Ever wonder how a piano works?
Most people know the piano is filled with strings. But in a world where guitars are common and harps are familiar, it doesn’t occur to people that plucking a string isn’t the only way make it vibrate. Tapping it with a hammer works, too. No, not a carpenter’s hammer; a little felt hammer, the way one plays a hammered dulcimer.
That’s basically how a piano works, but with one hammer per key. Push a key and the little felt-and-wood hammer flicks up and strikes the string. Push lightly and the hammer flicks up gently, making a quiet sound. Strike the key hard and the hammer flicks up hard, making a louder sound.
This short video shows how pressing a piano key actually produces the sound:
As you can see from this video, a real, live acoustic piano (as opposed to a digital piano) is a very complex mechanical system. It is complex precisely so the piano has the flexibility, in the right hands, to be a profoundly expressive musical instrument, able to play fine, feathery passages one second and loud, thundering passages the next, or even both at the same time.
Digital pianos, while less complex, can still be somewhat complex mechanically as they strive to duplicate the feel and associated abilities of the finest acoustic instruments. The best digital pianos (which, make no mistake about it, are very, very good pianos) exchange, in part, mechanical complexity for electronic complexity. The trade off has been between playability and sound quality on the one hand, and affordability on the other. The gap has been closing for the last 30 years. The result is that good (digital) pianos today have become far more affordable, and this magnificent instrument is far more accessible than at any time in history.
So why bother with all that complexity? This second video briefly illustrates the components of the mechanical system and explains, at least to some degree, how they give the piano its abilities:
If this all seems confusing and overly complex, just remember that the first modern pianos were invented by Germans, back before they had Porsches, Mercedes, and BMWs to over-engineer.
And it has been mostly Japanese companies that have developed and refined the modern digital piano.
Go figure.
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