Innovations in the piano
Encyclopedia
Piano
construction is by now a rather conservative area; most of the technological advances were made by about 1900, and indeed it is possible that some contemporary piano buyers might actually be suspicious of pianos that are made differently from the older kind. Yet piano manufacturers, especially the smaller ones, are still experimenting with ways to build better pianos.
In the early 21st century, the obvious way to raise the technological level of any mechanical device is to use digital technology to control it (compare the mid 19th century, where the obvious route was to make some of its parts from steel
; e.g. piano strings). Of course, digital technology has been incorporated into pianos, and this innovation is discussed below. But in a sense, it is a far greater challenge to improve the piano in its own terms, as a mechanical/acoustic device. This challenge pits the modern piano designer against some of the finest engineering minds of the nineteenth century, an era when pianos represented some of the most sophisticated of all technological achievements. Nineteenth century piano innovation was, moreover, financed by a far more robust piano market than exists today.
A final issue is that the modern concert grand, 19th-century technology though it is, already sounds very good indeed in the opinion of many listeners (that is, when it is made by the finest makers and skillfully adjusted and tuned). Any innovative piano must therefore compete in the market of musical taste against formidable existing pianos.
The discussion below is organized according to some innovative contemporary piano manufacturers and the inventions with which they are associated. The Web sites of these manufacturers appear at the end.
For clarification of the various parts of the piano mentioned below, see the Wikipedia article piano
.
was set up to produce pianos with the "Fandrich vertical action", a new kind of piano action developed by Darrell Fandrich and Chris Trivelas. It is intended to provide the same sensitivity of touch to upright pianos that is available in grands. Currently, Fandrich and Sons installs the Fandrich action in pianos made by the Bohemia
firm, in the Czech Republic
.
The Fazioli
piano company of Sacile
, Italy
, is now selling pianos with two (or more) actions. The idea is that different actions can be regulated and voiced according to the requirements of particular players or musical styles. Since piano actions are built as a single unit, they can be removed or inserted with just a few minutes' work.
The Magnetic Balanced Action system, invented by Evert Snel and Hans Velo in the Netherlands
, permits variable touch according to the player's preference. The idea of the system is to use the force of magnets, whose position is adjustable, to regulate the touch-weight of the keys, rather than fixed weights. This system is now a factory option on Fazioli
and Petrof
pianos, and can be custom installed on other pianos.
The Kawai Piano
company of Japan has in recent years created an action out of an ABS styran/carbon composite. This attempts to address problems with actions made solely out of wood (most notably the shrinking and swelling that goes with variations in humidity). These have been shown to require less maintenance than the typical wooden actions and are generally well respected by piano technicians.
piano company of Newcastle
, New South Wales
, Australia
makes a piano in which there are bridge agraffes. Agraffe
s are kind of sturdy metal clip that hold the strings in place. They were invented in 1808 by the piano pioneer Sébastien Érard
and have long been employed in quality pianos to terminate the front, that is closer to the player, end of the string. The American company, Sohmer, along with Blüthner in Europe, among others, applied this idea to the string termination on the bridge in pianos, beginning in the 1890s, where bridge pin
s are ordinarily used. Most applications of agraffes have been located at the near end of the strings, close to the tuning pins. Stuart has reintroduced the use of agraffes on the bridges (of which their pianos have two).
It is claimed that bridge agraffes permit efficient transmission of sound from the strings to the soundboard, resulting in a very well-sustained tone. Similar results are noted with the brass agraffe used by Sohmer into the 1930s.
Since the strings do not need to bear down heavily on the bridges (a force
of 600 to 1200 pounds
= 2.7 to 5.4 kN in conventional pianos), bridge agraffes may also help preserve the crucial upward curve, or "crown," in the soundboard.
introduced two related innovations to the upright piano which were designed and patented by Edwin R. Astin Sr. Their purpose was to obtain the largest possible soundboard, and indeed, Astin-Weight soundboards cover the entire rear surface of the piano. This is made possible by placing the pinblock forward of the soundboard, and using a peripheral metal frame instead of back posts. The Astin-Weight piano is said to produce a very rich tone, not to every listener's taste but greatly prized by Astin-Weight owners.
Some Bösendorfer pianos extend the normal range downwards to F0, with one other model going as far as a bottom C0, making a full eight octave range. These extra keys are sometimes hidden under a small hinged lid that can be flipped down to cover the keys in order to avoid visual disorientation in a pianist unfamiliar with the extended keyboard. On others, the colours of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white).
