When a pianist presses it down with his right foot, any notes he plays will keep on sounding even when he takes his finger(s) off the note(s). The damper pedal - this pedal is on the right.The hammers are covered with felt which is a mixture of wool, silk and hair. The hammer only touches the string for about one thousandth of a second. This made it possible to repeat the note very quickly. In 1821 Sebastian Erard invented a kind of double escapement. The mechanism which makes the hammer bounce off the string very quickly is called the “escapement”. If it is damaged the piano will not make a sound. The soundboard is a very important part of the piano. This means that the vibrations are sent to the soundboard. The strings are stretched very tightly across the frame, passing over a bridge on the way. When the player takes his finger off the key the damper falls back onto the string and the sound stops. It hits it very quickly and bounces off so that the string is free to vibrate and make a sound. When a key is pressed down, the damper comes off the string and a hammer hits the string. In some languages, such as Russian, “fortepiano” is the normal word for a piano.Ī piano has a keyboard with white keys and black keys. The word “fortepiano” is sometimes used to describe the pianos of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was given this name because it could be played either loudly or softly, depending on how hard the note was hit (the harpsichord could not do this, and the clavichord could only make a tiny difference between louder and softer). Gradually the keyboard became longer until it had the 88 notes (7 octaves plus three notes) of the modern piano.Īt first the instrument was called the “fortepiano”. The early keyboarded instruments, such as the clavichords, harpsichords and organs that were used at that time, had a much shorter keyboard than they do today. In the piano the strings are hit by a block of wood called a hammer. It developed from the clavichord which looks like a piano but the strings of a clavichord are hit by a small blade of metal called a “tangent”. The piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristoffori of Padua, Italy.

What is the old tiny piano called