PianoPlayer.com

 
Piano is the general name given to a musical instrument classified as a keyboard, percussion, or string instrument, depending on the system of classification used. The piano produces sound by striking steel strings with felt hammers that immediately rebound allowing the string to continue vibrating at its resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through the […]

 
Although there were various crude earlier attempts to make stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings, it is widely considered that the piano was invented by a single individual: Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano, but an inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates […]

Grand pianos have the frame and strings placed horizontally, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. This makes the grand piano a large instrument, for which the ideal setting is a spacious room with high ceilings for proper resonance. There are several sizes of grand piano. Manufacturers and models vary, but a rough generalisation […]

 
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.) The three pedals that have become more or less standard on the modern piano are the following.
The damper pedal (also called the sustaining pedal or, erroneously, […]

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 […]

In the period lasting from about 1790 to 1860, the Mozart-era piano underwent tremendous changes, which 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. It was also a response to the ongoing Industrial Revolution, which […]