The Stuart and Sons company manufactures extended-range pianos, with all of their pianos having 97 or 102 keys. On their instruments, the frequency range extends from FFF or CCC to f5, a full eight or eight and a half octaves. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.
workshop, in Sossano - Vicenza, Italy
, has produced the Doppio Borgato
, a very large double piano with pedal board, as on an organ. The bass piano, operated by the pedals, sits under the main piano, and the damper pedals of the two are coupled. This instrument permits the performance of a variety of works written by classical composers for pedal piano
.
is the use of extra unstruck strings in the piano
for the purpose of enriching the tone. The aliquot stringing system was invented by Julius Blüthner
in 1873. As currently implemented, the Blüthner aliquot stringing system uses a fourth string in each note of the top three octave
s. This string is raised slightly with respect to the other three strings, so that it is not struck by the hammer. Whenever the hammer strikes the three conventional strings, the aliquot string vibrates sympathetically, adding to the complexity of the tone. This same string resonance
effect occurs, on a more limited scale, when other notes on the piano are played that are harmonically related to the pitch of an aliquot string.
(of Haverhill
, Massachusetts
) employ tunable duplex scaling. The idea behind duplex scaling, invented by Theodore Steinway in 1872, is that the non-speaking portion of the string, located between the non-speaking bridge pin and the hitch pin (formerly considered the "waste end" and damped with a strip of cloth), resounds in sympathy
with the vibrating portion of the string. Steinway & Sons
' earliest employment of the duplex scale made use of aliquots, individually positionable (hence tunable) contact points, where each note of the duplex scale bears a perfect harmonic
, intervallic relationship to its speaking length, i.e., an octave or fifth whether doubled or tripled. Because it was time-consuming to correctly position each aliquot, Steinway abandoned individual aliquots for continuous cast metal bars, each comprising an entire section of duplex bridge points. Their feeling was that with an accurately templated bridge and carefully located duplex bar, the same result would be achieved with far less fuss.
Mason & Hamlin, however, embraced Theodore Steinway's original idea. They felt that the tuning of these short stretches of free string can be achieved with greater accuracy than can be attained with a duplex bar. With the fixed points of a duplex bar, small variations in casting are liable to produce imperfections in the duplex string lengths. Furthermore, since variations in humidity can cause duplex scales to move in pitch more rapidly than the speaking scale, manual readjustment of the string tension on the non-speaking side of the bridge, and/or a readjustment of the duplex position to better accommodate humidity fluctuation, is feasible with individual aliquots.
More recently, Fazioli has modified Theodore Steinway's original idea by creating a stainless-steel track, fixed to the cast iron plate, on which aliquots slide. This system improves the ease with which aliquots can be adjusted, both during manufacture and during subsequent service.
string as in Blüthner
pianos. This practice has been seen at various times in the history of the piano: an early example was given by Conrad Graf
to Ludwig van Beethoven
, and later examples are seen ca. 1900 (Luis Casali, Barcelona; see http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/199607/1996.07.11.04.html) and 1940 (August Förster
, see http://hammerfluegel.net/viewer.php?albid=146&stage=3&imgid=2166).
.
The Rubenstein R-371 is a custom built piano that is 12 feet 2 inches long (3.71 m), weighs 2500 lb (1,134 kg), and features a jig-welded steel plate.).
Steinbuhler & Company http://www.steinbuhler.com/index.html produce keyboards that are 7/8 and 15/16 normal size. The keyboards were designed to make it possible for players with smaller hands to play a larger range of music. The company sells keyboard inserts for Grand pianos and complete upright pianos with smaller (7/8) keyboards.
piano company has made experiments with the appearance of the piano. These include a grand piano whose rim, lid, and other case parts are made of acrylic glass
. The acoustic properties of the material used are claimed to be excellent. However, the somewhat lurid appearance of the acrylic piano, as well as its high cost, have kept it a novelty item. Schimmel has also teamed up with artists Otmar Alt and Luigi Colani
to produce other pianos of unconventional appearance.
; for instance, the modern digital player piano can record as well as play. These pianos are often called 'hybrid pianos', as they have characteristics of both acoustic pianos (the piano sound is made by hammers on strings) and digital pianos (record/playback capability, as well as synthesizer and audio sound capability). Currently, five major manufacturers compete in this market; see links below.
