The Knowledge Of Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ battery), 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(Sony VGP-BPS8 battery).

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 more efficiently couples the acoustic energy to the air(Sony VGP-BPL9 battery). The sound would otherwise be no louder than that directly produced by the strings. When the key is released, a damper stops the string's vibration. See the article on Piano key frequencies for a picture of the piano keyboard and the location of middle-C. In the Hornbostel-Sachs system of instrument classification(Sony VGP-BPS9 battery), pianos are considered chordophones.

The word piano is a shortened form of pianoforte, the Italian word for the instrument (which in turn derives from the previous terms "gravicembalo col piano e forte" and fortepiano) (Sony VGP-BPL11 battery). The musical terms "piano" and "forte" mean "quiet" and "loud," and in this context refers to the variations in volume of sound the instrument produces in response to a pianist's touch on the keys: the greater a key press's velocity, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the string(s), and the louder the note produced(Sony VGP-BPL15 battery).

History

Early history

The piano is founded on earlier technological innovations. The first string instruments with struck strings were the hammered dulcimers. During the Middle Ages, there were several attempts at creating stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings. By the 17th century(Sony VGN-FZ460E battery), 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(Sony VGP-BPS11 battery).

The invention of the modern piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments. He was an expert harpsichord maker, and was well acquainted with the body of knowledge on stringed keyboard instruments(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ4000 Battery). 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. A friend of the family by the name of Sebastian LeBlanc suggested the idea to switch (Sony VGP-BPS10 battery)the black and white keysThe three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s.

While the clavichord allowed expressive control of volume and sustain, it was too quiet for large performances. The harpsichord produced a sufficiently loud sound, but had little expressive control over each note(Sony VGP-BPS13 battery). The piano was likely formed as an attempt to combine loudness with control, avoiding the trade-offs of available instruments.

Cristofori's great success was solving, with no 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) ( Sony VGP-BPS3 battery) because this would dampen 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 was a model for the many different approaches to piano actions that followed(Sony VGP-BPS2 battery). Cristofori's early instruments were made with thin strings, and were much quieter than the modern piano—but compared to the clavichord (the only previous keyboard instrument capable of dynamic nuance via the keyboard) they were much louder and had more sustain(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21M battery ).

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 due to reading it(Sony VGN-FZ150E battery). 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 simultaneously(Sony VGN-FZ15 battery).

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(Sony VGN-FZ15L battery), 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(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ18M battery). 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(Sony VGN-FZ15T battery), 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, more ethereal 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(Sony VGN-FZ480E battery).

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 preference by composers and pianists for a more powerful, sustained piano sound(Sony VGN-FZ61B battery), and made possible by the ongoing Industrial Revolution with resources such as high-quality piano wire for strings, and precision casting for the production of iron frames. 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(Sony VGN-FZ31E battery).

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(Sony VGN-FZ340E battery). 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(Sony VGN-FZ180E battery), 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(Sony VGN-FZ18E battery): 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 incorporated a repetition lever (also called the balancier) (Sony VGP-BPL4 battery) that 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(Sony VGN-FZ160E battery), and is still incorporated into all grand pianos currently produced.

Other improvements of the mechanism included the use of felt hammer coverings instead of layered leather or cotton. Felt, which was first introduced by Henri Pape in 1826, was a more consistent material(Sony VGN-FZ15M battery), 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.

One of the major technical innovations that helped to create the sound of the modern piano was the use of a strong iron frame(Sony Vaio VGN-FZ18G battery). 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(Sony VGN-FZ345E battery). 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) (Sony VGP-BPS14 battery). 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(Sony PCGA-BP1N battery).

Other important advances 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 lowest notes, and the implementation of an over-strung scale in which the strings are placed in two separate planes, each with its own bridge height. (This is also called "cross-stringing"(Sony PCGA-BP2E battery). Whereas earlier instruments' bass strings were a mere continuation of a single string plane, over-stringing placed the bass bridge behind and to the treble side of the tenor bridge area. This crossed the strings, with the bass strings in the higher plane.) (Sony VGN-FZ11S battery) This permitted a much narrower cabinet at the "nose" end of the piano, and optimized the transition from unwound tenor strings to the iron or copper-wrapped bass strings. 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(Sony VGN-FZ17L battery).

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(Sony VGN-FZ17G battery).

