How much do you really know about the piano? While it may seem like an easy instrument to play (after all, you don’t have to worry about things like embouchure or tuning it every time), it’s actually very complex! Here are just a few interesting piano facts to test your knowledge…
– While a piano may seem like a simple instrument to operate, it has more than 12,000 parts, 10,000 of which are moving. The extensive number of moving parts is one reason why tuning a piano can be such an involved process.
– The range of the piano extends lower than the bottom 16 foot pedal note of an organ and higher than the top note of a piccolo.
– Each note in a grand piano has more than 35 points of adjustment. Overall, there are more than 3,080 adjustments for the entire piano.
– Piano keys were originally made from ivory, thus the origin of the phrase “tickle the ivories.” This lasted until the 1950s, when cost and environmental concerns caused piano makers to switch to plastic keys.
– The exact middle of the keyboard is not middle C, it is actually the space between E and F above “middle” C.
– The name “piano” is an abbreviation of Italian Bartolomeo Cristofori’s original name for the instrument, “piano et forte,” meaning soft and loud.
Sources: http://www.pianoworld.com/facts.htm
http://www.houstonpianocompany.com/some-interesting-piano-facts/
http://blog.sheetmusicplus.com/2012/06/06/top-10-little-known-facts-about-the-piano/#more-160
Photo by Brett Burnes Images.
Suzy S.