Further afield, the stringless electronic keyboard
and digital piano
continue to make progress. Especially useful for the musician playing popular music, their portability and range of synthesized sounds has made them exceedingly popular. While some imagine that research may make it possible for them some day to equal the piano in dynamic range, sensitivity of touch and quality of tone, professional classical pianists view this as highly unlikely. The demands of the piano literature—and the technical and tonal expectations of these pianists—are so complex that they feel there is little likelihood that digital keyboards will succeed in the acoustic piano realm.
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
construction is by now a rather conservative area; most of the technological advances were made by about 1900, and indeed it is possible that some contemporary piano buyers might actually be suspicious of pianos that are made differently from the older kind. Yet piano manufacturers, especially the smaller ones, are still experimenting with ways to build better pianos.
In the early 21st century, the obvious way to raise the technological level of any mechanical device is to use digital technology to control it (compare the mid 19th century, where the obvious route was to make some of its parts from steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
; e.g. piano strings). Of course, digital technology has been incorporated into pianos, and this innovation is discussed below. But in a sense, it is a far greater challenge to improve the piano in its own terms, as a mechanical/acoustic device. This challenge pits the modern piano designer against some of the finest engineering minds of the nineteenth century, an era when pianos represented some of the most sophisticated of all technological achievements. Nineteenth century piano innovation was, moreover, financed by a far more robust piano market than exists today.
A final issue is that the modern concert grand, 19th-century technology though it is, already sounds very good indeed in the opinion of many listeners (that is, when it is made by the finest makers and skillfully adjusted and tuned). Any innovative piano must therefore compete in the market of musical taste against formidable existing pianos.
The discussion below is organized according to some innovative contemporary piano manufacturers and the inventions with which they are associated. The Web sites of these manufacturers appear at the end.
For clarification of the various parts of the piano mentioned below, see the Wikipedia article piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
Actions
The Fandrich & Sons piano company of Stanwood, WashingtonStanwood, Washington
Stanwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The population was 6,231 at the 2010 census.-History:Stanwood was first settled in 1866 by Robert Fulton. Stanwood's Post Office was established as Centerville in 1870, and the name was changed to Stanwood in 1877 by D.O. Pearson...
was set up to produce pianos with the "Fandrich vertical action", a new kind of piano action developed by Darrell Fandrich and Chris Trivelas. It is intended to provide the same sensitivity of touch to upright pianos that is available in grands. Currently, Fandrich and Sons installs the Fandrich action in pianos made by the Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
firm, in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
.
The Fazioli
Fazioli
Fazioli Pianoforti is a piano manufacturing company based in Sacile, Italy.Fazioli currently produces 110 pianos a year from its single factory, and has annual revenues of €6 million.- History :...
piano company of Sacile
Sacile
Sacile is a town and comune in the province of Pordenone, in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of north-east Italy. It is known as the "Garden of the Serenissima" after the many palaces that were constructed along the river Livenza for the nobility of the Most Serene Republic of...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, is now selling pianos with two (or more) actions. The idea is that different actions can be regulated and voiced according to the requirements of particular players or musical styles. Since piano actions are built as a single unit, they can be removed or inserted with just a few minutes' work.
The Magnetic Balanced Action system, invented by Evert Snel and Hans Velo in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, permits variable touch according to the player's preference. The idea of the system is to use the force of magnets, whose position is adjustable, to regulate the touch-weight of the keys, rather than fixed weights. This system is now a factory option on Fazioli
Fazioli
Fazioli Pianoforti is a piano manufacturing company based in Sacile, Italy.Fazioli currently produces 110 pianos a year from its single factory, and has annual revenues of €6 million.- History :...
and Petrof
Petrof
Petrof is a Czech piano maker. The company was founded in 1864 in Hradec Králové by Antonín Petrof who had studied piano making in Vienna.-History of PETROF:...
pianos, and can be custom installed on other pianos.
The Kawai Piano
Kawai
The of Japan is best known for its grand and upright pianos, electronic keyboards and electronic synthesizers. The company was established in August 1927, and has its headquarters in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka.-Pianos:...
company of Japan has in recent years created an action out of an ABS styran/carbon composite. This attempts to address problems with actions made solely out of wood (most notably the shrinking and swelling that goes with variations in humidity). These have been shown to require less maintenance than the typical wooden actions and are generally well respected by piano technicians.
