The pianola is a piano that is controlled by pedals. The player pianos play the piano from a series of felt fingers that press on the keys the music roll is read.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Pedals
There are three pedals on a piano. The pedal on the right is the sustain or damper pedal which lifts the damper from all of the keys so that the tone rings out longer and the strings keep vibrating. The middle pedals is often the bass sustain pedal which only lifts the damper off of the bass strings so that the bass notes continue to ring out. The pedal on the left is the soft pedal. The soft pedal produces a softer sound from the instrument. On grand pianos the soft pedal shifts the entire keyboard so that the hammer only hits one of the strings per key. However, this action isn't possible on an upright piano, so instead the soft pedal moves the hammer closer to the strings so it will not make as much of a sound when struck.
Piano Keys
There are 88 keys on a piano, 36 black keys and 52 white keys. Originally, the black keys were made of ebony and the white keys were covered with ivory. But since ivory comes from endangered species, the ivory has been replaced with a type of plastic that mimics ivory.
Piano Hammers
The hammers of the piano hit the strings when the keys of the piano are pushed. The harder a key is hit, the harder the hammer will hit the strings, causing a louder sound. The softer a key is hit, the softer the hammer will hit the strings, causing a softer sound.
The First Piano
These pianos are all unique. Why? The top picture is a picture of the Pianoforte, which is what the original piano was called. The piano in the middle is most likely what Bartolomeo Cristofori's first piano looked like and the piano on the bottom is one of the first pianos brought to California.
The piano was first known as the "pianoforte" since the player of the instrument could vary the volume or intensity of the instrument.
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