January 27, 2010
Piano
The piano is by far the most sophisticated and elegant of all musical instrument. A piano is the type of musical instrument that uses strings, hammers and keys to make vibration that produces different sound notes. Pianos are probably the kind of musical instruments that are the longest and hardest to become skilled at and master.
Unlike other musical instruments, it takes years of practice to learn and master a piano. Compared to other popular musical instruments like guitars, to learn to play the piano professionally takes patience together with note memorization.
In spite of the complicated methods attached to learning to play the piano, a lot of legendary musicians like Mozzart and Beethoven have made certain well-known musical symphonies known to date with a piano. Nowadays, pianos and keyboards are indispensable to the music industry more than ever.
But what gives pianos their melodic tune? How do they generate a variety of sound and why do they have to be so big and cumbersome? A piano’s bulk and form all play a part to its well-defined sound-generating quality and one is made through a painstaking and laborious method.
Piano-assembly can be compared to car manufacture. The piano’s body, keys, strings, and other workings are produced separately and assembled. These equal up to 12,000 parts.
The Piano’s Frame
The piano’s frame is made of wood from either cherry, oak, or maple. There are pianos that are made with straight frames and there are some that are warped like that of grand pianos. In order to achieve the well-defined curve of a piano, many planks of thin maple wood are glued together, bent, and stored to become hard.
The Piano’s Sound Board
A piano’s sound board should be elastic and bendy. The kind of wood regularly used to make piano sound boards is spruce due to its flexibility and this flexibility enables it to vibrate. A piano’s strings should be in sync with the sound board in order to create a concise, clear and audible sound. In between the sound board and strings is a bridge and this bridge is the reason why the sound board and the strings give off synchronized tunes.
The Inner Strings of the Piano
The piano’s strings totals up to 230 and are meticulously fastened by a highly skilled piano stringer. Piano stringing also comes with dangers and the stringer takes measures to prevent being cut. The strings themselves are very sharp and can easily cut flesh.
The Piano Keys
The set of keys on a piano is its most noticeable feature. These carefully placed keys made from ebony and ivory are what allow piano players to compose song and music.
After the piano’s assembly, the next step will be to tune it correctly. Voicing a piano requires somebody who has years of tuning know-how as well as good hearing. To correctly tune each piano key, the piano tuner scrapes and sharpens each single hammer that is connected to every individual key.
Once the piano has been tuned and toned, it can now be played by a good piano player or be used to train aspiring musician and learn to play their own music.
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