The finest pianos of today, have the best of all worlds. They are still hand-assembled using the finest materials and workmanship and they have the added advantage of modern technology. There are over 1, moving parts in the modern piano.
With modern manufacturing techniques, these wooden parts can be milled and manufactured to the most exacting standards and specifications ever available. Fine quality piano scale designs now have over strings that exert 4, pounds of pressure on the plate and structural elements of the instrument. This produces the best tone quality and sustain in the history of the instrument. There are several common types of pianos.
These include:. They are commonly found in living rooms and schools. They are fan favorites because they are compact, cost less than a grand piano, and provide warm sounds. With upright pianos, the soundboard is vertical, and the strings stretch vertically from the bottom to the top of the instrument. The strings resonate when struck by the hammers using the bridges and soundboard.
The top end of each string is secured with tuning pins that are screwed into a pinblock attached to the piano plate and frame using tuning pins. Because this type of piano stands upright, the hammers strike the strings from a vertical position, which is not quite as efficient or responsive as the grand piano design. They are measured from the front of the keyboard to the furthest point at the back of the piano.
They have horizontal soundboards and strings that stretch the length of the instrument, so the longer the piano, the larger the sound. There is also a supportable opening that lifts the top cover up on the right side of the piano, allowing the sound to resonate throughout the home for smaller grand pianos or an entire concert hall for concert grand pianos. While vertical or upright piano hammers are mounted and function vertically, the grand piano hammers are located under the strings, and when a key is depressed the hammer travels in an upward motion to strike the string.
So, gravity is working on behalf of the pianist as the hammers return to their resting position more efficiently and quickly, providing the player the ability to play faster with more dynamic range. They vary greatly in quality; however, it is possible to find touch-sensitive digital pianos that do a great job of replicating the sound and action of acoustic pianos.
While digital pianos may not have exactly the same musical or dynamic range as an acoustic piano, they do offer some unique advantages. The piano was revolutionary because it was the first keyboard instrument capable of playing loud and soft tones — the word pianoforte literally means soft-strong in Italian. Piano-making flourished during the late 18 th century in Europe, where pianos were built with wooden frames, two or three strings per note, and leather covered hammers. In the period from about to , the 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 sound. This was made possible by the ongoing Industrial Revolution, with resources such as high-quality piano wire for strings, and precision casting for the production of massive iron frames that could withstand the tremendous tension of the strings, suddenly available in great quantities.
The upright piano with diagonal strings was invented in London in the early s and they became very popular for domestic music-making and practice because of their compact size and affordability. In , felt a more consistent material than leather was first introduced for use in hammer coverings, which permitted wider dynamic ranges as hammer weights and string tension increased. A major innovation that helped create the powerful sound of the modern piano was the use of the large cast iron frame mentioned earlier, which sits atop the soundboard.
This single cast iron frame was patented in and allowed the use of thicker and more tense strings. Design changes, such as the invention of the sostenuto pedal , the patent of cross-stringing , invention of duplex scaling and the standardisation of the key format during the s and s were all notable additions to the earlier piano models.
As manufacturing processes were further streamlined and new materials were tested and improved, the piano has continued to change. He wanted to make an instrument that could be loud like a harpsichord, but also touch-sensitive like a clavichord, so he took an idea from the hammered dulcimer and built an instrument that would fling a soft-covered hammer at a string whenever a key was pressed.
The harder the key was pressed, the harder the hammer flew. After the string was struck, the hammer fell back to let the string vibrate freely. So long as the key was held down, the string would vibrate, but as soon as the key was released, a damper would quiet the string.
This was a very complicated piece of machinery, so ingenious that it is still in use—with only small modifications—in our pianos today. When Silbermann showed his new piano to Johann Sebastian Bach, at first Bach complained that the high notes were too soft compared to the low notes. In fact, Bach became one of the very first piano salesmen, an authorized dealer of Silbermann pianos.
Early pianos had only five octaves, and were made with wooden frames so the strings could not be stretched very tight. They had a light and delicate sound compared to our pianos of today. Even so, by the time of Mozart, pianos were so popular that Mozart wrote many of his compositions just for piano.
All through the classical and romantic periods, composers enjoyed creating great works for this versatile instrument. Another problem that early pianos had was that once you pressed a key you had to wait for the hammer to fall back all the way before you could play the note again. A French inventor named Sebastian Erard developed a way to let the piano keys throw the hammers again right after a note is struck.
This allowed composers in the romantic period, such as Liszt, to write music for the piano that included rapidly pulsing notes and chords. Eventually pianos grew larger, stronger, and louder. More octaves were added to give the instrument an even greater range.
Then, as the industrial age got underway, an American piano maker named Alpheus Babcock added a metal frame to his pianos so that the strings could hold more tension.
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