Bridge agraffes
The Stuart and SonsStuart and Sons
Stuart & Sons is an Australian manufacturer of handcrafted grand pianos established in 1990 as Stuart & Sons Terra Australis Pty Limited. The company later evolved and formed a partnership with Albert Music. Stuart and Sons primarily use Australian timbers for construction. The company is based in...
piano company of Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
makes a piano in which there are bridge agraffes. Agraffe
Agraffe
An agraffe is a part found on some pianos. The agraffe is a guide at the tuning-pin end of the string, screwed into the plate, with holes through which the strings pass. It anchors the strings, ensures proper height and determines the speaking length of the string. Quality agraffes are usually made...
s are kind of sturdy metal clip that hold the strings in place. They were invented in 1808 by the piano pioneer Sébastien Érard
Sébastien Érard
Sébastien Érard , born Sébastien Erhard, was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern piano....
and have long been employed in quality pianos to terminate the front, that is closer to the player, end of the string. The American company, Sohmer, along with Blüthner in Europe, among others, applied this idea to the string termination on the bridge in pianos, beginning in the 1890s, where bridge pin
Bridge pin
Bridge pins are used on some musical instruments to locate the string precisely in the horizontal plane, and in the case of harpsichords to affect the sustain of the strings. They are usually made of steel in modern pianos, of brass in harpsichords, and bone or synthetics on acoustic guitars...
s are ordinarily used. Most applications of agraffes have been located at the near end of the strings, close to the tuning pins. Stuart has reintroduced the use of agraffes on the bridges (of which their pianos have two).
It is claimed that bridge agraffes permit efficient transmission of sound from the strings to the soundboard, resulting in a very well-sustained tone. Similar results are noted with the brass agraffe used by Sohmer into the 1930s.
Since the strings do not need to bear down heavily on the bridges (a force
Force
In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...
of 600 to 1200 pounds
Pound-force
The pound force is a unit of force in some systems of measurement including English engineering units and British gravitational units.- Definitions :...
= 2.7 to 5.4 kN in conventional pianos), bridge agraffes may also help preserve the crucial upward curve, or "crown," in the soundboard.
Larger soundboards
The Astin-Weight piano company of Salt Lake City, UtahUtah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
introduced two related innovations to the upright piano which were designed and patented by Edwin R. Astin Sr. Their purpose was to obtain the largest possible soundboard, and indeed, Astin-Weight soundboards cover the entire rear surface of the piano. This is made possible by placing the pinblock forward of the soundboard, and using a peripheral metal frame instead of back posts. The Astin-Weight piano is said to produce a very rich tone, not to every listener's taste but greatly prized by Astin-Weight owners.
Extended keyboards
Almost every modern piano has 36 black keys and 52 white keys for a total of 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A0 to C8). Many older pianos only have 85 keys (seven octaves from A0 to A7), while some manufacturers extend the range further in one or both directions.Some Bösendorfer pianos extend the normal range downwards to F0, with one other model going as far as a bottom C0, making a full eight octave range. These extra keys are sometimes hidden under a small hinged lid that can be flipped down to cover the keys in order to avoid visual disorientation in a pianist unfamiliar with the extended keyboard. On others, the colours of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white).
The Stuart and Sons company manufactures extended-range pianos, with all of their pianos having 97 or 102 keys. On their instruments, the frequency range extends from FFF or CCC to f5, a full eight or eight and a half octaves. The extra keys are the same as the other keys in appearance.
The pedal piano redux
The BorgatoLuigi Borgato
Luigi Borgato is an Italian piano-maker of handcrafted concert-grand pianos.Venetian piano-maker, he innovated ameliorating some technical aspects in piano making, patenting them....
workshop, in Sossano - Vicenza, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, has produced the Doppio Borgato
Doppio Borgato
Doppio Borgato is a double piano of extensive form, joining a concert grand together with a second piano, activated by a pedal board with 37 pedals, similar to that of the organ...
, a very large double piano with pedal board, as on an organ. The bass piano, operated by the pedals, sits under the main piano, and the damper pedals of the two are coupled. This instrument permits the performance of a variety of works written by classical composers for pedal piano
Pedal piano
The pedal piano is a kind of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ....
.
