Piano

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A piano

The piano is a type of musical instrument. It is a member of the chord family. Its full name is Pianoforte, which comes from the Italian words piano which means "soft" and forte which means "loud". It is called this because it can play soft sounds and loud sounds, something that most keyboard instruments could not do when it was invented.

A normal piano has 88 keys. Pianos use the keys to move hammers that hit strings inside, making a sound. A person who plays the piano is called a pianist.

1 History
2 Piano parts
3 Famous piano composers
4 Famous piano players
5 Other websites

History

It is thought that Bartolomeo Cristofori made the first piano in 1709. Pianos used to be less sturdy. When Beethoven was alive, he hit the keys hard enough to break the pianos. After that, piano makers began to make stronger pianos, like the pianos people play today.

The clavichord looks like a piano but it is smaller and has a different sound. It has a small metal piece that hits strings, making a sound. The harpsichord also looks like a piano, but has a different sound. It has quills that pluck the strings to make a sound.

Piano parts

A piano has a keyboard with white keys and black keys. When a key is pressed down, a sound is created. When the key is released the sound stops. There are also two or three pedals that people use by pressing them down with their feet.

The damper pedal - This pedal is on the right. When a person presses it down with their foot, the notes they play keep sounding even after the key is released.

The soft pedal - The soft pedal is on the left. When a person presses it down with their foot, the notes they play are quieter. Some soft pedals can be pushed to the left and locked in place so the pedal will stay down by itself and the notes will stay softer the whole time you are playing. This pedal is sometimes called the una corda pedal.

The middle pedal - If the piano has three pedals, the middle pedal might do different things. It depends on what sort of piano it is. On some pianos the middle pedal does the same thing as the damper pedal, except it only works on the low notes. On some pianos pressing down the middle pedal puts a thin piece of soft felt between the hammers and the strings, which makes the notes sound very soft and dull. This type of pedal is called a practice pedal or celeste pedal. This pedal is useful when someone wants to play the piano without disturbing other people. Some pianos have a sostenuto pedal, which is something like a damper pedal except it only works on the keys that were already down when the sostenuto pedal was pressed down. On some pianos the middle pedal doesn't do anything at all, and sometimes pianos don't even have middle pedals.