusion in a piano of an extremely large piece of metal is
potentially an aesthetic handicap, which piano makers overcome by
polishing, painting and decorating the plate. Plates often include
the manufacturer's ornamental medallion and can be strikingly
attractive. 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. The
use of aluminum for piano plates, however, did not become widely
accepted and was discontinued.
The numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are
generally
hardwood (e.g. maple, beech.
hornbeam). However, since World War II,
plastics have become available. Early plastics were
incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but
proved disastrous because they crystallized and lost their strength
after only a few decades of use.
The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material
developed by DuPont, for some grand action
parts in place of cloth, but ultimately abandoned the experiment
due to an inherent "clicking" which invariably developed over
time. (Also Teflon is "humidity stable" whereas the wood
adjacent to the Teflon will swell and shrink with humidity changes,
causing problems.) More recently, the
Kawai
firm has built pianos with action parts made of more modern and
effective plastics such as
carbon fiber; these parts
have held up better and have generally received the respect of
piano technicians .
The part of the piano where materials probably matter more than
anywhere else is the
soundboard. In
quality pianos, this is made of solid
spruce
(that is, spruce boards glued together at their edges). Spruce is
chosen for its high ratio of strength to weight. The best piano
makers use close-grained, quarter-sawn, defect-free spruce, and
make sure that it has been carefully dried over a long period of
time before making it into soundboards. In cheap pianos, the
soundboard is often made of
plywood.
Piano keys are generally made of spruce or
basswood, for lightness. Spruce is normally used in
high-quality pianos. Traditionally, the black keys were made from
ebony and the white keys were covered with
strips of
ivory, but since ivory-yielding
species are now endangered and protected by treaty, plastics are
now almost exclusively used. Also, ivory tends to chip more easily
than plastic. Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited
quantities. The
Yamaha firm
invented a plastic called "Ivorine" or "Ivorite" that mimics the
look and feel of ivory; it has since been imitated by other
makers.
Care and maintenance
A piano tuner
Pianos need regular tuning to keep them up to pitch, which is
usually the internationally recognized standard concert pitch of
A4 = 440 Hz. The hammers of
pianos are voiced to compensate for gradual hardening, and other
parts also need periodic regulation. Aged and worn pianos can be
rebuilt or reconditioned. Often, by replacing a great number of
their parts, they can be made to perform as well as new pianos.
Older pianos are often more settled and produce a warmer
tone.
Piano moving should be done by trained piano movers using adequate
manpower and the correct equipment for any particular piano's size
and weight. Pianos are heavy 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 mechanics.
Role
The piano is a crucial instrument in Western
classical music,
jazz,
film,
television, and most other complex western
musical genres. Since a large number of
composers are proficient
pianists – and because the piano keyboard
offers an easy means of complex melodic and harmonic
interplay – the piano is often used as a tool for
composition.
Pianos were, and still are, popular instruments for private
household ownership. Hence, pianos have gained a place in the
popular consciousness, and are sometimes referred to by nicknames
including: "the ivories", "the joanna", "the eighty-eight", "the
black(s) and white(s)", and "the little joe(s)". Playing the piano
is sometimes referred to as "tickling the ivories".
See also
- General
- Technical
- Related lists
- Related instruments
Notes
- " Hammer Time" by John Kiehl, Wolfram Demonstrations
Project.
- David R. Peterson (1994), "Acoustics of the hammered dulcimer,
its history, and recent developments", Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America 95 (5), p.
3002.
- Pollens, 1995. chp. 1
- . "Instrument: piano et forte genandt" [was] an expression Bach
also used when acting as Silbermann's agent in 1749."
References
- The authoritative New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians (available online by subscription),
contains a wealth of information. Main article:
"Pianoforte".
- The Encyclopædia Britannica
(available online by subscription) also includes much information
on the piano. In the 1988 edition, the primary article can be found
in "Musical Instruments".
- The Piano Book by Larry Fine (4th ed.
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: Brookside Press, 2001; ISBN
1-929145-01-2) gives the basics of how pianos work, and a thorough
evaluative survey of current pianos and their manufacturers. It
also includes advice on buying and owning pianos.
- Giraffes, black dragons, and other pianos: a
technological history from Cristofori to the modern concert
grand by Edwin M. Good (1982, second ed., 2001, Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press) is a standard reference on the
history of the piano.
- The Early Pianoforte by Stewart Pollens (1995,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) is an authoritative work
covering the ancestry of the piano, its invention by Cristofori,
and the early stages of its subsequent evolution.
Further reading
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