Aliquot stringing
Aliquot stringingAliquot stringing
Aliquot stringing is the use of extra, unstruck strings in the piano for the purpose of enriching the tone.-History:Julius Blüthner invented the aliquot stringing system in 1873....
is the use of extra unstruck strings in the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
for the purpose of enriching the tone. The aliquot stringing system was invented by Julius Blüthner
Julius Blüthner
Julius Ferdinand Blüthner was a German piano maker and founder of the Blüthner piano factory....
in 1873. As currently implemented, the Blüthner aliquot stringing system uses a fourth string in each note of the top three octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
s. This string is raised slightly with respect to the other three strings, so that it is not struck by the hammer. Whenever the hammer strikes the three conventional strings, the aliquot string vibrates sympathetically, adding to the complexity of the tone. This same string resonance
String resonance (music)
String resonance occurs on string instruments. Strings or parts of strings may resonate at their fundamental or overtone frequencies when other strings are sounded...
effect occurs, on a more limited scale, when other notes on the piano are played that are harmonically related to the pitch of an aliquot string.
Tunable duplex scaling
Both Fazioli and Mason and HamlinMason and Hamlin
Mason & Hamlin is a piano manufacturer based in Haverhill, Massachusetts.-The nineteenth century:Mason & Hamlin was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1854 by Henry Mason, son of Lowell Mason, the American hymn composer and musical educator, and Emmons Hamlin, a mechanic and inventor who had...
(of Haverhill
Haverhill, Massachusetts
Haverhill is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 60,879 at the 2010 census.Located on the Merrimack River, it began as a farming community that would evolve into an important industrial center, beginning with sawmills and gristmills run by water power. In the...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
) employ tunable duplex scaling. The idea behind duplex scaling, invented by Theodore Steinway in 1872, is that the non-speaking portion of the string, located between the non-speaking bridge pin and the hitch pin (formerly considered the "waste end" and damped with a strip of cloth), resounds in sympathy
String resonance (music)
String resonance occurs on string instruments. Strings or parts of strings may resonate at their fundamental or overtone frequencies when other strings are sounded...
with the vibrating portion of the string. Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...
' earliest employment of the duplex scale made use of aliquots, individually positionable (hence tunable) contact points, where each note of the duplex scale bears a perfect harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
, intervallic relationship to its speaking length, i.e., an octave or fifth whether doubled or tripled. Because it was time-consuming to correctly position each aliquot, Steinway abandoned individual aliquots for continuous cast metal bars, each comprising an entire section of duplex bridge points. Their feeling was that with an accurately templated bridge and carefully located duplex bar, the same result would be achieved with far less fuss.
Mason & Hamlin, however, embraced Theodore Steinway's original idea. They felt that the tuning of these short stretches of free string can be achieved with greater accuracy than can be attained with a duplex bar. With the fixed points of a duplex bar, small variations in casting are liable to produce imperfections in the duplex string lengths. Furthermore, since variations in humidity can cause duplex scales to move in pitch more rapidly than the speaking scale, manual readjustment of the string tension on the non-speaking side of the bridge, and/or a readjustment of the duplex position to better accommodate humidity fluctuation, is feasible with individual aliquots.
More recently, Fazioli has modified Theodore Steinway's original idea by creating a stainless-steel track, fixed to the cast iron plate, on which aliquots slide. This system improves the ease with which aliquots can be adjusted, both during manufacture and during subsequent service.
Four strings per note
Borgato pianos also feature four strings per note in the treble section. The fourth string is actually struck, and is not an aliquotAliquot stringing
Aliquot stringing is the use of extra, unstruck strings in the piano for the purpose of enriching the tone.-History:Julius Blüthner invented the aliquot stringing system in 1873....
string as in Blüthner
Blüthner
Blüthner, formally Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik GmbH, is a piano-manufacturing company founded by Julius Blüthner in 1853 in Leipzig Germany.- History :...
pianos. This practice has been seen at various times in the history of the piano: an early example was given by Conrad Graf
Conrad Graf
Conrad Graf was an Austrian-German piano maker. His pianos were used by Beethoven, Chopin, and Clara Schumann, among others.-Life and career:...
to Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, and later examples are seen ca. 1900 (Luis Casali, Barcelona; see http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/199607/1996.07.11.04.html) and 1940 (August Förster
August Förster
The August Förster piano manufacturing company currently has a staff of 40 employees and produces around 120 grand pianos and 150 uprights per year.-History:On April 1, 1859, August Förster opened a small piano workshop in Löbau, Germany, expanding to a factory on...
, see http://hammerfluegel.net/viewer.php?albid=146&stage=3&imgid=2166).