Duplex scaling, patented in 1872 by Theodore Steinway, enhanced the voice of each note by using sympathetic vibration. Short lengths of non-speaking wire were bridged by the aliquot throughout much of upper range of the piano, always in locations that caused them to vibrate in conformity (Sony VGN-FZ17 battery) (Sony VGP-BPS18 battery)with their respective overtones—typically in doubled octaves and twelfths. Somewhat similar systems were developed by Blüthner (Aliquot stringing, 1873), as well as Taskin (1788), and Collard (1821). Each used more distinctly ringing, undamped vibrations to modify tone(Sony VGP-BPS15 battery).

Some early pianos had shapes and designs that are no longer in use. The square piano (not truly square, but rectangular) was cross strung at an extremely acute angle above the hammers, with the keyboard set along the long side. This design is attributed to Gottfried Silbermann or Christian Ernst Friderici on the continent(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31M Battery), 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(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31B Battery), 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(HP PAVILION DV6000 battery), although their tone and performance were limited by narrow soundboards, simple actions and string spacing that made proper hammer alignment difficult.

The mechanism in upright pianos is perpendicular to the keys.

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(SONY VGP-BPS13 Battery). 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(SONY VGP-BPS13B/B Battery). 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(Dell INSPIRON 1525 battery). 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(Dell INSPIRON E1505 battery).

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(Dell INSPIRON 1420 battery).

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 (the pianoforte) that is rather different from the modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. Even the music of the Romantics, including Liszt(Dell INSPIRON 1520 battery), Chopin, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms, was written for pianos substantially different from modern pianos.

Modern piano

Types

Modern pianos have two basic configurations (with subcategories): the grand piano and the upright piano.

Grand

Steinway grand piano in the White House

Upright piano by August Förster

Vertical piano action

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(Dell INSPIRON 1464 battery).

There are many sizes of grand piano. A rough generalization distinguishes the concert grand (between about 2.2 m and 3 m/9.84 feet long) from the parlor grand or boudoir grand (about 1.7 m to 2.2 m) and the smaller baby grand (around 1.5 m) (Dell INSPIRON 1564 battery).

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(Dell INSPIRON 1764 battery). 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(Dell N3010 Battery). Pianos with shorter and thicker strings, 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.

Inharmonicity requires octaves to be "stretched", or tuned to a lower octave's corresponding sharp overtone rather than to a theoretically correct octave(SONY VGP-BPS13/B Battery). 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(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ15T Battery), not just its octaves. 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(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ15G Battery), 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.

Upright

Upright pianos, also called vertical pianos, are more compact because the frame and strings are vertical. The hammers move horizontally(SONY VGP-BPS13A/S Battery), and return to their resting position via springs, which are susceptible to degradation. 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(SONY VGP-BPS13S Battery).

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(SONY VGP-BPS13B/S Battery).

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(SONY VAIO PCG-5G2L battery).

Other types

Steinway player piano

The 19th century saw the introduction of the toy piano.

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 and the Yamaha Disklavier(SONY VAIO PCG-5G3L battery), 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.

Edward Ryley invented the transposing piano in 1801. It has a lever under the keyboard as 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(SONY VAIO PCG-5J1L battery).

The prepared piano, present in some contemporary art music, is a piano with 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(SONY VAIO PCG-5K2L battery), or washers in between the strings. These either mute the strings or alter their timbre. A harpsichord-like sound can be produced by placing or dangling small metal buttons in front of the hammer.

Electric pianos use electromagnetic pickups to amplify the sound of the strings. Playing a note loudly causes the electric signal to clip, and the player can incorporate the distortion into his or her expressive range(SONY VAIO PCG-5L1L battery).

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 one depresses the damper pedal (see below) on such an instrument, there are no strings to vibrate sympathetically(SONY VAIO PCG-5J2L battery). The synthesis software of some higher end digital pianos, such as the Yamaha Clavinova series, or the KAWAI MP8 series, incorporates physical models of sympathetic vibration.

With the advent of powerful desktop computers, highly realistic pianos have become available as affordable software modules. Some of these modules(SONY VAIO PCG-6S2L battery), such as the 2004 Synthogy's Ivory, 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. Additional samples emulate sympathetic resonance(SONY VAIO PCG-6S3L battery), key release, the drop of the dampers, and simulations of piano techniques like re-pedaling to augment these conditions. Some other software modules, such as Modartt's 2006 Pianoteq, use no samples whatsoever and are a pure synthesis of all aspects of the physicalities that go into the creation of a real piano's sound(SONY VAIO PCG-6V1L battery).

