Your Piano

Known as “The King of Instruments,” your piano is an intricate and complex piece of artistry. Pianos are made of thousands of pieces of wood glued together to form various parts of the playing mechanism as well as the cabinet. Felt, buckskin, paper, steel, iron, copper are also used.

The piano is an amazing instrument. It covers the full spectrum of any instrument in the orchestra from below the lowest note of the double bassoon to above the top note of the piccolo. It can produce melody and accompaniment at the same time (try that on a clarinet) and boasts a broad dynamic range.

The piano is the largest musical instrument excluding the pipe organ. An average medium-sized piano has about 230 strings and each string must be tuned separately. These strings have about 165 pounds of tension, with the combined pull of all strings equaling approximately eighteen tons. The total string tension in a concert grand is close to thirty tons!

More than 10,000 individual parts must be kept in proper regulation if the piano is to function properly and sound its best. Most pianos have 88 keys – 52 white and 36 black – and two or three pedals to soften and sustain sound. The piano’s source of sound is vibrating strings. Depressing a key of the piano causes a hammer to strike one, two or three strings (depending on whether it is a treble, middle or bass note).