Size
Fazioli has also made bold efforts in increasing the sheer size of the piano: their model F308 is the largest regular production piano currently built, being 10 feet 2 inches (3.08 m) long and one and a half times as heavy as the popular Steinway model DSteinway D-274
D-274 is the model name of a concert grand piano, the flagship of the Steinway & Sons line, first built in 1884.It is generally described as the first choice of most concert pianists....
.
The Rubenstein R-371 is a custom built piano that is 12 feet 2 inches long (3.71 m), weighs 2500 lb (1,134 kg), and features a jig-welded steel plate.).
Steinbuhler & Company http://www.steinbuhler.com/index.html produce keyboards that are 7/8 and 15/16 normal size. The keyboards were designed to make it possible for players with smaller hands to play a larger range of music. The company sells keyboard inserts for Grand pianos and complete upright pianos with smaller (7/8) keyboards.
Pianos of unusual appearance
The SchimmelWilhelm Schimmel
Schimmel is a German piano maker. The company was founded in 1885 in Leipzig by Wilhelm Schimmel. This company is especially popular for its high quality concert grand pianos. In August 2009, the biggest piano maker in Germany became insolvent and was protected from its creditors in a manner...
piano company has made experiments with the appearance of the piano. These include a grand piano whose rim, lid, and other case parts are made of acrylic glass
Acrylic glass
Poly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...
. The acoustic properties of the material used are claimed to be excellent. However, the somewhat lurid appearance of the acrylic piano, as well as its high cost, have kept it a novelty item. Schimmel has also teamed up with artists Otmar Alt and Luigi Colani
Luigi Colani
Luigi Colani, , is a German industrial designer whose father came from Madulain near St. Moritz in Switzerland....
to produce other pianos of unconventional appearance.
Digital innovations
Digital technology makes possible a vastly more sensitive and flexible version of the old player pianoPlayer piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...
; for instance, the modern digital player piano can record as well as play. These pianos are often called 'hybrid pianos', as they have characteristics of both acoustic pianos (the piano sound is made by hammers on strings) and digital pianos (record/playback capability, as well as synthesizer and audio sound capability). Currently, five major manufacturers compete in this market; see links below.
Further afield, the stringless electronic keyboard
Electronic keyboard
An electronic keyboard is an electronic or digital keyboard instrument.The major components of a typical modern electronic keyboard are:...
and digital piano
Digital piano
A digital piano is a modern electronic musical instrument, different from the electronic keyboard, designed to serve primarily as an alternative to a traditional piano, both in the way it feels to play and in the sound produced. It is meant to provide an accurate simulation of a real piano. Some...
continue to make progress. Especially useful for the musician playing popular music, their portability and range of synthesized sounds has made them exceedingly popular. While some imagine that research may make it possible for them some day to equal the piano in dynamic range, sensitivity of touch and quality of tone, professional classical pianists view this as highly unlikely. The demands of the piano literature—and the technical and tonal expectations of these pianists—are so complex that they feel there is little likelihood that digital keyboards will succeed in the acoustic piano realm.
Links to the companies mentioned above
- Blüthner pianos
- Borgato pianos
- Fandrich and Sons pianos
- Fazioli pianos
- Magnetic Balanced Action
- Mason and Hamlin pianos
- Rubenstein pianos
- Schimmel pianos
- Steinway & Sons pianos
- Stuart and Sons pianos
Digital player pianos
- Baldwin
- QRS
- PianoDisc
- DisklavierDisklavierDisklavier is the brand name for a group of piano-related products made by Yamaha Corporation. It was introduced in the United States in 1987....
- Yamaha
- Young Chang/Kurzweil
- Custom-made piano by Gene Korolev with Live Performance Player System Model LX
Other links
- A profile of piano designer Delwin Fandrich
- history of the grand piano - photoarchive
- "Shall We Improve the Piano?" by Ivor DarregIvor DarregIvor Darreg was a leading proponent of and composer of microtonal or "xenharmonic" music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments.Darreg, a contemporary of Harry Partch and a close colleague of John H...
, 1967 - Calin Tantareanu, "Bridge agraffes, an alternative to traditional bridge pins", 2006
- Inharmonicity in Grand Pianos, by Saratoga Pianos
- A unique shop in California, built a custom made piano in 2007 PIANO SOLUTIONS XXI
- Photos of all kinds of inventions in the piano