The piano is an amazing instrument. Here are some fun facts about this 300 year old invention…
- Invented in 1709 by an Italian Harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori.
- Known for its great dynamic range, it was originally called pianoforte. Piano means soft, forte means loud.
- An incredible amount of moving and non moving parts. 12,000 total parts, and 10,000 of those parts are moving.
- How many strings are needed? 230 strings. Compare that to other stringed instruments like a bass guitar (4 strings) or a guitar (6 strings)
- Sound it made when the pianist depresses a key on the keyboard, it lifts a hammer inside the piano, and that hammer strikes a string.
- The average piano has 88 keys. (Some models have extra keys on the high and low end)
- Each string on average holds about 170 pounds of tension on it’s steel frame.
- It takes the average piano tuner technician 1 hour to fully tune a piano.
- Is the piano a string instrument or a percussion instrument? Both. It has strings that are struck with hammers. It has that in common with a hammer dulcimer instrument.
- The piano has the entire dynamic range of an orchestra.
- The keys of the piano were originally made out of ivory, but since the mid 20th century they are made out of plastic.
- The average piano has 3 pedals. The left pedal is called the damper pedal and moves the hammers closer to the string giving it a softer sound. The middle pedal is the sostenuto pedal and sustains only the notes you press, and then allows you to play others without sustain. The right pedal is the most commonly used, and it’s called the sustain pedal. In my opinion is the most important of all. I can’t play my music without it. Without this pedal everything would sound short and choppy.
- The piano can be very expensive. But there are budgets for everyone. Uprights that can cost a few thousand dollars, to nine foot concert grands that are in the six figures and can rival a mortgage payment. And everything in between. Many people start out with small electronic keyboards for a few hundred bucks before investing in an acoustic piano.
- There are all kinds of piano brands… Steinway, Yamaha, Kawai, Bosendorfer, Schimmel, just to name a handful.
- The largest piano ever made according to the Guinness book of world records measured 2.495 m (8 ft 2 in) in width, 6.07 m (19 ft 10 in) in length and 1.925 m (6 ft 3 in)in height and was constructed by Daniel Czapiewski (Poland) and played in a concert at Szymbark, Poland, on 30 December 2010.