Today, piano manufactures take advantage of innovative pianos that play themselves via a CD or MP3 player. Similar in concept to a player piano, the PianoDisc or iQ systems allow pianos to "play themselves" when the software interprets a certain file format. Such additions are quite expensive, often doubling the cost of a piano(SONY VAIO PCG-6W1L battery). These pianos are available in both upright and grand.

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 A0 to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A0 to A7), while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both directions(SONY VAIO PCG-7111L battery).

Some Bösendorfer pianos, for example, extend the normal range down to F0, with one other model going as far as a bottom C0, making a full 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. On others, the colors of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white) (SONY VAIO PCG-6W3L battery).

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(SONY VAIO PCG-7113L battery), 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 C0 to F8, which is the widest practical range for the acoustic piano. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance(SONY VAIO PCG-7133L battery).

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(SONY VAIO PCG-7Z1L battery), 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(SONY VAIO PCG-7Z2L battery). The pianos were introduced to their product line in response to numerous requests in favor of it.

Special editions are keyboards with the 6-plus-6 system e. g. the Jankó keyboard.

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 in the US have three pedals: the soft pedal (una corda) (SONY VAIO PCG-8Y1L battery), sostenuto, and sustain pedal (from left to right, respectively), while in Europe, the standard is two pedals: the soft pedal and the sustain pedal. 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(SONY VAIO PCG-8Y2L battery). 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(SONY VAIO PCG-8Z2L battery). In addition, it alters the overall tone by allowing all strings, including those 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/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(SONY VAIO PCG-8Z1L battery). 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(SONY VAIO PCG-7112L battery); 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(SONY VAIO PCG-6W2L battery). 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 aren't sustained). This can be useful for musical passages with pedal points and other otherwise tricky or impossible situations(SONY VAIO PCG-5K1L battery).

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. Often this pedal can be shifted while depressed, into a "locking" position.

There are also non-standard variants. On some pianos (grands and verticals) (SONY VGP-BPS13A/Q Battery), 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. 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(SONY VGN NR11Z/T battery). 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

An upright pedal piano

The rare transposing piano (such as owned by Irving Berlin) has a middle pedal that functions as a clutch that disengages the keyboard from the mechanism, enabling the keyboard to be moved to the left or right with a lever(SONY VGN NR11Z/S battery). 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.

There were three piano companies to include extra pedals other than the standard two or three. Two of these companies offered a piano with four pedals (Crown and Schubert Piano Co.), and Wing and Son of New York offered a five pedal piano from approximately 1893 through the 1920s(SONY VGN NR11M/S battery). 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 Mandolin pedal produces a sound similar to a vibrato feel by bouncing a set of small hammers against the strings, enabling the piano to mimic a mandolin, guitar, banjo, zither and harp(SONY VGN NR11S/S battery). The Orchestra (Orch) pedal used a similar approach, lowering a set of metal tipped felt strips in between the hammers and the strings. 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(SONY VGP-BPS13B/Q Battery).

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(SONY VGP-BPS13Q Battery), 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. This was developed primarily as a practice instrument for organists(SONY Vaio VGN-FW21M Battery), although there is a small repotoire written specifically for the instrument.

Construction

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 maple or beech, and its massiveness serves as an essentially immobile object from which the flexible soundboard can best vibrate(SONY Vaio VGN-FW21L Battery). 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."

Yet Bosendorfer, the Austrian manufacturer of high quality pianos, constructs their rim from spruce(SONY Vaio VGN-FW21J Battery), the very same wood that the soundboard is made from. Their idea is to concertedly involve the cabinet in the projection and coloration of sound. The loss of energy into the Bösendorfer case alters the instrument's tone, giving it perhaps less power but a complex and unusually resonant sound(SONY Vaio VGN-FW21E Battery).

View from below of a 182-cm grand piano. In order of distance from viewer: softwood braces, tapered soundboard ribs, soundboard. The metal rod at lower right is a humidity control device.

The finest hardwood rims are made by laminating thin (hence flexible) strips of hardwood, bending them to the desired shape immediately after the application of glue(SONY Vaio VGN-FW11S Battery). This system was developed by Theodore Steinway in 1880. 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) (SONY Vaio VGN-FW11M Battery), 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 where toughness is important. It is made of hardwood, (typically hard maple or beech), and is laminated for strength, stability and longevity(SONY Vaio VGN-FW11 Battery). 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(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21J Battery), 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(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21Z Battery).

