Piano FAQ's

Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano around 1700. The name piano is actually a shortened version of the Italian term pianoforte, meaning soft-loud, and referring to the fact that the pianoforte could produce sound volume covering a much larger range than its predecessors, the harpsichord and clavichord.

The piano started out with only about 60 keys, same as the harpsichord – in fact it WAS originally a harpsichord.  The harpsichord maker Cristofori got the idea of putting hammers on one (to HIT the strings) instead of plectra (to PLUCK the strings).  Hence the piano was born!

As composers began to use the new instrument, they started writing more and more complicated and brilliant music for it. Pretty soon, the keyboard had to expand in both directions. By the middle of the 19th century, it had 85 notes – then finally they added the last three notes at the top

The piano is really a “hybrid”–a combination of two types. It’s a string instrument because the musical tones originate in the strings; and it’s also a percussion instrument, because the strings are set into vibration by being struck with hammers. 

The official placing of the piano is set as a percussion instrument.

It depends on the piano.

Each note has three strings in the treble, two strings in the tenor and part of the bass, and only one in the very low bass.  Typically, an 88 note piano has around 230 strings.

The left (soft) pedal works differently on grands and uprights. On an upright piano, the soft pedal operates a bar inside that pushes all the hammers closer to the strings, which makes it easier to play softer as the hammers have less distance to travel.

You can watch this by opening the top of the piano and looking down inside while you work the pedal.

A grand is more complicated: the soft pedal slides the whole action over to the right a little bit so that the hammers only hit two of the three strings that are assigned to each note. This not only makes the sound softer, but changes the tone as well. 

The middle pedal is called a sostenuto pedal on grands, which captures only those notes being held at the time with the fingers. On the upright pianos that have a felt muting strip, it’s called the practice pedal. 

The pedal on the right is the same on all pianos – it’s called the damper or sustain pedal, because it raises the dampers and sustains the notes.

Dampers are the wedges of felt that press on the strings to stop the sound – each key raises its own damper when you press it down, so the tone can keep sounding, but the pedal raises them all at once so that ALL the strings are free at the same time.

We think that a three year old can enjoy piano lessons, if you can find a great teacher.
The main requirement for very young children is that you help your child get to the piano on a daily basis.  Even for just five minutes at a time, you’ll be their teacher six days a week, so your participation is arguably as important as the professional teacher.

No. Never!  It’s human nature for our fear of failure to get in the way of starting something, but fear is all it is.  There is no age limit to learning an instrument. Even if you are over 70 and worried about your physical ability, there are a wealth of scientifically proven benefits of piano for improving mental and physical health and wellbeing.