If a hammer remained in contact with the strings, it would produce a "clunk" sound instead of a sustained musical tone. Modern piano hammers are made of wood covered with thick, tightly compacted felt. The size of the hammers increases steadily from treble to bass. If a piano is played so much that the felt becomes extremely tightly compacted from striking the strings, the piano may produce an unpleasant, harsh tone.
The tuner can voice the hammers by loosening the felt fibers a bit with special needles so the tone becomes mellower. The vibration of a piano's strings alone would be too quiet to be heard; their sound must be amplified. Piano strings, like those of a violin or a guitar, press down on a bridge which conducts their vibration to the large, thin piece of wood called the soundboard.
Wooden ribs glued across the board, underneath, help spread the strings' vibration throughout its mass. While a crack in a violin body is a very serious matter, a crack in a piano's soundboard can be repaired easily, without losing any of the piano's tone quality, and without "major surgery". Often, cracks in a piano's soundboard are of no musical consequence, and should be left alone.
Maintaining proper humidity during the winter heating season helps to prevent cracks from occurring. The function of a damper is to stop the vibration of a string when the sound has continued long enough. As long as the player's finger depresses the key, the damper belonging to that key's strings remains lifted, and the strings are free to vibrate. When the key is released, the damper falls back against the strings, pressing soft felt against them to absorb the vibration. The string vibrates much like when a skipping rope is stretched and both ends are fixed held tightly.
The pitch of the note depends on the tension, length and thickness of the string. But why does a strike from a hammer cause the string to vibrate in this way? The hammers in a piano are all nearly the same, yet each string sounds a unique note. When the hammer strikes the string, the blow sends a burst of energy into the string and causes it to vibrate in many different ways.
The vibrations are waves, and they move down the string, echo back off the post at the other end and race back and forth. It has just the right energy to make that particular string swing up and down. The strings are attached to a special wooden sound board, which translates the string vibrations into vibrations in the air. Stringed instruments rely on standing waves to create music. Plucked instruments, such as the harp, have strings that vibrate much like the piano.
Instruments such as the guitar, ukulele and mandolin are designed so that the strings can be fretted and therefore made shorter, thus raising the pitch. But don't look at getting something which is a semitone flat or half the notes don't work, because it won't encourage you to learn. How a Piano Works is a series of videos diving into the piano: how it works, how to play it, what happens to you brain when you do, and what makes a truly great pianist.
We asked Simon Tedeschi to break down the playing of these famous pianists. Learning to play the piano provides benefits throughout life and into older age. To demonstrate, cognitive scientist Dr Jennifer MacRitchie challenged the limits of virtuoso pianist Simon Tedeschi's working memory and dexterity at the keyboard.
Why is tuning a piano more art than science? In this video, piano technician Ara Vartoukian explains the tools, careful judgement, and superhuman hearing required to make a piano sound just right. In a new video series, a team of specialists explore the piano: how it works, how to play it, why you should, and what makes a great pianist.
How does a piano work? Tue 11 Jun Video Player failed to load. Play Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Image: Piano technician Ara Vartoukian turns a grand piano inside out to explain how it works. Share Facebook Twitter Mail Whatsapp. Who invented the piano? Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano in Padua in Wikimedia Commons.
Image: Erin Helyard explains how a harpsichord works. Image: Ivory piano keys, showing discolouration and cracking. Hammer felts are highly compressed using a special press. Piano strings connected to pins showing three strings per note. Image: From left to right: soft pedal, sostenuto pedal, and damper pedal. Related video. What makes a great pianist? Tue 2 Jul , pm. Why play the piano? Tue 18 Jun , pm.
How do you tune a piano? Interestingly, the piano is a bit of an oddball as it is considered both a percussion and string instrument. If we take a peek into the inner workings of a piano, we can observe that it consists of strings percussively struck by small hammers. How exactly does this entire mechanism work? To begin understanding how a piano works, we should note that there are two main models of pianos — upright pianos and grand pianos. Uprights are generally compact and box-shaped with sound that projects from the rear panel.
Grand pianos have a distinct, elongated shape with sound projecting upwards from a lid capable of opening and closing. The physical mechanics for producing sound are similar for both models, but have several distinct differences. The long strings of an upright piano are stretched by cross-stringing across a layered metal, V-shaped frame.
These strings are held taut with tuning pins. Long, thick strings produce low pitches and short, thin strings produce high pitches. The tuning pins are attached to a sturdy framework known as a pin block that holds these pins in place. The soundboard , a large wooden panel behind the strings, amplifies the sound.
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