Cast iron plate of a Steinway grand piano

The plate, or metal frame, of a piano is usually made of cast iron. It is advantageous for the plate to be very massive. Since the strings vibrate from the plate at both ends, vibrations absorbed by the plate result in energy loss to the desired (efficient) sound transmission channel, namely the bridge and the soundboard(SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21E Battery). 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(SONY Vaio VGN-FW31M Battery).

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(SONY Vaio VGN-FW465J Battery).

The numerous grand parts and upright parts of a piano action are generally hardwood, e.g., maple, beech, or hornbeam. However, since WWII, makers have used some plastics. Early plastics were incorporated into some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, but proved disastrous because they lost strength after a few decades of use(SONY Vaio VGN-FW139E/H Battery). The Steinway firm once incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some grand action parts in place of cloth, but abandoned the experiment due to excessive friction and a "clicking" that developed over time. (Teflon is "humidity stable" whereas the wood adjacent to the Teflon swells and shrinks with humidity changes, causing problems.) More recently(SONY Vaio VGN-FW139E Battery), the Kawai firm built pianos with action parts made of more modern materials such as 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(SONY Vaio VGN-FW31E Battery).

In all but the poorest 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(SONY Vaio VGN-FW17W Battery). 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. Cheap pianos often have plywood soundboards.

In the early years of piano construction, keys were commonly made from sugar pine. Today they are likely to be made of spruce or basswood(SONY Vaio VGN-FW32J Battery). Spruce is typically used in high-quality pianos. The black keys were traditionally 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(SONY Vaio VGN-FW31J Battery). Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. The Yamaha firm invented a plastic called "Ivorite" that they claim mimics the look and feel of ivory; it has since been imitated by other makers.

Care and maintenance

Pianos need regular tuning to keep them on pitch, which is usually the internationally recognized standard concert pitch of A4 = 440 Hz(SONY VGN-CR42E battery). 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 perform as well as new pianos. Older pianos are often more settled and produce a warmer tone(SONY VGN-CR42S battery).

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(SONY VGN-CR42Z battery).

Tuning

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(SONY VGN-CR41E battery), 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(Dell Latitude E5400 battery), 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(Dell Latitude E6400 battery).

Piano tuning is the act of adjusting the tensions of the piano's strings, thereby aligning the intervals among their tones so that the instrument is in tune. The meaning of the term in tune in the context of piano tuning is not simply a particular fixed set of pitches. Fine piano tuning carefully assesses the interaction among all notes of the chromatic scale(Dell Latitude E6500 battery), different for every piano, and thus requires slightly different pitches from any theoretical standard. Pianos are usually tuned to a modified version of the system called equal temperament (see Piano key frequencies for the theoretical piano tuning). In all systems of tuning, each pitch is derived from its relationship to a chosen fixed pitch, usually A440(SONY VGP-BPS10 battery).

Physics

When the key is struck, a chain reaction occurs to produce the sound. First, the key raises the wippen, 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(SONY VGP-BPL10 battery), allowing the wire to resonate. When the key is released the damper falls back onto the strings, stopping the wire from vibrating. 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(SONY VGP-BPS22A battery). The irregular shape and off-center placement of the bridge ensures that the soundboard vibrates strongly at all frequencies. (See Piano action for a diagram and detailed description of piano parts.)

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(SONY VGP-BPS22/A battery).

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 most pure combination of two pitches is when one is double the frequency of the other(SONY VGP-BPS18 battery).

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, 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) (SONY VGP-BPS22 battery). 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(SONY VGP-BPS14B Battery).

Striking the piano key with greater force 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 ms at pp to less than 2 ms at ff(SONY VGP-BPS14/S Battery). 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(SONY VGP-BPS14/B Battery).

Well-known piano makers

Some well-known piano makers are (in alphabetical order): Baldwin, Bechstein, Behr Brothers Piano Company, Blüthner, Bösendorfer, Broadwood, Fazioli, Feurich, Förster, Heintzman, Kawai, Mason & Hamlin, Overs, Pearl River, Petrof, Pleyel, Schimmel, Steingraeber & Söhne, Steinway & Sons, Stuart & Sons, Wm. Knabe & Co. and Yamaha(SONY VGP-BPS14 Battery).

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

Role

The piano is a crucial instrument in Western classical music, jazz, film, television, and most other complex western musical genres. 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(SONY VGP-BPS12 battery).

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"(SONY VGP-BPL12 battery).